Control and Consolation in American Culture and Politics
Rhetoric of Therapy
- 216 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About This Book
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.
Critical case studies identify the extent to which therapeutic discourses are persuasive, including: the rhetoric of "family values"; media coverage of "support groups" during the Gulf War; Gloria Steinem's Revolution from Within; the film Thelma and Louise; and literature of the New Age Movement.
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Table of contents
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: On Therapy and the Therapeutic
- 1. Perspectives on the Therapeutic
- 2. The Therapeutic in History: Inventing and Disciplining the Modern Self
- 3. Family Therapies: From the White House to the âHood
- 4. The Support Group Nation
- 5. The Therapeutics of Feminism: From Self-Esteem to Suicide
- 6. The New Age of Post-Marxism
- Conclusion: Antidotes to the Therapeutic Hegemony
- References
- Index
- About the Author