IJSP Number 3, 2021

41 Moreover, as psychotherapists or psychologists already know, changes – at least superficial ones – can be easily feigned. Most people handle appearances well and skilfully play – from an early age on – with smiling masks that conceal their secret agendas, or unsocial desires, or abstruse impulses, or some unpleasant capacity for envying others. Usually, integration is more about conformity and social acceptance, and not about some far-fetched individual quests for meaning and existential fulfilment. Status and not self-development is what counts and those standards should not be confused, because they are on different levels in Abraham Maslow’s humanist psychology. Psychotherapists, as well as supervisors, are not – as far as we know – eccentrics, although they have an exceptionally interesting and provocative profession. They are – besides the fact that they attended college or some trainings of psychotherapy – ordinary people like you and me. They arranged their personal, professional, and social life in accordance with the most widespread and recognized norms and standards. Moreover, as we all know, those standards and norms, as well as the most diverse requirements, are so entrenched in our psyche that they seem to belong to the deepest structures of our minds and feelings. It seems to be quite clear that: “In choosing a lifestyle, most people unhesitatingly conform to the standards of the society in which they live. Conformity represents the path of least resistance. If you conform - if you live the way those around you have chosen to live - they will approve of your lifestyle. (People tend to praise those who resemble them, inasmuch as it is a socially acceptable way to praise them). They will reward you with their admiration and respect-and with some envy thrown in, for good measure.” [1] The academic word and life should inspire at least some eccentricities, but if we look around, we will notice only people who have the same dreams, expectations, or desires as every ordinary and ‘un-eccentric’ citizen. Socially required, psychologically entrenched, and collectively enhanced, ideologies and standardization are the norm for everyone who wants to belong and to be somebody (even if she/he is anybody). Ideologies and collective requirements oppose the possibility of individualization by sabotaging every personal, special, and unconventional approach to life or existence. Why would that be so? Why could it not be otherwise? Maybe the best answer to such questions is what W. B. Irvine affirmed about those people who: “... live not for themselves but for other people. For most people, life requires an ongoing series of compromises between what they want for themselves and what other people want and expect of them. Most people thus come to relinquish much of their sovereignty over themselves. They relinquish it to relatives, to neighbours, and even to complete strangers, and they do so because they value highly the admiration of other people and fear their contempt and ridicule.” [1] Alternatively, individuals can adopt with ease some new behavioural habits to act for a few hours in any social ‘showroom’ or professional meeting, but that