By: Lucia Sarmiento Verano

^{Featured photo credit: Gilly}

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I’ve been meaning to provide an introduction on notions of Self under our current systems and how this affects how people approach mental health. It is, however a vast and complex subject, explored extensively by philosophers who work on subjectivity and ontology (theories on being). I haven’t explored enough to give a detailed account on these issues, but I hope this piece will provide a concise and clear introduction on the topic, especially on the links between neoliberal systems and how our therapeutic professions are affected.

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What is neo-liberalism?

Like liberalism, neo-liberalism is also a political philosophy and a way to structure society. It was a reaction to a more social version of liberalism in the second half of the 20^th century, as this sort of liberalism was seen as too controlling of the market, too interventionist. Neo-liberalism focuses on a free market, individual freedom and responsibility, instead of having a government that will support citizens and legislate on how companies can compete. Its application involves complete deregulation of the market, privatisations, austerity (cutting of social support programs) and work to depoliticise civil society, sometimes done violently, as in Peru in the 90s.

Indeed, one very illustrative example of the widespread neo-liberalisation of a society was the regime of Alberto Fujimori in Peru where civil society was dismantled using repression and violence, while markets were deregulated and most services privatised. Other notable examples in history are the regime of Pinochet in Chile, or Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

The heavy focus on personal responsibility and freedom has also made neo-liberalism an actual way of life for people who espouse it as their ideology. Characterised by a complete disregard of historical and structural realities and their impact on people’s material conditions or opportunities, it preaches that individuals can reach any goal they set out to achieve with enough discipline, intelligence and hard work. Under a neo-liberal perspective, ours is a meritocratic society in which the ideal subject is the self-made man.

This obviously has consequences, not only on people’s material conditions but on their mental and emotional well-being. It also affects how people consider such well-being, and serves as the basis for much of how our current well-being and mental health industry is structured.

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The Self as Directional and Whole

Firstly, neo-liberalism, as its name suggests, wasn’t born out of nowhere. I was a reaction to liberalism, but also stems from its world perspective and its ideas on what the human subject is. These ideas themselves come from the European enlightenment and its philosophies on the subject as self-contained, individual and whole. If you are listening to what marginalised people and anti-colonial thinkers are saying, you may already know why this is problematic. It is still necessary to speak openly about how this affects our therapeutic work.

Self-actualisation for example. The idea that we have an authentic self that we tend to grow into when we are given the proper conditions, supposes an ‘essence of our Selves’ stifled by injunctions, conditions of worth, and other demons created within interpersonal relations (usually not taking into account collective experiences). With the help of therapy, we may let our authentic Self emerge and we may express it. We will be healed.

This is of course, not exactly how Rogers described it. He does leave space for a little bit more complexity, reminding us in his work that the self is never fixed, it can evolve, as we are always in a process of becoming (Rogers, 1961). However, even this added complexity supposes linear movement. The Self is evolving, but it still is seen as self-contained and whole. Fragmented Selves are abnormal. It doesn’t account for the complex currents of history creating a multiplicity of selves, a fluidity between contradictions and even opposing identities or social positions we may find ourselves in. Perhaps the thorough consideration of these complexities of being is not conductive to notions of improvement and wellbeing enough.

Thus, they are explored by some philosophers rather than therapy theorists who aim to present a clear and linear depiction of the Self and its processes, in order to construct the image of a therapy that cures and helps. Current psychotherapeutic thinking is based on the idea of the human as whole and directional, and on the creation of a hierarchy of needs and linear change as exemplified here.

These basic assumptions about being human rest on the thoughts of European philosophers (such as Heidegger, Husserl, or Sartre) who mused on the nature of being, and on Carl Rogers’ similar views on human nature. They are, in my opinion, uncritical and strong assumptions based on one specific position and perspective on the human experience that leave many other (and Othered) possibilities out of the picture. This is problematic, even without considering the subsequent creation of hierarchies of needs and wants, as western psychological thought likes to do.

I will not have the space here to get deeply into possible challenges and alternatives to these white European frameworks on the human, but I will direct you to four interesting pieces of work that can offer robust challenges. Sara Ahmed’s Phenomenology of Whiteness explains by using Fanon’s work, how this idea of humans as directional, as in-the-world and tending toward-the-world (based on Husserl’s work) is the bodily expression of white privilege.

Another piece I can recommend is Kelly Oliver’s book The Colonisation of Psychic Space, in which she clearly lays out the issues with western philosophy which considers alienation and the process of formation of the self a universal experience. One of many challenges to the idea of the Self as whole can be found in José Esteban Muñoz’s work on Disidentifications. Finally, Annemarie Mol’s philosophical work on Eating in Theory presents a challenge against western’s views of the individual as separated from their surroundings and of the separation (and hierarchisation) of body and mind.

Again, and sadly, exploring such conceptions of the human is not in the scope of today’s piece, but I would like to reflect on how this directional, individualistic and unitary vision of the self (wholeness of the self) may influence our mindset. It happens to fit very well into a neoliberal framework.

Rogers is not the only thinker to speak of the self as ever evolving. Foucault, also argued that subjectivity is a process, rather than a state of being. Going beyond what Rogerian thinking believes, however, Foucault states that there is no “true self” to be found, as we are continuously creating and constituting our Self through the very activities we employ to “find our Self”. Thus, searching for our Self within a neoliberal system focused on personal wellbeing and psychology (whether it is through therapies, journaling, spiritual practices) means we construct a neoliberal Self, which is alienated in its “wellbeing”.

This is partly because, according to Foucault, scientific discourses and knowledge (in disciplines like psychology, sociology, biology, medicine, pedagogy, etc) have developed a disciplinary power system that classifies people according to a standard of normality. These discourses also create rules that become social codes that control and organise people without the need for physical force. Subjectivities and ‘selves’ are then guided by these codes, for example ideas on what’s normal/abnormal, rational/irrational, human or inhuman, etc. become internalised as truths, and people tend to follow these guidelines (Foucault, 1988). We then enter a state of permanent self-observation and surveillance that turns against us and individualises our perspectives on the issues that we may have. If we are unhappy, it’s a problem with us, and we have to solve it.

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The Self as a Project

This is where Foucauldian thought meets Rogers’ ideas of self-actualisation, and notably, what our profession has done with them.

In an incisive piece on alienation and therapy, Pete Sanders delineated how Rogerian theories have evolved in the way they are used by practitioners, towards a neoliberal focus to “treat” alienated subjects in search of personal power (2006). Following a Marxist reading of the subject, and Debord’s theories on a society made of spectacles, he makes the links between psychological distress and a disconnection of the individual not only from themselves or others, but also from the material world, the product of their own actions/labour, and the collective experience. Subjects become passive consumers. This form of alienation, he adds, is one that is ignored by a psychotherapy that focuses solely on intra and interpersonal experiences, reinforcing it in the process. Alienated subjects, even in their search for themselves and their wellbeing, then turn to performativity and consumption, backed by a whole system that keeps them focused on this.

Have you ever encountered people (in and out of therapy) that keep self-diagnosing or “catching” “bad” thoughts and feelings they desperately want address and change? Or, have you even seen people attribute expressions of social discontent to individual psychological distress?

On this note, Peruvian sociologist Leonor Lamas built on Foucault’s ideas around neoliberalism and the discourse of entrepreneurship in her work on race and education discourses. She particularly observed discourses of success based on individual responsibility, guided by principles of efficacy, efficiency and rational managements of resources (2017).

As a consequence of the responsibilisation of individuals, there is a loss of the collective sense of issues and the structural forces that affect each of us. Individual responsibilisation leads to depolitisation, and a turn of the gaze toward individual capacities or limitations (these considered abnormal) instead of societal realities. This mode of neoliberal subjectivity relies on the maintenance of inequalities and authoritarian or disciplining practices, sometimes by others, sometimes turned against oneself, as well as decentralising the state’s power while having a depoliticising effect on people.

Today, it suffices to look at social media content and wellbeing trends to see how we are inundated with mandates to regulate and manage ourselves. “Regulating our nervous system”, or whatever the next trend will be, is not a suggestion or a supportive statement anymore, it becomes an obligation. It can become all-encompassing, all-consuming, and invade all areas of our lives. We have career coaching and strategising, productivity tips, fitness and nutritional injunctions, and mental health self-improvement to do. We learn to always identify our thoughts and emotions, label them and address them appropriately. We learn the bodywork techniques, the breathing and the affirmations. We put in place the planners, the routines, the imposed relaxation. And when that doesn’t always work, we once again turn to social media diagnosis to identify and fix the problem within ourselves, or within our lives.

Within the neoliberal hyperindividualistic system, we become navel gazers, constantly surveilling all areas of our little lives to look for ways of optimising, improving, and become the best version of ourselves. To do this we are constantly encouraged to consume commodified knowledge, products, activities, tips, tricks or techniques that will boost our journeys towards a sense of wholeness and wellbeing. Being our own entreprise, our project, is a full-time job. There is no space left to consider the collective, the structural.

Perhaps extreme individualism and responsabilisation of the subject does suit a subject who embodies whiteness and capitalism, or at least, one that aspires to it. I wonder how much of this entrepreneur mentality allows people to feel in control in their own lives, navigating society and wielding power they appropriated. This, instead of having to face, through a structural perspective, the actual precariousness of their position, both ontologically and materially, and thus repressing the terror or anxiety that might emerge. Going further, I believe there is more to be explored about these defensive formations, in connection with neoliberal versions of capitalism and entrepreneurship as the ideal of the subject. A praxis for liberation is bound to challenge these alienated ways of being, and I believe we can only learn from making the links between them, colonialism and aspirations to whiteness.

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Resisting

This constant striving towards optimal well-being, even when it is filled with feminist or liberatory discourse about being oneself (finding our “authentic self”) despite what society dictates, is not liberation. Quite the opposite. It is whiteness, colonialism and capitalism disguised as well-being. They are the main drivers of this mindset that produces compliant subjects incapable of considering global realities and structural forces. As previously stated, doing so might even be too scary, as it could mean relinquishing what little power we think we have.

It is, once again, whiteness rejecting the bodily, aspiring to transcend our human condition by aspiring to perfection and purity in life. The fact that people are now embracing embodied practices does not mean they are embracing the ambivalence, imperfection, and messiness of our humanity. Don’t be fooled.

Anything can be problematised or pathologized, making it a problem within the self to be solved by continuing to adhere and consume these tips and techniques. Alternatively, it becomes a problem in our lives, to be expectorated, excreted, through the cutting off relationships for example, or the upholding of rigid boundaries. Collective organisation then becomes impossible to sustain.

There is also the question of our relationship with knowledge, practices and experiences. One of the characteristics of this system is that is turns everything into a product to be consumed. Are we accumulating knowledge like books on shelves, or are we letting it traverse us? Are we just experiencing an activity (collecting memories) before coming back to our daily life or are we letting it transform us? Are we hiring services from helpers or are we entering in transformative relationships with people?

Are we learning to perform anti-oppressive practice or are we changing our ways of being with others and within the world? Maybe you can guess where this is going.

Practicing being other-wise in relation to oneself and others requires more courage and robustness than riding the wellbeing train. It requires tolerance of our own limitations and humaneness, and with time, it demands we embrace them. In this process, we gradually stop needing the performance and consumption of wellbeing. Although it is never a complete process, but a long-term commitment we can only sustain by receiving and giving support and wisdom as much as we can… remembering these are acts of love and not projects to be completed.

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REFERENCES

Foucault, M. (1988). Technologies of the Self. In L.H. Martin, H. Gutman, & P.H. Hutton (Eds.), Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault (pp. 16-49). University of Massachusetts Press

Lamas, L. (2017) ‘Somos una raza distinta que puede lograrlo todo’ : Emprendimiento educacion y nuevas concepciones raciales en el Peru Neoliberal. In : V. Zavala and M. Beck (eds.) Racismo y Lenguaje. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, 39-82.

Rogers, Carl (1961) On becoming a person: a therapist’s view of psychotherapy. Boston, Houghton Mifflin.

Sanders, P. (2006) The Spectacular Self: Alienation as the lifestyle choice of the free world, endorsed by psychotherapists. In Proctor G, Cooper M, Sanders P, Malcolm B. (eds.) Politicizing the Person-centred Approach, an agenda for social change. Monmouth: PCCS Books.

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