IJSP Number 3, 2021

45 aspect is reduced to a common denominator. The uncommon and particular or everything that cannot be levelled and standardized, namely the personal and the personality of every one of us, are excluded, neglected, and minimized, being insignificant for the statistic of large numbers. Although statistics have an ephemeral character, they too become eventually subject of a special kind of consumption. Presented on television, proficiently discussed or debated by political analysts or news editors, they are no more than another kind of subject for the news, breaking-news, or ‘burning’ issues. Paradoxically, statistics always implicate a very dynamic process; they are never static, always restless and inviting towards an agitated thought engagement or at least to some degree of emotional involvement. Although statistics should be static (after all) and as such inviting to motionless and fixed mental stances of contemplation, they never achieve this because they were perverted into being dynamic and inviting to restlessness and constant, irrepressible agitation of the mind. Moreover, the invitation to restlessness and inner agitation stands open for everyone, big or small, American or European, buyer or seller, customer or capitalist, client or therapist, therapist or supervisor. In the same way, it makes no more sense to discuss about spirit, culture or cultivation and elevation of the human mind. There is no more soul to be found (human soul, so to speak), merely numbers, percentages or raisings and fallings of the stock market, everything focused towards the ‘normal’ and the ‘obvious’ race for profit. Through the mathematical and statistical magic, the human perspective – but also the perspective of humans – disappears behind tables, charts, diagrams, and colourful histograms that show the increasing or decreasing trends of the market, of the population or the electorate, all in a constant motion and relentless fluctuation. Everything, from humans to numbers, or phones, becomes mobile; data and statistics about people are continuously changing because new variables are introduced at all times. On every level – commercial, psychological, or sociological – we will find the same pattern: a dynamic of statistically stratified individuals not allowed to consider themselves as individuals; not apprehended as persons, they appear to be dissolved and to float in some sort of all-engulfing social foam, where every bubble is perfectly illustrated by abstract numbers. Although the activity of a psychotherapist is in her/his cabinet and that of a supervisor is likewise, their true employment – as well as everybody else’s – is in the super-consumer-market, or the consumer-super-market, or the market of super-consumers. We have here a total reversal – an upside-down, or le monde a l’envers – of what was considered in other less postmodern times as being normal. People do not earn an income only to have money and to do whatever they want with it, but instead they are being paid to spend and to consume continuously in order to maintain the (super) market of consumerism, psychology, psychotherapy, or supervision alike. They are in the same (consumerism) boat in which we could include without any difficulty the psychiatry as well.