"You're screwing up your life", the new book by Buenaventura del Charco is a song against the positivist psychology of the "best version" and objectives, which, according to the therapist, is a "scam", which turns the human being into consumer product and generates brutal psychological effects.
"I always considered the idea of the happiness and personal development industry ridiculous, for me it seemed like real psychology like porn does like sex; but it began to worry me with the increase in patients feeling guilty for not being positive and happy. I thought it was appalling and dehumanizing and that it needed to be talked about.
That was the trigger that led the mental health expert, "from Marbella by birth and from Granada by adoption", to attack perfectionist self-demand (the internal judge) and self-criticism (the executioner).
In an interview with EFE, he underlines that these "supposed tools" have brutal psychological effects: "one of the worst things that can happen to a person" and explain why in a time of comfort and material well-being "we have higher rates of mental illness than never".
He warns that this situation "is not reached because people become idiots," but rather because of the "way of understanding life." "We demand ourselves in aesthetics, in leisure, etc. How can we not be exhausted, depressed, frustrated or anxious at the feeling of not achieving anything?" She laments.
And he assures that this leads to eating disorders or avoidance of pressure through consumption, because "somewhere the lid has to come off," which "pushes mental illness in a brutal way."
In the 300 pages of the manual (Planeta), Del Charco insists that "we are losing our freedom as individuals," by being "slaves of success" and doing things thinking if others will like them. "This way you blur a lot of who you really are."
"Rejection is the price of freedom," insists the psychologist, and also criticizes "the current technicalization": "there are studies on everything, that tell you the appropriate way to eat, study or have sex."
The professor at the University and the Virgen de las Nieves University Hospital in Granada is also concerned about the increase in cases he sees in consultation with patients who recognize that "everything is going well for them, but that they are not well."
"They are no longer those depressions of those who do not dare to get out of bed without the desire to do anything or energy," but rather they produce a new form of discomfort caused by the functioning of society and already called "highly functional depression." ".
In his opinion, the consumer society "is privatizing human discomfort," by holding the individual responsible for his anxiety for not having the tools to manage it without relating it to "having a temporary contract, 30 years or living with parents without being able to have children or a vital approach".
"That the consumer society continually makes you feel that you are not enough. Doesn't that have anything to do with mental health?" the expert asks, while calling it "perverse" to "have capitalism and productivity as an epistemological framework." ".
The psychologist laments "the level of loneliness that we experience as a society at a time when life makes it increasingly difficult for us to be with people and when we are in contact it is less and less real."
"In this success-centric society we are more afraid of rejection and we need the approval of others more, so we dare less to be honest and have real encounters because we are always thinking about our image projection and being politically correct," he criticizes.
And he attacks the "self-help psychologists" again: "I have not yet heard them advise a patient to take time to talk to their grandmother. The thing is that even when they refer to these things they technicalize them and recommend that you quantify hugs or the kisses you have to give each day".
The psychologist vindicates self-compassion - "that you are moved by your pain, and as a consequence of that you fight" - in the face of self-demand, which, he assures, leads to abandonment: "if I spend all day telling myself that I am not a valid person, why "Why am I going to fight for something that is worthless?"
And he warns that this feeling leads to the "nihilistic tristophobia" that permeates today's society, since "if I don't love myself I'm not willing to have a bad time," and there "begins the pills or the need to cover things up with purchases." , quotes, sports, successes or achievements".
In this sense, he also warns of his concern about the rise of "the neo-version of Buddhist detachment misunderstood: since I do not want to suffer, I annul myself as an individual and renounce life."
Before her, he encourages us to reclaim "our humanity and personal values" to "return to being ourselves and feel satisfied with who we are and treat ourselves with decency and respect."
