Call for Papers! The Psychgeist of Pop Culture: Severance

Author

Play Story Press
June 17, 2025

Since its premiere in 2022, Apple TV’s Severance has grown a significant following amongst fans of sci-fi psychological thrillers. The series explores a world where employees can undergo “severance,” an operation separating their memories and personalities between their “innie” work personas (their lived experience at work), and their pre-existing “outie” selves (their lived experience in their personal lives outside of work), each holding no knowledge of the actions of the other.The show has been praised for everything from itsinterwoven, mystery-laden plot to its cinematography and musical score, but much of Severance’s popularity comes from the show’s intentionality in setting up clues and breadcrumbs of information that consistently drive fans of the show to friends and message boards to analyze and discuss the gradually unfolding mystery of the world of Lumon. Throughout its run, Severance has explored themes of trauma, dissociation, workplace culture, identity, and so many others. In this volume, authors would explore ways that these themes are presented and relate to deeper psychological concepts. 

This book is part of the collection The Psychgeist of Pop Culture series published by Play Story Press. This book series highlights iconic pop culture content from television, film, literature and video games through an examination of the psychological mechanisms that endear us to these stories for a lifetime. 

Chapters in this book will explore a psychological theme or concept related to Severance. Several possible themes and topics are listed below, but do not consider this list exhaustive. You can feel free to propose a different combination of episode/topic than those listed below:

Possible Topics:

  • Dissociation and identity - How severance displays adaptive dissociation

  • Who Am I at Work?” — The Fragmented Self and Identity Dissociation

  • “Outie Me, Innie Me” — Ethical Dilemmas and the Morality of the Divided Self

  • The Sound of Division: Musical Themes and the Psychology of Severance

  • Corporate Cults — Organizational Control and the Psychology of Indoctrination

  • Fetishization of the Workspace in Severance

  • Memory as Identity: Episodic Memory, Amnesia, and the Construction of the Self

  • Shattered Identities: Race, Power, and Social Hierarchy in Severance

  • The HR Paradox: Human Resources as Both Protector and Enforcer

  • The Parts of The Severed Floor - Internal Family Systems at Lumon

  • Kier Eagan’s Ghost: Charismatic Authority and the Psychology of Leadership Myths

  • Surveillance and the Internalized Gaze: Panopticism at Lumon

  • The Office as Prison: Learned Helplessness and Institutionalization

  • Self help or Self-Harm: The Psychology of Self-Help in Severance

  • The Children Yearn For The Mines: Depictions of Child Labor in Severance

  • Corporate Rewards: The Illusion of Success and the Price of Compliance

  • The Inner Child, the Inner Self: Trauma, Repression, and the Severed Psyche

  • Milchik: Victim and Villain - Holding the Dual Roles of Perpetrator and Victim.

  • Helly R: “Come Now, Children of My Industry, and Know the Children of My Blood” - Generational Trauma Patterns at Lumon

  • Alternatively - Hely R: Resilience, Resistance, and the Psychology of Defiance

  • Mark S: "Every Time you Find Yourself Here, It's Because You Chose to Come Back." - Association andAvoidance

  • Dylan G: Coveted as Family - Shifting Values Systems and Identity Transformation

  • Harmony Cobel: “The Work is Mysterious and Important:” The Workplace as Identity

We particularly welcome submissions from first time authors and authors from non-traditional backgrounds. 

Send an abstract (of approximately 300 words) and your resume or CV to [email protected] no later than July 30th, 2025.