Assuming that "marginal" citizens cannot govern their own lives, proponents of the therapeutic state urge casework intervention to reshape the attitudes and behaviors of those who live outside the social mainstream. Thus the victims of poverty, delinquency, family violence, and other problems are to be "normalized." But "normalize," to Andrew Polsky, is a term that "jars the ear, as well it should when we consider what this effort is all about." Here he investigates the broad network of public agencies that adopt the casework approach.

An examination of the Western world’s contemporary fascination with psychological life, and the historical developments that fostered it. In this book, sociologist Katie Wright traces the ascendancy of therapeutic culture, from nineteenth-century concerns about nervousness, to the growth of psychology, the diffusion of an analytic attitude, and the spread of therapy and counseling, using Australia as a focal point. Wright’s analysis, which draws on social theory, cultural history, and interviews with therapists and people in therapy, calls into question the pessimism that pervades many accounts of the therapeutic turn and provides an alternative assessment of its ramifications for social, political, and personal life in the globalized West. Special Commendation, TASA Raewyn Connell Prize

Assuming that marginal citizens cannot govern their own lives, proponents of the therapeutic state urge casework intervention to reshape the attitudes and behaviors of those who live outside the social mainstream. Thus the victims of poverty, delinquency, family violence, and other problems are to be normalized. But normalize, to Andrew Polsky, is a term that jars the ear, as well it should when we consider what this effort is all about. Here he investigates the broad network of public agencies that adopt the casework approach.

The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education confronts the silent ascendancy of a therapeutic ethos across the educational system and into the workplace. Controversial and compelling, Kathryn Ecclestone and Dennis Hayes’ classic text uses a wealth of examples across the education system, from primary schools to university and the workplace, to show how therapeutic education is turning children, young people and adults into anxious and self-preoccupied individuals rather than aspiring, optimistic and resilient learners who want to know everything about the world. Remaining extremely topical, the chapters illuminate the powerful effects of therapeutic education, including: How therapeutic learning is taking shape, now and in the future How therapeutic ideas from popular culture have come to govern social thought and policies How the fostering of dependence and compulsory participation in therapeutic activities that encourage the disclosing of emotions, can undermine parents’ and teachers’ confidence and authority How therapeutic forms of teacher training undermine faith in the pursuit of knowledge How political initiatives in emotional literacy, emotional wellbeing and ‘positive mental health’ propagate a diminished view of human potential throughout the education system and the workplace. The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education is an eye-opening read for every teacher and leader across the field of education, and every parent and student, who is passionate about the power of knowledge to transform people’s lives. It is a call for a debate about the growing impact of therapeutic education and what it means for learning now and in the future.

Chiefly reprints of articles originally published 1965-1983. Includes bibliographies and index.

Self-determination is on the agenda of Indigenous peoples all over the world. This analysis by an Indigenous feminist scholar challenges the United Nations–based human rights agendas and colonial theory that until now have shaped Indigenous models of self-determination. Gender inequality and gender violence, Dian Million argues, are critically important elements in the process of self-determination. Million contends that nation-state relations are influenced by a theory of trauma ascendant with the rise of neoliberalism. Such use of trauma theory regarding human rights corresponds to a therapeutic narrative by Western governments negotiating with Indigenous nations as they seek self-determination. Focusing on Canada and drawing comparisons with the United States and Australia, Million brings a genealogical understanding of trauma against a historical filter. Illustrating how Indigenous people are positioned differently in Canada, Australia, and the United States in their articulation of trauma, the author particularly addresses the violence against women as a language within a greater politic. The book introduces an Indigenous feminist critique of this violence against the medicalized framework of addressing trauma and looks to the larger goals of decolonization. Noting the influence of humanitarian psychiatry, Million goes on to confront the implications of simply dismissing Indigenous healing and storytelling traditions. Therapeutic Nations is the first book to demonstrate affect and trauma’s wide-ranging historical origins in an Indigenous setting, offering insights into community healing programs. The author’s theoretical sophistication and original research make the book relevant across a range of disciplines as it challenges key concepts of American Indian and Indigenous studies.

"Philip Rieff has become out most learned and provocative critic of psychoanalytic thinking and of the compelling mind and character of its first proponent. Rieff's Freud: The Mind of the Moralist remains the sharpest exegesis yet to be done on the moral and intellectual implications of Freud's work. It was a critical masterpiece, worthy of the man who inspired it; and it is now followed by a work that suffers not at all in comparison. No review can do justice to the richness of The Triumph of the Therapeutic."—Robert Coles, New York Times Book Review "A triumphantly successful exploration of certain key themes in cultural life. Rieff's incidental remarks are not only illuminating in themselves; they suggest whole new areas of inquiry."—Alasdair MacIntyre, Guardian

Modern culture is obsessed with identity. Since the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision in 2015, sexual identity has dominated both public discourse and cultural trends—and yet, no historical phenomenon is its own cause. From Augustine to Marx, various views and perspectives have contributed to the modern understanding of self. In The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Trueman carefully analyzes the roots and development of the sexual revolution as a symptom, rather than the cause, of the human search for identity. This timely exploration of the history of thought behind the sexual revolution teaches readers about the past, brings clarity to the present, and gives guidance for the future as Christians navigate the culture's ever-changing search for identity.

This book tracks the dramatic outcomes of the federal government's growing involvement in higher education between World War I and the 1970s, and the conservative backlash against that involvement from the 1980s onward. Using cutting-edge analysis, Christopher Loss recovers higher education's central importance to the larger social and political history of the United States in the twentieth century, and chronicles its transformation into a key mediating institution between citizens and the state. Framed around the three major federal higher education policies of the twentieth century--the 1944 GI Bill, the 1958 National Defense Education Act, and the 1965 Higher Education Act--the book charts the federal government's various efforts to deploy education to ready citizens for the national, bureaucratized, and increasingly global world in which they lived. Loss details the myriad ways in which academic leaders and students shaped, and were shaped by, the state's shifting political agenda as it moved from a preoccupation with economic security during the Great Depression, to national security during World War II and the Cold War, to securing the rights of African Americans, women, and other previously marginalized groups during the 1960s and '70s. Along the way, Loss reappraises the origins of higher education's current-day diversity regime, the growth of identity group politics, and the privatization of citizenship at the close of the twentieth century. At a time when people's faith in government and higher education is being sorely tested, this book sheds new light on the close relations between American higher education and politics.

The silent ascendancy of a therapeutic ethos across the education system and into the workplace demands a book that serves as a wake up call to everyone. Kathryn Ecclestone and Dennis Hayes' controversial and compelling book uses a wealth of examples across the education system, from primary schools to university, and the workplace to show how therapeutic education is turning children, young people and adults into anxious and self-preoccupied individuals rather than aspiring, optimistic and resilient learners who want to know everything about the world. The chapters address a variety of thought-provoking themes, including how therapeutic ideas from popular culture dominate social thought and social policies and offer a diminished view of human potential how schools undermine parental confidence and authority by fostering dependence and compulsory participation in therapeutic activities based on disclosing emotions to others how higher education has adopted therapeutic forms of teacher training because many academics have lost faith in the pursuit of knowledge how such developments are propelled by a deluge of political initiatives in areas such as emotional literacy, emotional well-being and the 'soft outcomes' of learning The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education is eye-opening reading for every teacher, student teacher and parent who retains any belief in the power of knowledge to transform people's lives. Its insistent call for a serious public debate about the emotional state of education should also be at the forefront of the minds of every agent of change in society... from parent to policy maker.