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 toward 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.
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'Therapy is indeed the new opium of the people, as Frank Furedi makes clear in this fascinating, readable - and disturbing - book.' - Virginia Ironside, The Independent
'Can it really be such a bad thing that we are now more aware of the place of mental health in our make-up? Furedi leaves us in no doubt that the therapy culture has invaded our media, our workplace, our intimate relationships and our politics. It is an interesting polemic. We should be grateful for the balance this book inspires'
- Community Care 25/4/04
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Frank Furedi is Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, Canterbury.
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Trying to make sense of the problems that confront us in a complex modern society is a challenge fraught with difficulty. Read the first page
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60 of 66 people found the following review helpful
By Jon Holbrook
Format:Paperback
With the title 'Therapy Culture' and the cover picture of a therapist's couch it is not immediately obvious why this book should be of interest to anyone outside the world of counselling. But titles and cover pages can be deceptive. Furedi observes that the notion of 'therapy' no longer refers to unusual problems or exotic states of mind. Everyday experiences are today readily given a psychological label like generalised anxiety disorder (being worried), social anxiety disorder (being shy), social phobia (being really shy), or free-floating anxiety (not knowing what you are worried about). Furedi shows that many everyday experiences are today medicalised and posed as a direct threat to one's emotional well-being. So therapy is not just about lying on the therapist's couch, it has become a way in which society expects individuals to understand and cope with life.
As a lawyer I was particularly interested in the chapter on therapeutic claim-making. Furedi argues that instead of looking to friends and informal networks for affirmation people nowadays tend to seek formal recognition by, for example, suing. Society's recognition of a variety of emotional injuries, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or other hitherto unknown conditions has enabled people to seek formal recognition for a variety of issues. As one claimant in a sex discrimination case put it 'I knew that I had been the victim, but I needed others to know it'.
The strength of Furedi's book is that he not only describes the growth and prevalence of a therapeutic culture in Anglo-American societies but he explains why it matters. The therapeutic approach, argues Furedi, becomes a means through which individuals are not so much cured as placed in a state of recovery. They are far more likely to be instructed to acknowledge their problems than to transcend them. At a social level the therapeutic culture teaches us to be victims and to know our place especially before an 'expert' whether he be a therapist, doctor, lawyer or general do-good community professional. This is an excellent and powerful book for those who seek genuine personal and social enlightenment.
39 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Frank Furedi's latest book is a highly readable and compelling study into the rise of 'therapy culture' in contemporary society. For anyone who is disturbed by the excessive emotionalism of politics, public life and culture, this well-argued book provides a welcome antidote. Furedi conducts an alarming survey of the extent to which counselling and therapeutic policies have spread into different areas of our private and public life. His conclusion, however, is not an attack against therapy per se, but rather, the culture of therapy which elevates particular emotions, the notion of 'self-esteem' and a highly individuated sense of fulfilment. The strength of the book is not to just describe this trend but to highlight its most corrosive aspects, particularly how the culture of therapy nurtures a culture of dependence, where people are increasingly encouraged to seek professional advice from 'experts'. Ironically, the professionalisation of emotion management does not make us more at ease with our feelings but rather more suspicious and undermines the existing intimate relations we do have. Highly recommended to anyone interested in contemporary social trends and culture.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
But keep hitting, Frank. "Therapy is a business", and an expanding business needs more and more consumers. So why not recast all of life's problems as disorders or syndromes or phobias and send everybody off for counselling? Remember that island where the inhabitants lived by taking in each other's washing? He assumes, though, that counsellors give counsel. They don't, they just listen (which could be what's needed). Advice is in short supply. Furedi is good on the way social problems have been redefined as individual problems - could this be to stop anybody banding together to try and cure their social problems? Social problems are redefined - or rather, maddeningly undefined - as Social Exclusion (this used to be called "deprivation"). Arts organisations are forced to tick boxes about inclusiveness in order to get their funding and this loathsome social worker speak spreads throughout the land. This book is full of typos and repetition, and would benefit from being broken up with headings and bullet points. And why not a few cartoons?
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