The pain sold

«The patient (told me) that she ate so as not to die, that she killed herself by eating. Another explained: «I know that he makes me suffer, but I can't leave him» and then I feel like I'm living someone else's life, «I keep dreaming of snakes, but I don't understand why», «every time I talk to someone, I feel like I'm not here», «my mother said it was for my own good, but I felt like I was dying», «I can't see a future for myself. It's all dark». Sometimes books by psychologists (psychiatrists) contain quotes from what their patients have told them. Phrases in quotation marks scattered throughout articles, conferences, books and podcasts without ever having received explicit consent from their patients (the famous privacy). It is the «sold pain»: the burning bush in front of which you take off your shoes, the intimacy of people, which, instead of being protected, becomes a reason for profit.

With the growth of loneliness and isolation, with the decline of social networks, of listening figures such as priests, the need to confide in psychologists has exploded (whose number has grown considerably). Unlike in the past, it is a listening that in most cases is paid for and, despite the empathic dimension, this «suffering inside» risks remaining only yours as soon as you stop paying. But we could say this is one of the possible evolutions of the capitalist market where even relationships have a price and that is how it is and there is no discussion.

However, even in the market economy there are rules and rights (for psychologists there would be an additional code of ethics) so in short it can be said that what the patient reveals to the psychologist should strictly remain between them. Instead, it can happen that you find your words, your pain, your emotions around and profit is made on this treasure that you have given to guard. "I feel that my life has no meaning, as if I were floating in the void", "every time they ask me how I am, I don't know what to answer, because I no longer know what it means to be well", "I feel broken, as if life were nothing more than a mosaic of pieces that don't fit together", "I no longer know what it means to love. And as if every time I try, something inside me breaks". Finally, video therapy has arrived with the serious risk that the pain given to the platforms is transformed into digital marketing.


Fabrizio Floris
NP February 2025