Podcast Summary: “The Self Is A Prison”

Between Us: A Psychotherapy Podcast, Episode 52
Date: June 11, 2025
Guests: John Totten (host), Eyal Rosmarin (psychoanalyst), others

Overview

In this deeply reflective episode, psychotherapist John Totten engages again with psychoanalyst and writer Eyal Rosmarin to explore “the self as a prison”—how personal and collective belonging, subjectivity, and national and familial narratives can both anchor and imprison us. Through philosophical, clinical, and personal lenses, they discuss how subjectivity is shaped and bounded by social, political, and psychological forces, and what it might mean to “unself”—to loosen the rigid boundaries of self in favor of greater relationality and permeability.

Core Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Cost and Fabric of Belonging

• Belonging vs. Dissent:
  Eyal and John reflect on how belonging to a group, nation, or identity often requires compliance, sometimes at a significant psychological or ethical cost. Dissent, especially in high-stakes environments like Israel or large corporations, is perilous and can threaten not just status but safety.
  • “The cost of dissenting is so high, socially, psychologically, that people almost without exception, do what's required of them.” (Eyal, 08:40)
• Nationalism and Identity:
  They discuss the parallels between nationalism and the formation of individual subjectivity, noting how the narratives that sustain nations also shape family roles and self-understanding.

2. Psychological and Social Disintegration

• Technological Trauma:
  Modern technology streams trauma constantly into our lives, creating a sense of “floor dropping” anxiety and collective dread as global crises become omnipresent.
  • “We have the technology now for trauma from across the globe to be beamed into our nervous system all day, every day.” (John/Eyal, 11:19)
• Cycle of Instability:
  They reflect on the expansion of crises—political, social, existential—acknowledging that though history cycles through instability, today’s connectivity profoundly impacts the subject.

3. Subjectivity as Threshold and Prison

• Theoretical Frameworks:
  • Foucault’s “Homo Nationalis” & Agamben’s “Homo Sacer”:
    Rosmarin draws on these concepts to illustrate the threshold status of the subject—constantly negotiating between collective belonging and exclusion.
    • “Eyal calls this model a specter of the subject as a social creature constituted on the borderline of collectivity and in abandonment, a shadow self.” (John, 17:07)
• Subjectivity as Political:
  There is no “natural” self outside social power—subjectivity is constituted by rules, laws, and language from birth.
  • “There's no subject that is not a subject of... You are defined by rules, by laws, by language. Don’t, can’t make sense of yourself [otherwise].” (Eyal, 22:00-22:30)
• Being “Unselfed”:
  Inspired by Naomi Klein and Iris Murdoch, Eyal introduces “unselfing”—lessening the grip of rigid identity in favor of a more diffuse, connected, and relational subjectivity.
  • “So we have it in the world this notion that it's better to be less yourself. But we don't have it quite in psychology or psychoanalysis… Can we move away from [the prison of subjectivity] a little less? And then this term comes up which I think is very useful — unselfing.” (Eyal, 25:25-26:45)

4. Clinical and Everyday Implications

• Parenting and Deprivation:
  The struggle between personal needs and the demands of parenting mirrors the deeper conflict of being trapped within the “subject”—and often repeats childhood deprivation.
  • “The pain is this conflict between wanting to get my needs met and the situation calling on me to give up what I want.” (John, 34:05)
• Psychedelics and Liberation:
  John shares how patients using psychedelics report feeling more liberated and less traumatized—yet sometimes become more difficult relationally, suggesting that “healing” the self is not always straightforwardly positive for relationships.
  • “He calls it healing... But also healing can also mean our relationships, right? Like if I am a liberated person who feels no shame and no trauma, there are many things that I can do to alienate people around me...” (John, 28:46)
• Reframing “Aggression”:
  The pair challenge the idea that civilization represses inherent human aggression, suggesting instead that belonging and social systems are themselves productive of violence, exclusion, and rivalry.
  • “It's not that civilization is saving us from our aggression. A civilization is creating these levels of aggression.” (Eyal, 31:57)

5. The Work of Mourning and Melancholia

• Unresolved Loss:
  Echoing Freud, Eyal describes how personal and collective melancholia arises when we cannot let go of unresolved deprivations, leading to chronic longing and inability to move forward.
  • “Those places and experiences and times in our lives and people that have not given us what we need, that we are still in struggle with, that we stay with. So it's your deprivation from childhood that you are unwilling to let go. You're unwilling to say, I didn't get what I needed. I will move on to what I can have now. No, I have to stay in this because maybe I can rework the past and get in the past what I didn't get, which of course is impossible. So you have to stay stuck in it. That's melancholia.” (Eyal, 39:00-40:30)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the psychic burden of belonging:
  “Belonging comes at a price for ourselves and those we punish in order to maintain it. We work hard to belong. It's the fabric of our very subjectivity.” — John Totten (06:44)
• On the nation state and projection:
  “Under the veneer of democracy, it's a very white supremacist discourse as well. The whole story in Israel, Israel in the Middle East plays into that and represents that. I think we don't understand how much we're peons projections of this American story.” — Eyal Rosmarin (15:31-16:17)
• On “unselfing”:
  “So we have it in the world, this notion that it's better to be less yourself. But we don't have it quite in psychology or psychoanalysis… Can we transcend it?” — Eyal Rosmarin (25:30-26:45)
• On identity fluidity:
  “I am 100% Jewish and I'm 100% not Jewish. That's how I like to think about it. I'm not half anything. I inhabit different categories.” — Eyal Rosmarin sharing a friend’s perspective (47:42)
• On the fiction of boundaries:
  “Our ideology comes from the society around, which is all about boundaries and separation and sovereignty and control and blah, blah, blah. So how about we adjust our ideology to our knowledge that we are all intertwined?” — Eyal Rosmarin (57:15-58:05)

Timestamps for Significant Segments

• 00:14 — The “center will not hold”: Opening reference, themes of loss of order
• 03:07 — John contextualizes the episode within world and US turmoil
• 07:15–09:53 — Eyal on participation and the social cost of dissent in Israel
• 16:43 — Transition into philosophical concepts: Homo Sacer, Homo Nationalis
• 25:25–26:45 — “Unselfing” and the possibility of a more relational subjectivity
• 34:05–35:05 — Parenting, deprivation, and the pain of subjectivity
• 38:45–40:30 — Melancholia as refusal to move on from loss
• 47:42–48:16 — Fluid, plural identities and islands of self
• 54:02–55:51 — On the volatility and destructiveness of entrenched narratives
• 55:57–58:05 — Psychoanalysis beyond boundaries; call for a new ideology of permeability

Tone, Mood & Takeaways

The conversation is philosophical, searching, vulnerable, and at times tinged with anxiety, loss, and hope. Both speakers are open about their own struggles with identity and belonging, using personal anecdotes and patients’ stories to illuminate broader themes. The episode calls for humility, permeability, and a willingness to let go—not just of outdated narratives and boundaries, but also of the fantasy of a singular, stable self.
It closes with a tentative optimism: can we “adjust our ideology to our knowledge that we are all intertwined”? What would a psychotherapy of unselfing—and a politics beyond boundaries—look like?

For Further Thought

• How does “unselfing” differ from traditional concepts of psychological growth?
• In what ways do technologies and national narratives shape—and limit—our subjective experience?
• How can psychotherapy help individuals explore more permeable, less rigid forms of identity?

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the psychological, philosophical, and political forces that construct our sense of self—and the costs and freedoms that come from questioning those very constructions.