The work is one of the main theoretical pillars of work psychology. It is understood as a category capable of sustaining psychic processes, such as identity, mental health and individual actions. This article shows that psychology appropriates the work via meta-theoretical, theoretic-conceptual, and technological reconstruction instruments. The article analyzes the forms of appropriation found in three major branches of work psychology that the text refers to as the organizational, the social, and the clinical paths. For each of these, we question the meaning of work and its consequences for the theory and research into work psychology.
work psychology; meanings of work; work and identity; clinique of work; organizational behavior