Optimize yourself! Or: the search for an abode for damaged life

Nowadays, it appears to be completely anachronistic to take time for something, for oneself and for others. "Appears", because to subscribe to this actually implies bowing to the diktats of the omnipresent capitalism. The sociologist Wilhelm Heitmeyer together with many collaborators completed a continuous study lasting over a period of 10 years on the "Deutschen Zustande" (German conditions). The social result was described by Heitmeyer as "raw bourgeoisie". "Optimize yourself" is therefore the catch phrase, which is rampant in the illustrious circles of the "entrepreneurial self". Everyone can become such a self, it only requires a few optimization, empowerment and management programs and the absolute belief in one's own strength. Social contacts nowadays come under the scrutiny of cost-benefit calculations. The self becomes a commodity or "human capital". The flexible person is expected to continuously discard ballast and to part company with everything old, even old values: and we the psychotherapists, where do we stand? The therapeutai (Gr.), the servants of the Deity or the devotees with their headquarters around Alexandria on the Mareotic lake, are first mentioned in Philo's script De vita contemplativa. They belonged to a group of men and women who wanted to provide a place for damaged life. In this article an initial attempt is undertaken in this respect. This also includes the question of whether psychotherapy can or even must prove to be a confined and limiting place of time and social activities as well as also being a place for damaged life. In this case, thought of in economic categories, psychotherapy would however apparently be anachronistic, alone, but this has been so ever since its emergence, from the very beginning.