Therapy culture
Subtitle: cultivating vulnerability in an uncertain age
By: Frank Furedi
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2004
Place of publication: London; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 245
Subjects: Social psychology; Emotions -- Social aspects; Psychotherapy -- Social aspects; Social problems -- Psychological aspects
Description: "Therapy Culture explores the powerful influence of therapeutic imperative in Anglo-American societies. In recent decades virtually every sphere of life has become subject to a new emotional culture. Professor Furedi suggests that the recent cultural turn towards the realm of the emotions coincides with a radical redefinition of personhood. Increasingly, vulnerability is presented as the defining feature of people's psychology. Terms like people 'at risk', 'scarred for life' or 'emotional damage' evoke a unique sense of powerlessness. Furedi questions the widely accepted thesis that the therapeutic turn represents an enlightened shift towards emotions. He claims that therapeutic culture is primarily about imposing a new conformity through the management of people's emotions. Through framing the problem of everyday life through the prism of emotions, therapeutic culture incites people to feel powerless and ill. Drawing on developments in popular culture, political and social life, Furedi provides a path-breaking analysis of the therapeutic turn."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [226]-236) and index
Table of contents: title: The culture of emotionalism; title: The politics of emotion; title: Targetting privacy and informal relations; title: How did we get here?; title: The diminished self; title: The self at risk; title: Fragile identity : hooked on self-esteem; title: Conferring recognition : the quest for identity and the state; title: Therapeutic claims-making and the demand for a diagnosis