The Rise of the Therapeutic Society: Psychological Knowledge & the Contradictions of Cultural Change. Katie Wright
The Rise of the Therapeutic Society: Psychological Knowledge & the Contradictions of Cultural Change
Examining the underlying assumptions regarding the self that underpin dominant critiques of the therapeutic society renders these readings problematic, but it also suggests a possible way forward.
Following the influential work of Nancy Chodorow, the concept of the relational self provides an alternative basis from which to understand personality development and thus also an alternative standpoint from which to consider the implications of weakening cultural/paternal/traditional authority.102 Jessica Benjamin's critique of the Oedipal repudiation of dependency (on mother/woman) and her appraisal of the ideal of (male) autonomy advanced in her theory of intersubjectivity also illuminates important facets of past theorizing. As Chodorow and Benjamin have both elaborated in theorizing self-other relationships, the Freudian view of development bound up with the ideals of autonomy and separation is a highly masculinist one.
In contrast to the Freudian privileging of the father's authority and the Foucauldian obliteration of connectedness, both Benjamin and Chodorow emphasize the relational dimensions of psychosocial development. In their accounts, it is the balancing of separation and connectedness that is critical, and they show how the dynamics of this process plays out differently for males and females. Whilst the complexities of their accounts of gendered personality development cannot be explored here, it is possible to utilize some basic insights from feminist object-relations theory to challenge the presumed gender-neutral self of Freudian and Foucauldian theory that have buttressed theorization of the therapeutic. A different account of personality development can thus provide the basis for an alternative sociocultural critique, one that includes women, and indeed recognizes gendered social processes more broadly, especially those associated with the division between the public and private spheres.
Though Lasch, for example, mounted his case against advanced capitalism, Eli Zaretsky establishes that capitalism itself gave rise to the particular form of family life premised on the patriarchal family, the very form that Lasch was trying to defend.103 "Defenders of the private sphere" (to borrow Benjamin's term) thus accept not only as inevitable but also as desirable the implicitly gendered dichotomization between a public rationality and a private realm of emotions.104 The major problem with this position is that it does not adequately consider relations of domination and subordination that have been associated with this split, namely women's exclusion—both physically and symbolically—from the public sphere, as well as the unequal and exploitative social relations between men and women, and indeed children, in the home.105 Thus the destabilization of the public/private split, lamented by Lasch and more recently by Furedi, becomes more complex in light of feminist and other social theory that interrogates assumptions about the sanctity of the domestic realm.
For as with the supposedly gender-neutral accounts of personality development which underpin many analyses of the therapeutic, a related set of suppositions about the public and private spheres takes for granted the historical emergence of a gendered division between the private world of home and family and the public world of politics, work, and civil society. As feminist theory has long recognized, the public has historically been constructed as the real world of politics, law, culture, and morality. In opposition, the private has been regarded as the world of sexual relationships, women, children, and virtue.
Zaretsky has shown too that the way in which the public/private dichotomy emerged with industrial capitalism was itself highly gendered. As work moved outside the home and the sexual division of labor became culturally entrenched, "society divided and the family became the realm of 'private life.'"106 Zaretsky provides a lead not only in understanding the gendered division of the public and private, but also in theorizing the relationship between the two spheres as historically shifting. The shift from household production to that of the market economy not only intensified the gendered character of public and private life, it entailed a devaluation of the private and the elevation of the public. The private thus became not only the realm of women and children, but also the site of emotions, which were increasingly excluded from the public sphere. Rationality thus came to characterize the domain of men and public life, as dependency and emotions were devalued and rejected as feminine.
In light of the historical dichotomization of the public and private spheres—in which masculinity was equated with a (public) rationality that suppressed femininity and associated it with (private) emotions—the unleashing of the emotional and the "private" into the public realm represents a decisive shift, one which has not surprisingly aroused significant disquiet. The rise of a therapeutic ethos in public life thus may be read, at least in part, as a feminization of the public sphere, a development that has disrupted the gendered organization of both private and public life. Rather than proceeding, then, from the assumption that the proper place for the expression of emotion and discussion of "private issues" is the domestic realm—critical and historical perspectives problematize the idealization of the public/private split advanced by cultural critics.
What is still largely missing in existing accounts is acknowledgment of the emancipatory potential of the change in the relationship between public and private life, and how "speaking out" about personal problems, or matters historically deemed to be private, has opened up new discursive spaces in which it is not only the powerful that can have a public voice.107 Rather than signaling moral collapse and cultural decline, the diminution of traditional forms of authority, changing gender relations, and shifts in the private sphere can equally be read as part of broader democratic currents characteristic of the contemporary era. In considering this issue, Anthony Giddens' analysis of late modernity, particularly his theorization of self-identity, intimacy, and processes of democratization, is particularly instructive.
Giddens suggests that while transformations in the personal sphere have generated new dilemmas they have also given rise to new possibilities of intimacy and self-expression. In contrast to readings of moral and social decline, for Giddens, "the transformation of intimacy" has opened up new opportunities for the democratization of the personal order, both in the sexual arena and in family life. As with the work of John Scanzoni, who has labeled changes in the family life as part of a "continuing revolution in personal life" in which women and children have gained greater power, Giddens' work suggests a less pessimistic reading of declining paternal authority.108
In his view: "There is only one story to tell about the family today, and that is of democracy … Democratization in the context of the family implies equality, mutual respect, autonomy, decision-making through communication and freedom from violence. Much the same characteristics also supply a model of parent-child relationships. Parents of course will still claim authority over children, and rightly so; but these will be more negotiated and open than before."109 Giddens' assessment of changes in the family and intimate relations has been questioned as overly optimistic and as failing to recognize the extent to which familial relations remain structured by differing power arrangements.110 Yet Giddens himself does not imply that these changes have resulted in the disappearance of authority altogether. Rather, his work points to the ways in which communication and negotiation have become key aspirations in the conduct of family life.111
Linked to broader sociocultural trends of democratization, transitions in the private sphere have nonetheless generated anxiety. According to Giddens, the modern self "has to be explored and constructed as part of a reflexive process of connecting personal and social change."112 In his analysis, therapy itself is highly bound up with the reflexivity of modernity and self-identity. Again, his interpretation offers a more ambivalent reading of cultural change: "Therapy is not simply a means of coping with novel anxieties, but an expression of the reflexivity of the self—a phenomenon which, on the level of the individual, like the broader institutions of modernity, balances opportunity and potential catastrophe in equal measure."113
Another alternative to overly negative assessments is similarly elaborated in Elliott's work. As with Giddens, he views therapy as deeply connected to late modernity, arguing that "psychological expertise offers reassurance against the insecurities of living."114 Yet there is another important dimension that emerges in Elliott's work, namely his recognition of the imaginary capacity of self-representation and self-construction characteristic of the modern era. Elliott cautiously suggests that the therapeutic may be an emancipatory response to late modernity. As he explains: "In