The mask of adaptation

Contemporary clinical practice confronts us with a new type of suffering: that of the subject trapped not only in activities that feel alien but under constant pressure to become someone they are not. Dissatisfaction is no longer limited to doing but penetrates to the very core of being. In this scenario, distress arises from the implicit demand to adopt a prefabricated personality, designed to fit the standards of "employability" and "social adaptation" that the market demands.

This imperative of personal transformation demands continuous performance: one must appear perpetually optimistic, even while consumed by hopelessness within; we must appear "easy-going," even though our being yearns for depth and complexity. Productivity becomes a mandatory personality trait, and efficiency a moral virtue. The subject thus finds themselves in the paradoxical situation of having to construct a convincing falsification of themselves in order to "be someone" in the world.

The psychic cost of this splitting is enormous. The true self, with its genuine desires and yearnings, is relegated to an increasingly reduced space, while vital energy is consumed in maintaining this facade of perfect adaptation. Authentic dreams and aspirations are sacrificed on the altar of employability, and personal uniqueness dissolves in the homogenizing mold of social acceptability. Suffering no longer stems only from what we do but from the violence implied in having to be "another" to survive.

The ethics of accompaniment

The analyst's ethics demands a profound renunciation: the abandonment of any desire to direct, shape, or determine the analysand's life path. Unlike a mentor who guides or a teacher who instructs, the analyst embraces a unique position of companionship that consciously resists the temptation to lead. This ethical stance requires a continuous practice of restraint, acknowledging that true liberation emerges not from guidance, but from the space to discover one's own way.

The beauty of this relationship lies in its inherent temporality. The analyst walks alongside the analysand with the clear understanding that their presence is provisional, that the journey together will naturally conclude when it is no longer needed. This awareness transforms the analytical relationship into something rare in our directive world: a space where one can simply be, without the pressure to conform to another's vision or expectations.

Perhaps the most liberating aspect of this ethical position is the deliberate refusal to tell another what to do with their life. In a world saturated with advice, opinions, and prescriptions for living, the analyst offers something far more valuable: the freedom to discover one's own truth, to make one's own mistakes, and to find one's own path. This restraint becomes a powerful form of respect for the analysand's autonomy and capacity for self-determination.

The price of silence

Living under a totalitarian regime demands a painful exercise in psychic self-mutilation. To maintain an appearance of normality, the subject must perform complex internal surgery, carefully sectioning off those parts of themselves that could endanger their survival. This split is not merely an act of prudence, but a profound self-inflicted violence that fragments the integrity of being, creating watertight compartments between what is seen, what is known, and what can be said.

The supposed "well-being" achieved through this self-amputation comes at an exorbitant cost. Each day requires an elaborate exercise in selective amnesia, a sophisticated system of self-imposed blind spots, a precise choreography of silences and omissions. The person becomes an expert in the art of not seeing the obvious, of not naming the unnameable, of not feeling what must not be felt. This precarious balance consumes an immense amount of psychic energy, leaving little space for true personal development.

In this context, psychoanalysis encounters its fundamental limit. As a practice based on the possibility of saying everything, of freely exploring the darkest corners of the psyche, analytic work becomes practically impossible where speech is chained. Freedom of expression is not merely a political framework for psychoanalysis, but its most basic condition of possibility. Without the ability to name what is real, to articulate pain and truth, the analytic process becomes just another way of sustaining the split, rather than healing it.