The origins of unhappiness

After receiving many recommendations, I've finally managed to read "The origins of unhappiness" by David Smail, and it was really mind opening. The book is a critique of the pychology and its vertents and how they have a strong bias thowards blaming the individual for their suffering even when it is clear that the root of the problem is in the social structure and the overall environment in which the person is inserted.

I've used to take psychanalysis as the most effective and reasonable vertent in the field of psychology. Mainly because it focuses on finding the root of the problems, not trying to amend or suppress the symptoms (which is what most of the other vertents do). In my opinion, behaviorism is the silliest of them all: making someone change his behavior for the sake of it, without understanding why the previous behavior was there in the first place does nothing but to put a mask on the problem. Neurolinguistic programming is also a very naive vertent: repeat 20 times "I am fine" and everything will be better.

But after reading Smail's book, I've realized that even psychanalysis has very limited reach. Smail worked for years at UK NHS (National Health Service), developing a close understanding of the common problems reported by a good parcel of the british people and he concludes that most of the distress are caused by distal powers, which we tend to barely think about in our daily lives.

Some examples we can easily observe around us: the panic attacks caused by the fear of losing the job of a overexploited family provider who is already in debt to keep the bare minimal to his children; the depression caused by the lack of perspective of a young person who can't see a future in a world that is collapsing due to climate crisis and other unavoidable health issues caused by unescapable poblems such as microplastic contamination, air and water pollution, pesticide residues in food, etc.; the sudden anxiety felt by a blue collar worker caused by the constant pressure of the meritocratic management and competition in the business world, the complete lack of collaboration and altruism; a young woman avoiding going alone in public spaces after multiple harassment episodes; etc. Most of these problems can't be solved by the individual alone. They are structural problems that need to be understood and addressed by the society as a whole.

Most of the times, the therapist limits his analysis to the close relations of the patient - his parents, partners, children - and the relationship between the therapist and the patient. The environment is mostly limited to the patient's home, work and consulting room. The "subject supposed to know" end up missing by large the real sources of the problems.

A better role for the therapist could be to the one who bring awareness about these distal powers, allowing the patient to uderstand it and to see that despite of being problems hardly solvable by him alone, he could organize with other people in the same situation to promote a change in the society. This obviously involves greater political awareness and a more proactive role in the society, which is not what most people are looking for when they go to a therapist. But the mere identification with other people in the same situation could be a great relief for many people.

In our private aspect - that part of our personal experience which is not knitted into or given shape by the social 'forms' we share - we are all lonely, eccentric and bizarre. As far as we can be, we need to be supported in our idiosyncrasy and reassured that we are not alone in loneliness; we need, that is, an informed undesrtanding of what is to be human, to have spent our lives located bodily in a position which nobody else can share a world which, potentially, everybody else shares. We do not need our imagination to be policed and our feelings to be regulated by moralizing professionals who are no less victims than we of the ruthless forces which too often make our lives so bitter and our hopes so blighted.

The Origins of Unhappiness, David Smail, 1993