Your career was taking off, 10-hour days were followed by two hour laptop sessions and the spreadsheets you compiled late at night as you ironed that doublecuffed shirt.

Deep down, you pitied Paul his mere eight-hour days, his dull, middlemanagement perch and his lack of the steely ambition you had. You congratulated yourself on your package and leaned back, safe in the knowledge that you had a major trajectory in sight.

Hopefully, you also had a handle on the value of friendships, leisure time, travel and the many activities that keep us balanced in our work-home interface as we head off on ambitious career journeys.

But for some, with a weak sense of play, a penchant for competition and a remote sense of self-worth, the steely determination is not measured, and lack of balance or appreciation of down time can mean their journey is one very unhealthy and harmful one.

The reckless refusal to believe that they're missing out on anything by dodging holidays, festive occasions and times of social engagement, the family gettogether and anything where people meet and laughter prevails is one of the symptoms of a latterday phenomenon known as burnout.

According to Dr Abbey Lane, psychiatrist at the St John of God-run Stress Clinic in Dublin, burnout is a term bandied about frivolously, but its consequences are so severe that some people will never work again and others have to change careers permanently, knowing that their addiction to work means they have to work only part-time or at jobs that offer them very low stimulation levels, upon recovery. And they're the lucky ones, she says.

If you eat, sleep and work to survive, then you're not even surviving into the long term, she says.

Unchecked ambition meets long-hours corporate cultures and a high reward ethos and there's a risk that the precarious balance between stimulation and relaxation, leisure and activity, love and work will be lost along the way. It's often complete collapse and very public breakdown that brings the messed-up and burnt out to the likes of Dr Lane's in-house rehabilitation hospital for those who lose the run.

What may have started out as laudable ambition to achieve, to seek status and learn more, over time can become so focused on work that the normal human need for relationships and socialisation collapses and all that remains is the relentless pursuit of status.

Psychologists Herbert Freudenberger and Gail North studied burnout syndrome which develops over time and requires a determination most of us can barely muster for the watching of the World Cup or beating the kids at swingball. A compulsion to show off one's light rather hide it under a bushel appears to be a precondition, a feeling of really having a 'secret weapon' colleagues are unaware of, and being well able to forego the so-called pleasures others want in spades, are the foundation stones of the burnout typology.

An unerring ability to ignore their bodies and hearts as they scream at them to let something give, are also fundamentals.

Burnout appears to be predicated on statusseeking, which goes some way toward explaining why it affects much more high earners than it does regular nine-to-fivers or middleincome regular workers.

The first four or five stages of burnout involve attitudes and beliefs that indicate a need for sufferers to prove to themselves that they are made of superior stuff, or if not, that they can, by manipulating the environment, come out on top.

Often they fail to see that others could also come out on top by making such sacrifices, but they know the sacrifices aren't worth it. A strong need for ego fulfilment may well be one explanation, but an addictive personality is another. A certain amount of callousness is required and a competitive edge and strong will is often a dangerous thing for this self-perpetrated affliction.

The process can take six months or six years. With it comes a loss of the ability . . .

crucial for human survival . . .

to reflect on ourselves, to gauge our wellness, to selfsense, so the residual feeling is one of inner emptiness with no explanation available to the sufferer of what's missing and where it's gone.

As the syndrome develops, it progresses into a steely intolerance of colleagues and a tendency to label others 'stupid', intense social withdrawal, and an inability even to make conversation, which can mean that marriages rupture, friendships seize and families give up.

As life becomes a series of mechanical functions, with no understanding of other people's needs or emotions, a desperate seeking of stimulation by heavy drinking or drug taking or exaggerated sexuality can follow, coupled with bouts of overwhelming depression and exhaustion, apathy and hopelessness.

Many burnout victims . . .

and increasing numbers of women are falling foul of the condition . . . feel suicidal and an unfortunate few act on those fantasies. Others collapse and break down completely. Still others are lucky enough to have a few left who love them, and with complete rest, therapy, time and support, can recover from this modern disease of the professional classes.

It only occasionally gets acknowledged, although clinics and rehabilitation beds are increasingly filled with those who fall foul of the malaise.

Maybe we've been too sucked into the Mission Statement corporate myth, where we pretend it's all about democracy and good aspirations, and everyone ignores the real basic business culture where it's tough out there, and it's every contender for him/herself.