Perform-therapy as a method for restoring identity under conditions of postmodernist fragmentation

Background. The identity crisis caused by the cultural context of postmodernism manifests in fragmentation, ironic detachment, and the loss of the ability for symbolic participation. Contemporary psychotherapeutic approaches partially address this challenge, yet they either reproduce modernist assumptions about a coherent self or employ postmodern deconstruction as a therapeutic strategy. Perform-therapy, grounded in Raoul Eshelman’s theory of performatism, is proposed as a new psychotherapeutic paradigm capable of restoring existential engagement without resorting to naive idealism.

Purpose. To provide a theoretical foundation for perform-therapy as a method for restoring identity under conditions of postmodern fragmentation of subjectivity and the loss of symbolic involvement.

Materials and methods. The primary method is comparative theoretical analysis, based on the juxtaposition of cultural and philosophical foundations of psychotherapeutic paradigms (modernism, postmodernism, performatism). The analysis draws on the works of Raoul Eshelman, neuropsychological studies of symbolic behavior, and observations from clinical practice. Elements of cognitive neuroscience and the anthropology of ritual serve as empirical support for interpreting therapeutic mechanisms.

Results. Perform-therapy is presented as an independent therapeutic model, distinct from narrative and existential therapies across several parameters: the nature of narrative, the role of artificiality, the function of irony, the client's mode of participation, and the ontological metaphor of therapy. Its central mechanism is double framing, through which the client recognizes the artificiality of the therapeutic frame yet embraces it as authentic, thereby bridging the gap between knowledge and belief. This stance is shown to activate universal cognitive-affective mechanisms, including the default mode network and ritual behavioral patterns, thus restoring the subject’s capacity for experience, action, and symbolic integration. Perform-therapy is found to be particularly effective in working with clients exhibiting features of postmodern identity (hyper-reflection, fragmentation of self, emotional alienation), and it is also applicable in self-therapy and culturally sensitive interventions. The proposed concept opens up prospects for the development of new forms of symbolic therapy suited to the post-postmodern era.