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9:16

(In »The syntheist agent and her desires and drives«)

In this context it is extremely important to distinguish between psychotherapy’s utilitarian search for happiness in life and psychoanalysis’ existentialist search for the truth about existence. Psychotherapy is a product of psychology, which is a social science. Psychoanalysis, on the other hand, is a product of philosophy, which means that at its deepest level it is an art form. Psychotherapy is an anthropotechnical project – developed by the capitalist power structure and its nation states and large corporations – which is dedicated to defining patients, that is, deviants from the momentarily prevailing societal norm. The scientists supply these patients with functional diagnoses, filled with an expanding flora of pathologies, which must be treated in order to promote the societal body’s well-being. Historically speaking, and possibly with a measure of cynicism, we can regard the psychotherapist as the capitalist tamer of individuals – a professionalised and commercialised replacement for the shoved-aside, good-old, good friend – whose task it is to adapt the citizen to a closed life-cycle of work, consumption and sleep, by robbing her of all forms of authentic intimacy with other people.