WHO ARE YOU WITHOUT YOUR JOB? Preview screening of the film "No Way Out" with a psychological discussion

What can happen when everything that defines your identity vanishes in one day: status, security, self-worth? Can identity survive without a professional role?

Join us for a preview screening of the new film by Korean cinema master Park Chan-wook (director of "Oldboy" and "The Handmaiden") — "No Way Out." It’s an uncompromising thriller with dark humor that delivers an unsettlingly accurate diagnosis of contemporary anxieties.

The protagonist, Man-su (played by "Squid Game" star Lee Byung-Hun), is a middle-aged man whose life seems almost perfect. He has everything: a beautiful home, a loving family and a well-paid job. When he is suddenly fired, his world falls apart. Man-su loses more than his salary — he completely loses his footing and his sense of security, both for himself and his family. He is willing to do anything to get back what he lost. Even eliminate the competition.

After the screening we invite you to a psychological discussion, where we will examine the relationship we form with our work. We will talk about various psychological mechanisms of unemployment and its impact on the sense of self, as well as the work ethic and the conditions that lead people to equate a person’s value with professional success.

• We will look at gendered and cultural models of approaches to work and their impact on family roles.
• We will address the psychology of aggression: what happens to a person cornered into a fight for status that becomes a fight for survival?
• We will discuss the fear of being replaced and the search for meaning in the age of AI and a merciless job market where everyone is "replaceable."
• We will try to find answers to how to build self-worth independent of professional shocks.

Participants in the discussion:

• Joanna Zawanowska — a certified psychotherapist, couples therapist, psychologist and cultural studies scholar; lecturer at the Medical University of Warsaw, she runs webinars, trainings and workshops for therapists, psychologists and doctors. She has participated as an expert in various discussion panels at the intersection of culture and psychology (e.g. at the Potem Otem theatre). Member of the Polish Society for Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. Advocate of a compassion-focused approach — Compassion Focused Therapy.
• Marta Bierć — a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, graduate of the Analytical Psychotherapy Study and the OPTA Family Therapy Study. For many years she was associated with the Children’s Clinical Hospital of WUM. Co-founder of the Warsaw Psycho-oncology Center foundation.