My Prescription is A Long Confession
2-channel video, color, sound
5'54''
2024
When we attempt to find prescriptions for our life's dilemmas, social media suddenly offers a flash sale strategy for psychotherapy: quickly purchase our therapy services to seek solutions for your new discovered ADHD, bipolar disorder, anxiety, or OCD. Amid the ceaseless chatter of terminologies, a new mode of conversation is trained, a new sanctuary emerges. In traditional Chinese medicine, "gua sha" is a method of scraping and rubbing the skin until it bruises to expel the "qi" of depression. I firmly believe this repetitive self-harm is a religious guide to healing just as I believe that the pills encapsulated in prescription bottles possess a candy-like sweet healing power. I am forgiven, I am saved, and I sacrifice myself to boundless medical means.
This work aims to critique the new obsession with psychotherapy discourse and the consumerist orientation hidden behind it. The flood of psychotherapy terms erodes genuine psychological care and the voice of individuals with disorders. Meanwhile, the perfect combination of capitalism and healthcare makes therapy-speak as readily available as gym memberships, indulgences, and progressive lifestyles. I use voice and body language to establish seemingly endless repetitive behaviors: speaking, rubbing my body, and taking medication. Ultimately, what remains is not the fulfillment of real psychological needs, but a capitalist schizophrenia.