Psychologist explains how harrowing a real life 'Severance' would be like - Here's what we think

Imagine walking through the office turnstile and, at that very moment, forgetting everything that happened outside. Forgetting your relationships, your childhood memories, your personal struggles, even your full name.

In the series Severance (Apple TV+), this is the price paid to protect personal life from work, or perhaps the other way around. With a premise bordering on the absurd, the plot introduces us to a world where the division between personal and professional life is taken to the extreme, with deep psychological implications that painfully resonate with contemporary reality.

How the series Severance turns the metaphor of overwork into a chilling psychological experiment? And what does it reveals about us?

Inspired by the article What Severance Life Would Really Be Like, according to Psychologist Martha Newson, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Greenwich in England, published in Scientific American, this text explores the side effects of artificially separating mind and memory, connecting this fictional universe with concepts from psychology, speculative literature, and social critique.

Disclaimer: This is a personal and critical interpretation of Severance, meant to explore its themes through a psychological and cultural lens. It draws from external references to deepen the analysis, but does not represent the views of the show’s creators or affiliates. All interpretations are subjective and intended for reflection, not as definitive truths.

Dissociation as institutional policy

In Severance, employees of the enigmatic Lumon Industries undergo a surgical procedure that splits their minds into two: the innie, who exists only in the workplace, and the outie, who lives outside and has no access to what happens inside the company.

This split is initially presented as an effective way to balance personal and professional life, a dream sold to exhausted workers. However, as the organizational psychologist interviewed in Scientific American points out, this mental split simulates an extreme form of dissociation, often linked to trauma.

Severance turns dissociation into an institutional policy, suggesting that the corporate environment is so violent that it requires the creation of new identities to be tolerated. This dramatization isn't far from reality. Alienating work, burnout, and constant surveillance in the corporate world create conditions where individuals feel the need to mentally shut down in order to stay emotionally stable.

The fragmented self: metaphors and literature

The fragmentation of identity in "Severance" resonates with various examples from contemporary literature that explore the dilemmas of identity in oppressive environments. In The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris, the protagonist grapples with the performativity demanded by a predominantly white corporate space, feeling pressured to silence parts of her identity in order to be accepted. The split here is not literal, but deeply symbolic: the cost of survival is the silencing of subjectivity.

In Poster Girl by Veronica Roth, we find a dystopian world where memories can be reconfigured to create ideal spokespersons. The critique of institutional mind control and manipulation of personal narratives aligns directly with the themes of "Severance."

The mind as a contested territory is a recurring theme in speculative fiction, and in all these examples, the body may be present, but it is the psyche that is mined as a resource.

The normalization of surveillance

At Lumon, employees are constantly monitored. Their actions, conversations, and even emotions are under surveillance by systems reminiscent of Foucault’s panopticism, an invisible and omnipresent gaze that shapes behavior.

This environment echoes Black Mirror, where technology blends with mechanisms of subjective oppression. In the episode White Christmas, for instance, a person’s consciousness is duplicated to perform domestic tasks while the original remains free, a division not unlike the innies and outies in Severance.

When such surveillance is normalized, control becomes routine. The employee stops recognizing the absurdity of the situation and internalizes the boss’ gaze. The workspace becomes not just physical, but also mental. This is deeply explored in Homecoming, where soldiers’ memories are manipulated to facilitate reintegration into civilian life, suggesting that control over personal narrative is the new battlefield.

Free will and consent through the lens of neuroethics

One of the most disturbing elements of Severance is the ambiguity of consent. The outie chooses the procedure, but it is the innie who suffers the consequences, a being who never had a chance to choose. This issue touches on contemporary neuroethical dilemmas surrounding privacy, consciousness, and autonomy.

According to Scientific American, the existence of a version of yourself living in an eternal work loop, without sleep, memory, or freedom, is psychologically unsustainable.

This tension between choice and alienation is also present in Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. In the novel, young clones raised for organ donation accept their utilitarian fate without question. The absence of agency becomes the ultimate violence. Like the innies, these characters live in a reality constructed by others, where free will is a carefully maintained illusion.

The trauma of eternal return

The innies’ endless work loop, devoid of rest, family, or social life, is a harrowing depiction of over-work culture. The erasure of time outside of work, as pointed out in the Scientific American article, creates a form of existential suffering. It is the modern equivalent of Sisyphus’s punishment in hell, pushing the stone endlessly without knowing why.

The series Devs also explores repetition and determinism, imagining a system where all human actions are pre-programmed. In this logic, free will is a fiction. The innie’s suffering, beginning and ending each day in the same place with no real progress, mirrors the fate of Devs characters: knowing the future, but powerless to change it.

This idea also echoes in Lakewood by Megan Giddings, where Black women’s bodies are used for medical experimentation in the name of the greater good. Tests, controls, the stripping of agency, all align with the nightmare experienced by Lumon employees. Pain becomes routine, oppression becomes disguised as opportunity.

Love, memory, and resistance

Despite the dystopian atmosphere, Severance allows space for resistance. The possibility of affection, empathy, and solidarity among the innies shows that even under constant surveillance, the human spirit seeks connection. At this point, the series aligns with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where the protagonists, even after memory erasure, find each other again. Memory may be fragmented, but the desire for connection endures.

Made for Love follows a similar path, critiquing the fusion of love and technological surveillance. The protagonist flees a suffocating marriage where her mind is constantly monitored. Her struggle is, essentially, a fight for an inviolable internal space.

In Severance, this space is what the characters slowly tend to rediscover: the capacity to choose, to remember, to feel.

Final thoughts: When fiction reflects real life

Severance goes beyond criticizing the corporate world, it offers a powerful reflection on what we give up to fit into systems that don’t welcome us as we are. The show’s message hits close to home, especially in a time when burnout, disconnection, and emotional exhaustion have become part of many people’s daily lives.

The books and series mentioned throughout this piece show how fiction often holds up a mirror to reality. These stories help us make sense of how institutions can shape, and sometimes erase, our sense of self.

What Severance presents may look extreme at first, but it highlights something we already know deep down: that our value is often measured by how much we produce, even if that means hiding or giving up parts of ourselves.

When taking care of our mental health feels like a privilege, and having time for ourselves seems like a luxury, Severance asks some uncomfortable but necessary questions: What are we really sacrificing in the name of work? And how many pieces of who we are have we left behind, just to keep going?