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.