The Bobo Dilemma: Psychotherapeutic Reflections on a Contemporary Myth

This paper investigates the psychological consequences of a social ethos that has emerged in the 1990s; the Bourgeois Bohemian (in short, Bobo) that claims that the bourgeois striving for financial success and status can be reconciled with the Bohemian striving for creative self-expression. An extended case history shows how a man in his thirties grappled with the inherent complexity and contradictions of the Bobo ethos. The question raised how, as psychotherapists, we can deal with the individual patient's search for a good life amidst the growing pressure of the Bobo ethos, to get the best of all possible lives, the combination of authenticity and success.