30 Posts — A Digest
This post will take you about five minutes to read
Thirty posts. Seven months of thinking out loud, occasionally arguing with myself in public, and hoping that at least some of it lands. Whether you’ve been here since #1 or just stumbled in — thank you for reading. I appreciate it more than the metrics suggest.
Before we move on, it’s probably worth a quick reminder of who I am and what I actually do.
Psychologist with 10+ years of experience, author, and member of the British Psychological Society. I use a sceptical, rational mindset and an economic model of the psyche to guide adults toward seeing where their own choices become a limitation. I work with people who struggle with boundaries, relationships, money, sex, anger — and emotions more broadly — helping them stop avoiding life and start engaging with it. The goal, in Freudian terms, is simple: to be a person capable to work and to love.
Sessions are weekly, one hour. The first meeting is free; after that, $500 per session, paid individually. Around session 10 we review progress and decide whether to continue — and on what terms.
If you’re wondering whether your issue fits, or if already decided — text to me in private messages or simply reply to this email.
And now — the main reason you’re here. Below is the full list of all 30 posts, each with a one-sentence summary, in case you missed something or want to revisit.
#1. Would You Rather?
An introduction to different therapy schools — behavioral, cognitive, psychodynamic — and how each defines human nature, suffering, and healing.
#2. Nature of Relationships
Relationships as resource exchange protocols: from simple transactions to insurance, clarity about the “deal” matters more than romance.
#3. Facing Labels
How labels hijack attention and energy, and when it’s wiser to ignore them rather than fight every word attributed to you.
#4. Resistance Through Expectations
How inflated expectations turn real progress into disappointment — a subtle form of self-sabotage.
#5. Responsibility
Proactive responsibility (caring behavior) versus passive responsibility (facing consequences), and why mixing them keeps people stuck.
#6. Wealth, Marshmallows and Injustice
How socio-economic status shapes self-control, choices, and willpower — and why judging people without context is lazy thinking.
#7. Right to Suffer
Suffering is unavoidable; consciously choosing what you’re willing to suffer for makes life more honest and bearable.
#8. Resistance from Secondary Gains
Hidden psychological rewards that make people cling to their symptoms and sabotage change even when they want to get better.
#9. Resistance from Lost Opportunities
The pain of realizing you “could have lived differently” — and how it makes people ruin new chances instead of embracing a better life.
#10. Resistance to Submission to the Tool
How people reject effective tools for success — from family help to boring routines — because using them feels humiliating or binding.
#11. Resistance to Sharing: When Success Feels Like a Debt
How the expectation to share success with others causes people to unconsciously sabotage their own progress.
#12. Humiliation as a Source of Resistance
The fear of humiliating people you care about by succeeding where they failed — and how it blocks growth, money, and love.
#13. The Nature of Conflict
A fight (behavior) versus a conflict (contradictory expectations over limited resources) — and why avoiding fights only preserves conflict in implicit form.
#14. Masturbation
Any activity that dulls a need without satisfying it — not just sexual, but any form of avoidance disguised as engagement.
#15. Three Levels of a Problem
The three layers of psychological analysis — from surface behavior to the hidden root cause — and why solving symptoms alone never works.
#16. True Realization
Knowing a fact, understanding it, and truly realizing it — why real change requires integration, not just intellectual insight.
#17. un(Happiness)
Research showing happiness and unhappiness are independent dimensions, not endpoints of a single axis — and how meaning amplifies both joy and pain.
#18. Home Stretch
The final phase of ending a relationship demands brutal honesty and confrontation, not polite withdrawal.
#19. Evaluation and Relationship
Challenging the self-esteem movement — why most people misunderstand self-esteem, and why lowering it is often more beneficial than raising it.
#20. Complaint vs Accusation
The psychological difference between complaining (from weakness/dependency) and accusing (from power/authority) — and why one raises anxiety while the other brings clarity.
#21. Joy
Distinguishing joy from mere pleasure using Vygotsky’s work on meta-needs — real fulfillment comes from pushing limits, not just satisfying basic needs.
#22. Local vs. Global Success
Achieving specific goals versus overall well-being — why the latter is harder to notice and can lead to “success depression.”
#23. Withdrawn Consent
How withdrawing consent retroactively can reshape your relationship with your past, particularly in parent-child dynamics.
#24. Fantasy
Why your own thoughts, feelings, and intentions should be treated as unverified hypotheses rather than facts — a stance of psychological uncertainty.
#25. Sexual Proliferation
A psychologist’s framework for understanding polyamory and open relationships — categorizing couples as “doomed,” “curious,” or “dedicated.”
#26. Acting in a Different Relationship
Why people sometimes act against their own interests by projecting invisible figures from past relationships onto present situations.
#27. (im)Possible-Changes
Things you cannot change because they’re physically impossible versus things you resist changing because they would alter your identity.
#28. The Mountain Lake Principle
A mountain lake fed by multiple streams as a metaphor for psychodynamic resistance — you can’t trace one cause to one effect.
#29. Dynamic Behavior
Static observation is a poor indicator of relationship health — only testing connections dynamically reveals their true state.
#30. Responsibility, Passive Acts, Health, and Sex
How silence, inaction, and even psychosomatic symptoms count as active choices in relationships — broadening the psychodynamic view of personal responsibility.
That’s the full arc. If you missed any of these, they’re all archived on the Substack. If you’ve been here all along — thank you for reading. And if you know someone who’d find this useful, feel free to share — always glad to have more interesting people around.
Until next week,
Konstantin Kunakh