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

by Christina Hoff Sommers and Sally L. Satel

Book Overview

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. Today---with a book for every ailment, a lawsuit for every grievance and a TV show for every conceivable problem---we are at risk of degrading our native ability...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312304447
• ISBN13: 9780312304447
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Critical thinking thrives on controversy

I had the pleasure of reviewing this book earlier this year,along with an edited work of a similar theme by Cummings and Wright, for Cognitive & Behavioral Practice (13,98-101). While noting therein that "there is much with which to agree and more than a bit to dispute," I went on to argue that a principles read of both these texts can only improve our hope for a more reasoned and evidence based approach to assistance. The success of any provocateur may best be assessed through the polarization of responses to his or her points. Given that metric, Sommers and Satel have certainly succeeded in sampling of reviews placed here. Those sympathetic to their arguments rave while those opposed rant. This is fine, but let not the heat prevent force us back too far to benefit from the light. The real issue here is more about what psychology has become and will become in the future. Once a fledgling science of behavior crafted by august and critical thinkers, its scientific base has been diluted to homepathic proportions by ever increasing legions of well meaning but often undereducated quasi-professional providers for whom the notion of "intervention" is increasingly untethered to either specified mechanism or empirical outcome. This represents more than medocrity of application--it risks becoming a pernicious threat to our own understanding of ourselves and our essential human nature. That is the essential thesis Sommers and Satel ask us to consider carefully--no matter what one's personal disposition may be, it is a worthy and important matter to consider.

Critique of Nation Addicted to Therapy Transcends Politics

Sommers and Satel's thesis, which I find indisputable no matter what your politics, is that the therapy industry, driven by the human potential movement and making big bucks, has contributed largely to our nation's weakening psyche: We have become a bunch of over-sensitive cry-babies full of entitlement, divorced from common sense and self-reliance. What's really frightening is the manner in which the authors have put our therapy-numbed brains in the context of a post 9/11 world, a time in which we need to be tougher and more street-smart than ever. Woefully though, too many of us are still seduced by the fraud of the "fragile inner child," the cult of self-esteem, the obsession with removing morality and character in the name of "syndromes." The most salient point is the hiring of grief counselors to help people cope with the aftermath of 9/11. The rest of the world must be laughing at us for seeing the war against us as a matter of grief counseling. How dangerously weak we've become. One Nation Under Therapy is a bracing wake-up call.

A book that needs to be seriously looked at

I believe that the review by Hara Marano, posted by another reader, misstates much of what the book has to say. Interestingly, the authors are not at all against psychotherapy per se. They are against a culture which medicalizes certain disorders so as to reduce the sense of individual responsibility for the choices that people make. At the same time, they are against a species of one-size-fits-all turnkey psychotherapy promulgated and administered by what I, for many years, have referred to as the "trauma mafia." This term may be unfair as many of these individuals are caring and well-meaning. Sommers and Satel maintain that many of these interventions are unnecessary and sometimes have unintentional negative effects in that they may interfere with help naturally present in community and psyche. Some reviews have mainted that trauma counselors, whom the authors criticize, no longer use those methods that the authors are critical of. Were this only the case! I would personally advocate a worldwide moratorium on the training of both trauma and grief counselors. As a psychotherapist, supervisor, and teacher with over thiry years of professional practice, I would say that a good part of my experience and that of my colleagues jibes with much of what the authors have to say. We fortunately did not see what we were told we would see after September 11. Many believe that PTSD is a relatively rare disorder which usually resolves without specific psychological intervention. Marano states cognitive behavioral therapy has been extensively studied and has been found to be as least as effective as medication for many disorders. But a closer reading of psychotherapy outcome studies leads us to interpret claims of effectiveness with the utmost caution. The same can be said about much drug research. Although the problems with this research are beyond the scope of what I wish to write about here, the literature is there for those who would like to review it. Any book that makes the leap from patterns of thought (e.g., the human potential movement) to gross issues tearing at the very fabric of society is bound to take some liberties and may not always apply so neatly. However, One Nation Under Therapy in my view is not glib, and is extensively documented. Whether what the authors call "therapism" weakens society is open to debate, but the authors make some important points which should not be ignored. It's unfortunate that some here have dismissed a thoughtful and coherent thesis on the basis of presumptions about the authors' politics. I think that one can safely let the message speak for itself.

An engaging, provocative, and excellent book

Contrary to the misreadings of some reviewers, Sommers and Satel are not attacking therapy. Indeed, the second author practices psychiatry in an inner city drug abuse clinic. Rather, the authors provide a refreshingly trenchant critique of the inappropriate extrapolation of the therapeutic ethos to settings where it does not belong and may, in fact, be harmful. More importantly, their conclusions are well-grounded in empirical research, as anyone perusing their abundant endnotes can see. "One Nation Under Therapy" will doubtlessly incite powerful emotional reactions, both pro and con. But if it also stimulates critical thought about "therapism" in our culture, it will count as a resounding success.

Please, no guilt by association

Reviewers have noted that the authors are affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. I suggest that no one take this as having any bearing, pro or con, on the merits of the book. As a unabashed liberal in most matters, I am appalled by what has happened to this country since 1980 and am embarrassed to share a middle initial and surname with the current President. Yet as a clinical psychologist I can confirm much of what Sommers and Satel say about the blight of "therapism" that has overtaken us in the last 30 or so years. Painful as it may be to admit, every now and then there comes a conservative who gets something right. Sommers and Satel are two such. The case they make deserves to be taken quite seriously.