August Dispatch: GQ Article, Substacks on AI and Personal Growth, and Psychotherapy Events
- Aaron Balick
- Aug 17
- 2 min read
In the Media: Check out my latest articles for GQ Magazine:
What a 'midlife crisis looks like for millennials?
Contemplating 'what it's all for' used to hit around your 40s. Today, we’re asking ourselves that question sooner and sooner. Drawing on Jung, James Hollis, and Viktor Frankl, I explore how crises of meaning show up sooner in today’s world—and what we can do about them.
Want to survive the AI revolution? Find your inner masochist
As evidence grows that ChatGPT is dulling our brains, we have to learn to embrace pain and discomfort by choice. I argue that real fulfilment comes not from comfort but from embracing friction, discomfort, and challenge.
On Substack: Recent posts from Applied Psychodynamics
Why crises of meaning are emerging earlier, and how depth psychology can help.
Exploring the complex relationship between emotions, truth, and decision-making.
How necessary friction leads to growth and resilience.
Why leaning into discomfort is essential for balance and development.
Upcoming Event
September 13th: Social Media, AI, and the Self with Psyche Health
Digital technologies are not just tools we use but extensions of our psychological selves that shape identity, behaviour, and relationships in profound and often unconscious ways. While social media has helped de-stigmatise mental health and broaden awareness of neurodiversity, it also spreads misinformation and deepens polarisation through invisible algorithms. Beneath the platforms’ dizzying surfaces, however, the underlying psychodynamics—projection, transference, desire, identity, the need for recognition—remain deeply familiar. In this talk, I’ll explore how social media, AI, and related technologies mediate the self across intrapsychic, interpersonal, and sociocultural dimensions. Drawing on psychoanalytic ideas and cutting-edge research, I’ll offer a framework therapists can use to better understand clients’ digital lives across contexts and modalities.
This is an internal conference for Psyche Health clinicians, but if you want to keep abreast of my thinking in this area (and others) do feel free to subscribe to my substack!
