How Greatness Thinking Shapes the Performative Self
The ideals we absorb from culture orient us with messages of who to be, what to want, and how success is defined. We are currently immersed in a culture where the call for greatness is ubiquitous. And when a culture privileges greatness thinking (Alpert, 2022) it bends the psyche (self) towards exceptionalism as the sine qua non of a meaningful life. This ideal takes root early in development and takes up residence in our psyches as an inner judge where the injunction for exceptionalism, optimization, and success reigns and anything less than that leaves one feeling vaguely unsatisfied, empty, and unworthy. The culture produces a performative self, not an alive self. And a self in constant comparison to greatness ideals is a self perpetually warding off low grade narcissistic injuries manifesting in melancholy, stress and anxiety, self-hatred, exhaustion, and burnout. When the interiority of human experience is leased to performance, the ability to be alive in our lives is inconceivable. Depth psychotherapy offers the opportunity to explore how feeling more alive within the ordinary.
Reclaiming the Ordinary Through Depth Psychotherapy
Depth psychotherapy, at its best, reclaims the ordinary of everyday moments by giving it nobility because life isn’t experienced within an arc of greatness. Lived experiences come in small and immediate units that are felt as moments of life unfolding. As such, the greatness narrative can be seen as a psychological defense against the structural limitations of human life. Alpert (2022) argues that life can’t go beyond good enough due to its inherent losses, limitations, tragedies, and shifting expectations.
Moving From a Performative Self to an Alive Self
Depth psychotherapy is an intentional inquiry into the internal landscape of the psyche, including its unique depth, richness, and composition. It curates a genuine attention to both the surprising and familiar experiences of relating to self and others. It expands on the affective textures of the human experience, its losses, triumphs, afflictions, beauty, frustrations and possibilities. The alive self is present to something new, open to feeling deeply moved, available to take risks, and to give and receive deeply. If you are interested in a depth psychotherapy experience that can help you move from a performative self to an alive self, we would love to assist you.
Scott Koeneman, PsyD LP/Psychoanalyst