Machine generated contents note: Introduction: On Therapy and the Therapeutic -- 1. Perspectives on the Therapeutic -- 2. Therapeutic in History: Inventing and Disciplining the Modern Self -- 3. Family Therapies: From the White House to the 'Hood -- 4. Support Group Nation -- 5. Therapeutics of Feminism: From Self-Esteem to Suicide -- 6. New Age of Post-Marxism -- Conclusion: Antidotes to the Therapeutic Hegemony
Summary
In this perceptive analysis, Dana Cloud traces the replacement of social and political activism by the pursuit of personal, psychological change. She identifies the new movement as the "rhetoric of therapy", where a persuasive cultural discourse that applies concepts such as coping and adapting replaces active attempts to reform flawed systems of social and political power. Cloud focuses on the therapeutic discourse that emerged after the Vietnam War and links its rise to specific political and economic interests
