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

Sommers, Christina Hoff; Satel, Sally

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312304439 ISBN 13: 9780312304430

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2005

Synopsis

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.

About this title

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0312304439
• ISBN 13: 9780312304430
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320