Pill power: A peek inside my metaphorical medicine chest

I am an existential therapist working in private practice with a diverse range of clients. Over the last two years, I have made increasing use of three metaphorical medicines in my practice - the selfish pill, the careless pill and the anti-perfect pill. 

Each of them has been tried, tested and found to be effective by clients of all ages and circumstances. They can be taken individually but tend to work best in combination. There are no known side effects.

Let's explore each in turn. 

The selfish pill

The word selfish has come to have a largely negative meaning in our society. Conjuring images of self-absorption and mean-spiritedness. As a defence against being perceived to be selfish, many of us deny the legitimacy of our own wants and wishes and begin instead to routinely place the needs of others above our own. We become incongruent ‘people pleasers’, paying the heavy psychological price of trying to live in someone else’s life. 

However, if we view the word selfish through a different lens, we can see that it is actually a very positive thing to be aware of self, and of what nurtures us and what debilitates us. And when we start to prioritise doing more of what serves us well and less of what doesn’t, we start to like ourselves more. And in the wonderful paradox of being selfish in this positive, self-serving way, the more we like ourselves, the better company we are for others. 

When clients accept my offer of the selfish pill, I encourage them to take it daily for at least six months, to give time for the curious new practice of selfishness to become well-integrated into their way of being. Clients who do so report very positive results, including greater courage, self-confidence and decisiveness; increased assertiveness; improved communication and reduced anxiety in their interactions with others.

Describing one of the many benefits she had experienced from taking the selfish pill for some months, one client told me recently, ‘I used to think of the over-priced latte I buy every morning as a guilty pleasure. Now it’s my selfish pleasure and it tastes much better!’ 

The careless pill

The word careless also carries largely negative associations. Synonyms include inconsiderate, unsympathetic and thoughtless – all generally unhelpful attitudes which don’t tend to serve us well. However, it is also profoundly unhelpful to our sense of self when we start to care too much about what we think other people might be thinking about us. Leading us to rely on the extrinsic validation of others for our self-esteem and motivation, rather than being able to generate these intrinsically for ourselves. 

When introducing clients to the careless pill, I invite them to consider that there are two courts of opinion – the court of public opinion and the court of our opinion of ourselves. If we judge ourselves in the court of our opinion of ourselves and find ourselves wanting, then we have work to do.* But when that work is done or well in hand – when, in the words of renowned American psychotherapist Irvin Yalom, ‘we behave in ways we can admire’ – we experience self-acceptance, and the views of all those in that vast, insecure and frightened court of public opinion become largely irrelevant.

Practising positive carelessness in this way really does have the power to set us free from the judgmental grip of the crowd. And as early existential philosopher Soren Kierkegaard observed, ‘The crowd is a lie.’

Perhaps the most personally valuable gift I have ever received from a client was the feedback shared with me by a young man who had been taking the careless pill diligently for several weeks and had found it to be a potent remedy for his social anxiety. As a result, whenever he was in the company of others and felt tension rising within him, he now chanted internally, ‘I don’t care whether these people like me or not. I don’t care whether these people like me or not.’ Instantly awestruck by the superpower the selfish pill had catalysed in my client, I adopted this mantra myself and use it regularly in my own moments of social insecurity. You might want to try it yourself. It works!

The anti-perfect pill

Unlike selfish and careless, our first reaction to the word perfect is likely to be unequivocally positive. Who wouldn’t want to live a perfect life, just like all those perfect people who seem to be doing so already... if their social media feeds can be believed. 

However, if we engage more critically with the concept of perfect, we can understand that the dream we are sold - that life can be Disneyland - is no technicolour blueprint for living happily ever after, but only a hollow illusion. And if we buy into the myth that we can experience perfection as a near-permanent state of being, we are setting ourselves up for a lifetime of disappointment; in the company of an unsavoury gang of corrosive emotions, including envy, unworthiness and a need to keep up appearances. 

As an antidote to the malign effects of the pursuit of perfection, I offer my clients the anti-perfect pill. Clients who take it often experience rapid and powerful effects, as they begin to integrate into their worldview new concepts about the reality of existence.**

These include:

• the universe is not ordered for our convenience
• we live and we die as a work in progress
• life is an attempt, not an achievement

Released from the belief that our struggle for self-determination, in a universe that is oblivious to us, is a game we can and should win, we can start to engage with the truth. That all of us live in an intrinsically imperfect world – a world in which things going ‘wrong’ is just as common as things going ‘right’. A world in which, to use Gustave Flaubert’s wonderfully earthy phrase, day-to-day life for all of us is a ‘tide of shit’. 

Once we accept this perhaps uncomfortable fact of our existence, we can step out of the endless, wearying cycle of seeking perfection in everything we experience, then blaming ourselves and others when we inevitably fall short. The anti-perfect pill allows us to engage with what perfection really is – tiny, temporary moments in time when the stars align and we reflect that there is nothing about this moment which could be improved. Perfection is rightly understood as a photograph album, not a way of being.

Reflecting on her experience of taking the anti-perfect pill, one client told me it had prompted her to give herself permission to aim for ‘okay’ rather than perfect, in her relationship with the world and her relationship with herself. As a result, she was experiencing welcome relief from her previously chronic feelings of personal inadequacy, FOMO and existential disappointment.

So, as I come to the end of this short rummage around in my metaphorical medicine chest, I invite you to consider, whether as client or therapist, if taking a daily dose of my three little pills might help you find a more peaceful, joyful and authentic way of living. As it does for me and so many of my clients. 

*It is, of course, an important element of this work to behave decently towards those who are really important to us. These are not the people to be careless of. 

** My reflections on the nature of existence reflect my existential, atheist worldview. Other worldviews are equally valid.