Depersonalization as Escape Behavior

The first step to attaining help with one's mental health is, often, a harrowing one. Even in the most ideal of circumstances, one's neglected mental health means entering therapeutic care with a distorted sense of self and surroundings, an inherent distrust in the system present, and an adversarial relationship to those trying to help. This fact, combined with a society that actively stigmatizes mental health as weakness versus pathology, can often mean that one's first therapy evaluation is also their last.

As one of the performative segments in The Psychodynamic Sequence, Depersonalization as Escape Behavior is an atmospheric, looped sound environment that depicts an approximation of one's first step into a therapeutic experience. With altered mental awareness pamphlets that reflect the perspective of the reluctant patient paired with a narration of the bizarre reality that is filling out the New Patient Survey, Depersonalization as Escape Behavior is designed to place the audience in that mental space: a confession to an illness as if it were a sin, a moral failing, and the inherent paranoia that those ready to assist you will do so in good faith.