Every career is a story that tells more than just what we do. By looking closer at the stories of work, the ones we author, witness and occasionally imagine, we begin to notice subtle yet powerful forces shaping the way we think, feel, relate and make sense of ourselves and others, inside organisations and beyond them.

Psyentific offers a space to explore these forces. In a world eager to distil the infinite complexity, messiness and paradox of the human condition into scalable sessions promising clarity at speed, Psyentific slows down and resists the urge to simplify. It declines the invitation to inspire but accepts the one to notice. To notice what might truly be happening while others continue to stage certainty and expertise.

Similar to the moonlit spectacle depicted in Sequah on Clapham Common — a staged performance by a self-styled expert, complete with brass band, theatrical remedies and tooth-pulling drama — much of the corporate narrative around work is choreographed to impress, distract and sell. The original Sequah, a Yorkshireman in borrowed costume, reminds us how easily authority can be performed, and how spectacle often precedes substance. In the workplace too, roles are cast, scripts rehearsed and expertise enacted. But beneath the torches and applause, something quieter unfolds. It’s time to look beyond the veil — to notice what’s actually happening.

Sequah on Clapham Common by the Unknown artist (c. 1890). Oil on canvas. Courtesy ofThe Wellcome Collection, UK.
Image: Sequah on Clapham Common by the Unknown artist (c. 1890). Oil on canvas. Courtesy ofThe Wellcome Collection, UK. What do we begin to see when the performance falters—when the script slips, the spotlight dims and the spectacle no longer holds?

Some truths emerge more clearly through art and fiction: photography, painting, novel and film. Like workplaces, they rely on scripts, characters and performance. Often, they reveal what professional language obscures, surfacing the psychological machinery of organisations — and the people within them — for those who observe closely. With each adjustment of the aperture, literal and metaphorical, our own focus shifts, illuminating not just how we see the workplace, but how the workplace shapes what we see. 

At times, a photograph or brushstroke speaks more clearly to corporate realities than any leadership programme, glossy with platitudes but hollow beneath. Occasionally, the workplace dramas that we stream, enjoy and half-ignore, say more about the unspoken rules and hierarchies than the corporate evangelists would ever admit. And often, a passage in fiction, written with quiet brevity, captures more truth about organisational life than those who speak beautifully yet have little to say.

This is a space for those who want to understand the workplace — and life more broadly —  not as it’s presented, but as it’s lived, through the lens of psychology. For the silent and attuned, those being sold an alluring certainty yet refusing to buy it. Certainty impoverished of depth, devoid of insight. It's for the ones seeking the uncomfortable truths, the answers to questions that are so visceral, so human and so uncomfortable, they don't fit the polished narratives of the corporate slide decks.

Welcome to the community of critical thinkers who notice what others gloss over and pay close attention to the stories of work — the ones being spoken and the ones that remain unsaid.

Welcome to Psyentific.