Foucault Posts

Can we model institutional gaslighting as a process failure of control?I recently handed my Predictive State Machine version of the Narcissistic Systems Model to the AGI Round Table to be stress-tested, analyzed, and mapped against political economy…

Do you every feel like you’re surrounded by people who make you despair at humanity? Or, that somehow, despite an obviously increasing number of shitheads, people treat you strangely when you call them out?That feeling, of having an almost t…

Welcome to part 2 of our series on how to spot a narcissistic system – this time via it’s patterns of tactics. From gaslighting, blame-shifting, triangulation and all the other famous mind games, to their less well-known cousins, like mo…

Welcome dear reader. This is the first post in a 3 part series on how to recognize a narcissistic system—be that a workplace, an institution, a family, or even a social circle.Why talk about narcissistic systems on a blog on loneliness?Bec…

Do you ever wonder why it seems so hard to connect? Do you repeatedly make the effort, only to be ignored, brushed off, or treated like the very act of wanting connection makes you strange?Why is this so common? And so painful?Today, w…

Have you ever left a therapy session feeling worse than when you arrived? Have you ever felt like the therapist really wasn’t getting what was going on for you, or had somehow made you the whole problem?When that happens, it hurts. You …

What if your therapist is using the same tactics as a narcissistic parent — and calling it treatment? What if therapy is teaching you to keep your hands burning on a hot plate, and alter your reaction to the fact that you are burning?Today, …

What do Joe Dispenza, Jordan Peterson, and music pedants have in common? Do they all secretly suffer from irritable bowel syndrome? Have they all been implicated in the extinction of a rare species of wombat? Sadly no, but you get to try and guess b…

Hello, dear reader. Today, I want to talk about one of the most insidious reasons you might feel lonely, isolated — and like you’re not good enough You might not know this, but those feelings are actually a typical outcome of a certain k…

Today, I want to really drill down into what MIGHT be the solution to loneliness—connection—and make clear how the values we hold as a society make that connection so damn difficult. My hope is that, in understanding that, the real solut…

Control – as both an aspiration, obligation and contributor to lonelinessIn this post, we’re unpacking more core values embedded in Western capitalism, as part of the wider project of exposing what lies behind our loneliness. To remind…