Modern psychology sometimes treats the individual mind as if it exists in a vacuum.

Thoughts are analysed in isolation. Emotions are framed as personal deficits. Distress becomes something happening inside the person. But this view is historically naïve.

Philip Cushman’s classic article Why the Self Is Empty (1990) reminds us of something uncomfortable: the way we experience ourselves is not timeless or universal. It is shaped by culture, economy, politics, and history. The “self” is not a natural object we discover. It is something our society quietly teaches us to become.

The Western Obsession with the Self

In contemporary Western culture, we are taught to constantly monitor ourselves: our thoughts, feelings, productivity, identity, growth. We narrate our lives inwardly. We optimise. We analyse. We ask: What does this say about me?

Cushman argues that this intense self-focus is not accidental. After World War II, Western societies shifted toward individualism, consumerism, and economic systems built on constant desire. At the same time, traditional sources of meaning – community, shared rituals, extended families, stable identities – slowly eroded.

What emerged was what Cushman calls the empty self.

Not empty because something is wrong with individuals – but empty because cultural structures that once provided belonging and purpose have weakened. The modern self feels a vague lack: of meaning, direction, connection. And this absence is experienced internally as low self-worth, confusion, emotional hunger.

So we try to fill it:

• with relationships
• with achievement
• with consumption
• with self-improvement
• with spiritual trends
• with social media identities

But nothing really sticks. The hunger returns.

When Everything Becomes About “Me”

In this cultural context, it makes sense that we interpret most problems through a personal lens:

• Why am I like this?
• What’s wrong with me?
• Why can’t I be better?

Our thinking loops inward. We constantly reference ourselves. We become hyper-aware of our own mind. This is often described as insight, reflection, or self-awareness – but it easily turns into rumination and self-surveillance.

From Cushman’s perspective, this is not psychological maturity. It is a cultural symptom.

A society that places the self at the centre will inevitably produce people who cannot see beyond it.

The more we look inward for meaning, the more disconnected we feel. And the more disconnected we feel, the more we look inward. A closed loop.

The Political Blind Spot

One of Cushman’s most provocative points is this: when we locate suffering solely inside individuals, we stop asking political questions.

We stop asking:

• What kind of society produces this distress?
• What has been lost collectively?
• Who benefits from our self-blame?

Instead, we personalise structural problems. Loneliness becomes a personal failure. Burnout becomes poor self-care. Anxiety becomes faulty thinking.

This is convenient. It keeps social systems untouched. And it keeps people busy fixing themselves.

What This Means for Clinical Practice

If perceptions of the self are culturally shaped, therapy cannot be ONLY an inward and self-isolated project.

In clinical work, we often meet clients who are trapped in self-focused thinking:

• constant monitoring of thoughts
• endless analysis of emotions
• internal explanations for everything

From a metacognitive and contextual perspective, this is not insight – it is a habit. A culturally trained pattern of attention.

Therapeutic work, therefore, is not about digging deeper into the self. It is often about doing the opposite:

• loosening excessive self-monitoring
• reducing rumination
• shifting attention outward
• reconnecting with life beyond the mind

We help clients step out of internal explanation loops and back into the world. Not by denying their personal experiences – but by changing their relationship to them.

Instead of asking Why am I thinking this?, we ask:

• Do you need to engage with this thought?
• What happens when you let it be?
• Where do you want to place your attention?

At first, it may sound like emotional avoidance but it is psychological liberation.

When people stop treating every inner event as meaningful data, they regain agency. They rediscover action, connection, values, and presence.

Beyond the Cult of the Self

Cushman’s work challenges the deepest assumptions of modern psychology. It reminds us that:

• the self is not a private project
• suffering is not only personal
• healing is not only internal

We are shaped by the worlds we live in, even intertwined. Language is socially constructed, so when we make sense of the world and our experiences, we use the language that we were taught.

So perhaps mental health is not about becoming a better self – but about becoming less attached to it – an idea that Eastern philosophy has been preoccupied with.

Not disappearing. But decentering.

Because meaning does not live inside the mind.

It lives:

• between people
• in shared practices
• in contribution
• in participation
• in belonging

The more we look beyond ourselves, the more we expand ourselves.