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The Psychiatry game is introduced on the individual or psychotherapy level as well as how Psychiatry is promoted for the maintenance of the status quo. The Psychiatry game reinforces social hierarchies as reality (e.g., “mentally ill” versus not). Far ahead of his time, Eric Berne, MD understood the concept of “mental health” as a game or pastime. In his words, it is “based on the thesis that if only the right procedure can be found, everything will be alright.”
As the patient sits on the couch, inside their heads the question is, “What am I supposed to do here?” Patients, especially novices to psychotherapy, will inevitably comply with their therapist who uses the DSM to define them in order to elaborate their self-presentations and self-understanding. The patient will talk subjectively about what it is like to be them as a solid self. This can be played using Transactional Analysis (“My Critical Parent ego state…), psychoanalysis (“Gee my Id just has a hold of my Superego,” or the clinical version, “Nice use of transference!”), cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT (“Those damn negative thought loops!”), etc.
The emphasis is on subjectivity, but this comes at the expense of affect and relational intimacy with the therapist. Colloquially, the patient talks about what is going on inside their head. In the US, as individuals continue to view themselves as brands (Me, Inc) and are enclosed by Big Tech’s ability to commodify them and sell them things at the same time, Psychiatry becomes the engine for negating “the world.” Identity as reality is instantiated in the culture. Me me me. Self-optimization to become supreme and “win.” This is in contrast with the Zen notion of no-self or no-mind (i.e., emptiness).
Recorded on 6/08/2023
Visit MankatoTherapist.com for more information and to contact Andrew Archer.