Instead of talking about 'pretending' [see Pretending Mode 1] we could talk in terms of bluffing - we bluff our way through life and we do so without facing the fact that this is what we're doing. If we 'faced the fact' then that would be the end of our bluff right there, so obviously that's no good! What we call 'neurosis' is where this bluff starts to disintegrate on us, and we try to fix it by 'identifying more strongly with the sufferer' , as psychotherapist Greg Tucker says. The mental health services exist to help us in this strategy...