Cosmetic psychopharmacology, inauthentic experiences, and the instrumentalization of human faculties
beyond post-emotional society
pp. 77-103
in: Psychiatry and neuroscience update II, Berlin, Springer, 2017Abstract
This chapter explores the phenomenon of inauthentic experiences as a negative consequence of the new trends in cosmetic psychopharmacology, concluding that they are also the psychological manifestation of the tension, in late modernity, between two rival versions for a moral paradigm—Classic and Modern—and in which transition, rationality, affectivity, and will are being progressively and consecutively instrumentalized. Moreover, it is argued that this post-emotional scenario poses a threat to mental stability as well as social cohesion. The second general objective of this chapter is analyzing three types of psychological complaints by patients about inauthenticity—those related to the artificial origin of emotions, to the physical nature of its content, and to its episodic coherence; on the other hand, I present and compare three rival contemporary solutions to the problem of inauthenticity: the psychological, the organic, and the narrative.