When did healing become a full-time job?

Let's explore the rise of therapy culture: how healing became a modern religion, how peace turned into a performance, and why the pursuit of “wholeness” often leaves us more fragmented than before.

Tracing a line from Saint Augustine’s theology of suffering to Freud’s invention of the inner self, from self-help optimism to Instagram therapy, we unpack how our understanding of pain and happiness has evolved and what we might have lost along the way.

With the help of Nietzsche, Foucault, Hannah Arendt, Byung-Chul Han, and bell hooks, we ask:

• When did self-awareness become a moral virtue?

• What happens when introspection replaces participation?

• And what might healing look like if it stopped being a performance and started being a practice?

Find me on the internet:

Website: www.aubreyaust.com

Instagram: @aubrey__aust

Hint of Trauma Instagram: @hintoftrauma