Illusion and Reality, by David Smail (1984)

Anxiety is a sign, an indication of a sometimes terrifying disillusionment in which safe myths about the conditions of our existence become peeled away to reveal an altogether less reassuring form of knowledge about the world. The point of this book, though its outlook may at times seem rather bleak, is, however, precisely one of reassurance: that the unnerving knowledge we may possess of a hard and painful reality represents in fact a true insight into the way things are and not a form of craziness.

Central to this 'new' form of anxiety is the sense that achievement is empty of satisfaction – what the person is supposed to want, and so acquires, he or she simple does not desire. [...] As always, however, the cost of becoming free from marketed illusions is the possibility of exposure to real pain, i.e. pain which is instantly identifiable as stemming from the injuries inflicted on embodied individuals by a far from perfect social environment. In other words, 'disillusionment' is a precondition for true experience.

It sometimes seems to me that maybe 'psychology' is one of the principal illusions of the twentieth century. The raw materials of emotional distress are much more bodies and worlds than they are psychologies. Distress arises from the subjection of the embodied person to social forces over which s/he has very little control. 'Psychology', such as it is, arises out of the person's struggle to understand and conceptualize the nature of his/her experience. It is a matter of meaning. But changing the experience of distress cannot, either logically or practically, be achieved purely by trying to operate on the meanings to which the body-world interaction gives rise.

Until we change the way we act towards each other, and the social institutions we have constructed, we shall not get much relief from the symptoms of anxiety, depression and despair which beset all of us at some times in our lives, and some of us nearly all the time. The 'experts' will not change the world – they will simply make a satisfactory living helping people to adjust to it; the world will only change when ordinary people realize what is making them unhappy, and do something about it.

Most people, most of the time, have a profound and unhappy awareness of the contrast between what they are and what they ought to be. Even at a relatively superficial (but extremely pervasive) level, for example, many people feel weak and silly when they ought to be strong and confident, ugly and insignificant when they should be attractive and striking. As a consequence of this we spend enormous amounts of time and energy in guarding against others' getting a glimpse of our 'true', shameful selves by constructing what we feel will be acceptable public versions of ourselves, but which we know to be a hollow sham (unless that is, we come after a while to believe in our own posturing, fall for our own 'image').

The aim that society sets us is to be something, to be recognized in at least some sphere, and if only by our immediate family and acquaintances, as successful or admirable or in some way to be reckoned with. What you do matters not half as much as the aggrandizement which doing it brings you.

Perhaps not everyone has quite lost sight of how far in fact the ideals to which television advertising gives a caricatured, but nevertheless accurate, outer form are really impossible of achievement in the world we actually live in, but there are very many people who are cast into despair because of their failure to live up to them.

For variety of reasons, people are extremely reticent about revealing their worries and vulnerabilities to others, which, as I have already suggested, reinforces a view of the social world, subscribed to wittingly or unwittingly by most of us, which is in fact much more a myth than an accurate picture of reality. Even more seriously, people are not simply careful to keep quiet about their private fears – they are often unable to even see for themselves what they are.

What may start out as a need to ward off anxiety by convincing others of one's own adequacy may end up as an ability to deceive onself [sic], that one is totally invulnerable. Such invulnerability is, however, often bought at the cost of those around one who have to suffer the effects of the insensitivity and egotism that such self-deception needs to maintain itself [...]

After a time, you may well become aware that the particular world you occupy departs in some respects from the ideals and values of the wider society, or that you personally do not match up to what seems to be valued: if you are stupid, you ought to be clever, if you are poor, you ought to be richer, if you are ugly, you ought to be beautiful, if you are (at a certain age) single, you ought to be married, if you are shy, you should be confident, if fat you should be thinner, if skinny, you should be plumper, and so on and on. If you fail, as you are bound to do, in these or any other respects, you will find whole armies of professionals ready to iron out the bumps: psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, educators, religious advisers, cosmetic surgeons, beauticians, accountants, family therapists – the list can be extended indefinitely. In the vast majority of cases the professionals share a common aim, to fit you better into society, not to alter our social institutions so that they will make more comfortable room for you. In other words, when you fail you will find almost no one ready to take your failure seriously, and no conceptual structure, no language in which to consider it – you will just be exhorted to try even harder to succeed. With a little help from your professional advisors, you will have to bend and distort your already battered image to comply more closely with what is acceptable.

For some people to succeed, others must fail; for one person to be clever, another must be stupid; for a girl to be beautiful, others must be plain. All the time, unremittingly, people are forced to compare themselves with others in terms of what they are, that is, in terms of what valuation society places upon them. [...]

Our values are not such that they could be positively achieved by everybody, or even by most people: they are bound to generate failure and distress more than comfort than happiness.