Reflection and critical review of journal concepts

¶ … Self is Empty: Toward a Historically Situated Psychology" by Philip Cushman

In his article, "Why the Self is Empty: Toward a Historically Situated Psychology," Phillip Cushman argues that psychology needs to take into account a contextualized look at the self, particularly the modern self, the empty self. Without recognizing the development of the empty self, psychology is doomed to be unresponsive to the real needs of the people it serves and can even damage those seeking help. Cushman argues for a fundamental shift in psychology, one that acknowledges the historical and cultural nature of the discourse and the consequences of practicing in this vein. In the end, though, Cushman is doubtful about whether this kind of critique of the field of psychotherapy can be achieved from within, noting that most practitioners lack the training and skills to even attempt such a task.

The empty self is defined by Cushman as "a self that experiences a significant absence of community, tradition, and shared meaning" (600). This is a self which constantly seeks, literally, to be filled up from the outside, whether through consumerism and acquisition or through indulging in impulses. The empty self seeks to be soothed, organized and made cohesive by momentarily being filled up. What they most desire is control, but often settle for the illusion of control instead. The practices of psychology and psychotherapy contribute to this pathology of the empty self by helping people construct selves that are the subjects of control and developing therapeutic techniques which are themselves the means of control.

Cushman begins his article by following the psychological view of the self from the Victorian era to post-WWII. Following feudalism, the self was through to be bounded and masterful. The self has become increasingly more individualistic, subjective and "deeper." In the 16th century, the Western world began a major shift toward industrialization and urbanization, resulting in a less communal and more individual subject and self. By the Victorian era, this had culminated in a "deep, secret, instinct-driven, potentially dangerous self," which provided the perfect excuse for the powers that be to exert tight control over individuals. The self became the hiding place for things which needed to be hidden from others and even oneself. People could not be trusted to control themselves.

The historical debate on individualism illustrates the difficulty of using a historically contextualized discourse. Cushman points out that many researchers have viewed the self, in a decontextualized approach, as an "unchangeable, transhistorical entity" (599). Cushman's argument is the polar opposite of this traditional viewpoint. The self, he argues, is formed by the culture in which it resides, including economies, political spheres, communities, etc. Psychologists, to be effective, need to study the self within the context of these outside influences. Hermeneutics, the study of interpretation, forms much of the foundation of Cushman's proposition, and he has drawn from the insights of this discipline to form his own theory, which he readily admits is at times "speculative and nonempiral" (599). "Evidence" he cites are the current focus of psychology on narcissism and borderline personality disorders and the larger culture's emphasis on consumption, advertising and a "nationwide difficulty in maintaining personal relationships" (599). Despite the possible criticism he faces for his methods, he defends them as the best possible way to study the self in a historical context, which he deems an essential topic for psychology.

Cushman relies heavily on the research of others, including historians and philosophers such as Foucault and Levin, as he traces the self through history from the end of feudalism through the Victorian era and through post-WWII modern America. By the Victorian era, a notion of self had emerged that was conceptualized as potentially dangerous, and thus in need of an external control mechanism to keep it in line -- the state. Over the course of the past century, Americans have evolved from this type of self, which was characterized by repressed sexual impulses and economic frugality, to the empty self, which seeks fulfillment through material acquisition and acting on sexual impulses. The state still controls this empty self by creating and manipulating these needs. Cushman points to the success of therapy as a business and the constant advertising of self-improvement products. The self has now been conceived as something capable of change, and the idea of the inner-directed rugged individualist has given way to the outer-directed salesperson type of self. This kind of self was both created by and reflected in the proliferation of advice on how to impress other people, be popular and achieve monetary success. The larger society responded by offering "balms for the discontents of modernity" (602).

Psychotherapy, Cushman argues, is complicit in giving the larger culture and state this control by helping reinforcing their patients' empty selves. Because psychotherapy decontextualizes and ignores the socio-historical conditions that have caused the self to be empty and fragmented, its practices reinforce the very qualities of self that initially caused the problem. This kind of therapy is part of what Cushman, derogatively, the "Life-Style Solution" (605). The empty self, devoid of a cohesive community, is struggling to find meaning in the world. When that meaning cannot be found, the particular mental illnesses of modern life begin to appear, and people seek out the help of psychologists and psychotherapists. Those therapies are ineffective, however, because psychology cannot treat the real cause of these maladies, which is the larger socio-historical context which created the empty self. Psychology, Cushman points out, "is also a product of the larger historical context that causes these illnesses" (606). Because psychology is not allowed to address these issues -- they lie outside of its scholarly realm -- they cannot fix the very problems they are called in to treat. The solution, then, is to offer life-style therapy by leading patients into alternative cultural practices which often are direct imitations of the psychotherapists mannerisms, style and values. In the same way that advertising is used to convince people to fill their empty selves with products, psychotherapy is used to initiate patients into different beliefs and behaviors. Cushman argues that, despite psychotherapy's insistence that it is objective and scientific, practice deviates from theory and therapists function as a soothing model for the patient. Cushman refers to Rieff's division of psychotherapies into two kinds. Commitment therapies return the patient to their community's sacred forms. Analytic therapies work through a detached analysis of individuals who lack a viable communal tradition. Cushman argues that these kinds of therapies have become combined into one, and this is the life-style solution. Psychotherapy transmits as a substitute for other forms of cultural transmission -- communities, tradition -- that have been lost. The most important function of current psychotherapy, Cushman argues, is that it offers an alternative attitude toward life, alternative cultural values, and alternative social practices. It fills and sooths the needs of the empty self. "The modeling of respect, psychological courage, and empathy therefore helps patients imitate, practice, and finally internalize the qualities they most need," Cushman writes of the process (607).