One Nation Under Therapy : How the Helping Culture is Eroding Self-Reliance

From Publishers Weekly
"Cancer patients who talk about their ordeal in therapy groups do not live longer," write Sommers (Who Stole Feminism?) and Satel (P.C., M.D.) in this suck-it-up polemic. For them, the pervasiveness of therapeutic thinking and practice in American life provides not healing catharsis but enervating psychic drag and evasion of responsibility. The authors marshal a litany of studies from a variety of perspectives, aiming to convince readers that taking one's lumps with as much equanimity as possible is far preferable to exploring one's feelings via an "unwholesome therapism"--or, worse, using one's "therapized" feelings as an excuse for bad behavior. Placing themselves in the tradition of Christopher Lasch and Allan Bloom, they begin with "The Myth of the Fragile Child," decrying the creeping prohibitions on dodgeball and tag (seen by some as too aggressive and competitive) on the nation's playgrounds as coddling. The next chapter, "Esteem Thyself," takes direct aim at the ideas of Abraham Maslow and self-actualization advocate Carl Rogers, while the following chapters chronicle the descent from "Sin to Syndrome" and "Pathos to Pathology," and track the enforcement of "Emotional Correctness." While basically a one-note book with little grace in its description of its foes, or in its insistent call for taking responsibility for one's own actions, Sommers and Satel's jeremiad will likely generate debate. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
Philosopher-turned-controversialist Sommers and psychiatrist Satel argue as forcibly against contemporary psychotherapeutic notions and nostrums as Sommers did against radical feminism in Who Stole Feminism? (1994) and The War against Boys (2000). The American Enterprise Institute colleagues question five pet doctrines of contemporary therapy by presenting the research evidence for and against them. That is, they review the relevant literature, letting its conclusions speak for themselves; though they are critical of the five shibboleths, they don't have to apply spin to be convincing. Properly conducted research doesn't, they show, back up the fashionable dogmas that (1) children are psychologically fragile and mustn't be stressed, (2) self-esteem is the sine qua non of psychological health, (3) what moralists call sins are expressions of mental illness, (4) the emotional effects of trauma must be acted out, and (5) all war and disaster witnesses suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Sure, some kids are hypersensitive, self-esteem isn't unimportant, PTSD is a real condition, and so forth. Folly and worse result, however, when the five dogmas are generalized as they are in current practice, a point Sommers and Satel drive home--anent dogmas 4 and 5, in particular--in the long sixth chapter, "September 11, 2001: The Mental Health Crisis That Wasn't." Well-written, well-informed public affairs argumentation. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
Americans have traditionally placed great value on self-reliance and fortitude. In recent decades, however, we have seen the rise of a therapeutic ethic that views Americans as emotionally underdeveloped, psychically frail, and requiring the ministrations of mental health professionals to cope with life's vicissitudes. Being "in touch with one's feelings" and freely expressing them have become paramount personal virtues. Today-with a book for every ailment, a counselor for every crisis, a lawsuit for every grievance, and a TV show for every conceivable problem-we are at risk of degrading our native ability to cope with life's challenges.

Drawing on established science and common sense, Christina Hoff Sommers and Dr. Sally Satel reveal how "therapism" and the burgeoning trauma industry have come to pervade our lives. Help is offered everywhere under the presumption that we need it: in children's classrooms, the workplace, churches, courtrooms, the media, the military. But with all the "help" comes a host of troubling consequences, including:

* The myth of stressed-out, homework-burdened, hypercompetitive, and depressed or suicidal schoolchildren in need of therapy and medication

* The loss of moral bearings in our approach to lying, crime, addiction, and other foibles and vices

* The unasked-for "grief counselors" who descend on bereaved families, schools, and communities following a tragedy, offering dubious advice while billing plenty of money

* The expansion of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from an affliction of war veterans to nearly everyone who has experienced a setback

Intelligent, provocative, and wryly amusing, One Nation Under Therapy demonstrates that "talking about" problems is no substitute for confronting them.



From the Back Cover
Praise for The War Against Boys by Christina Hoff Sommers, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year

"Provocative and controversial . . . Sommers's voice is impassioned and articulate."
- Marilyn Gardner, The Christian Science Monitor

"Ms. Sommers . . . makes [her] arguments persuasively and unflinchingly, with plenty of data to support them."
- Richard Bernstein, The New York Times

"This book promises to launch and influence an enduring national debate."
- Mary Eberstadt, The Washington Times


Praise for PC, M.D. by Sally Satel

"An excellent study of medicine and society."
- The Wall Street Journal

"A straightforward assault on disturbing and dangerous trends that have entered the arena of medical care."
- The New Republic

"An extraordinarily courageous, punctiliously researched, powerful new book."
- The Baltimore Sun



About the Author
Christina Hoff Sommers is the author of Who Stole Feminism? and The War Against Boys and is the editor of Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life, one of the most popular ethics textbooks in the country.

Dr. Sally Satel is a practicing psychiatrist and a lecturer at Yale University School of Medicine. She is the author of PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine.

Both authors are resident scholars at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.



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A gauntlet-throwing assessment of the culture of therapy. Sommers has made a career out of slaying sacred cows, trashing second-wave feminism, and arguing that boys get the short end of the stick in American schools and society (Who Stole Feminism? 1994; The War Against Boys, 2000). Part of her and Satel's take now on the culture of therapy is historical. If "therapism"-a phrase the authors borrow from British satirist Fay Weldon-gained ascendancy in the age of tell-all talk shows, it still isn't wholly new, with roots lying in the work of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. But the heart of Sommers and Satel's approach is a scathing assessment of contemporary life. The authors scrutinize everything from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to grief counseling. Americans, they claim, now cast everything in therapeutic terms, unwilling even to describe serial murderers as evil, but chalking up their heinous deeds to a generic version of "battered-child syndrome." Addicts avoid personal responsibility for drinking or shooting up by characterizing addiction as a disease. Sommers and Satel are especially concerned about therapy's effects on children. Indeed, their examples of its invasion of childhood can be breathtaking: that Girl Scouts can now earn a "Stress Less" badge by burning aromatic candles and practicing meditative breathing, or that numerous schools have discouraged dodgeball because throwing a ball at a child might make him feel besieged. Sommers and Satel contend that this pandering to children's feelings "pathologizes healthy young people" and is good neither for kids nor society. The authors, though, are long on critique and short on suggestions for change: they advocate reticenceinstead of wholesale openness and sharing, and urge parents to demand more homework-and the return of dodgeball. But readers are likely to wish for a chapter or two of more concrete proposals. Neither wholly original (the authors cite Wendy Kaminer) nor wholly surprising, yet certain to spark reflection and conversation. Agent: Lynn Chu/Writers' Representatives


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