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Furedi -- "Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age"
Todd · 11/14/03 at 11:05 ET
Sociology professor Frank Furedi's recent book "Therapy Culture" is an interesting read. It discusses the cultural changes in modern life that have led to our current attitudes toward psychotherapy, he finds these changes mostly negative, and he concludes that our reliance on therapy in response to them is a predominantly negative trend. A review from the Telegraph: The thesis is described well in the middle of the review: In the therapeutic world-view, a person should not be emotionally dependent upon anyone else, but should be self-sufficient. Relationships with others should be distanced and mutually self-realising. When a relationship ceases to be so, it should be ended forthwith. Very few people can actually live like this: those that can tend to have peculiar and not very attractive personalities. Yet this is the ideal to which we are encouraged to aspire. We soon find, however, that a radically asocial or solipsistic life is deeply unsatisfying and even threatening. The slightest difficulty causes us major upset, but we have no informal network to turn to because we have pursued our own autonomy for so long. Enter the professionals into our lives, though the evidence for their effectiveness is slight to non-existent. The state also steps into the emotional vacuum. Politicians increasingly talk the language of therapy: they believe that it is necessary to boost our self-esteem, because of course self-esteem (in the opinion of the experts, which is founded upon nothing but prejudice) is necessary for the individual to function autonomously. But anyone who even so much as thinks about his self-esteem is doomed to a life of self-absorption. Exaggerated individualism leads in the end to a terrible lack of individuality.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2003/11/02/bofur02.xml&sSheet=/arts/2003/11/02/bomain.html
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