by Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n
Commentary<\/em><\/p>\n A review of\u00a0One Nation Under Therapy. How the Helping Culture is Eroding Self-Reliance\u00a0<\/i>by Christina Hoff Sommers and Sally Satel (St. Martin\u2019s Press, 310pp, $23.95).<\/strong><\/p>\n A<\/span>fter every disaster in America, we are used to seeing large numbers of \u201cgrief counselors\u201d tending to the survivors and victims. After the terrorist attacks of 9\/11, nine thousand counselors descended on New York in order to provide survivors the psychological guidance and treatments thought necessary to help them cope with their trauma and forestall future negative aftereffects. Indeed, so ubiquitous is this sort of intervention that we no longer even think about it, yet according to\u00a0One Nation Under Therapy<\/i>, this phenomenon is just one example of a larger set of questionable assumptions and theories that permeate many of our educational and mental health institutions.<\/p>\n The authors call this nexus of theories and treatment \u201ctherapism,\u201d which is not the same thing as therapy per se; the latter, while occasionally descending into dubious ideas and treatments, just as often provides real benefits to patients. Therapism is something different: it \u201cpathologiz[es] normal human emotion, promoting the illusion that we are very fragile beings, and urging grand emotional displays as the prescription for coping.\u201d Christina Hoff Sommers is the author of\u00a0Who Stole Feminism<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0The War Against Boys<\/i>, both trenchant analyses of the baleful effects that some extreme versions of feminist theory have had on education. Sally Satel, like Sommers a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is a practicing psychiatrist and author of\u00a0PC MD<\/i>, which tracks how the practice of medicine has been compromised by identity-politics obsessions with race, gender, and poverty. Together they have written a biting expos\u00e9 of the various theories and treatments that therapism has insinuated into much of our public life.<\/p>\n One Nation Under Therapy<\/i>\u00a0is organized around the several specific practices that have been incorporated into many of our public institutions, starting with our schools. Dodge ball and tag, for example, have been eliminated in many schools because they inflict esteem-killing competition and exclusion on the \u201cfragile child,\u201d as Satel and Sommers call him, that helpless creature who wilts at the slightest breath of criticism, judgment, or failure. This widespread assumption of children\u2019s psychic vulnerability is enshrined in school programs and curricula despite the fact that, as the authors point out, \u201cthe prevalence of depression among children and adolescents has not significantly changed in the past thirty years,\u201d and that no scientific evidence exists that elevated \u201cself-esteem\u201d makes for success or happiness.<\/p>\n The authors next link these practices in the schools to the influence of the so-called \u201chuman potential movement,\u201d offspring of psychologists Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, which teaches that self-knowledge and fulfillment can be obtained \u201cthrough a regimen of self-preoccupation, self-expression, and psychic release.\u201d Non-judgmental acceptance, empathetic understanding, and the eager gratification of everyone\u2019s emotional \u201cneeds\u201d in order to build self-esteem are now the keys to happiness and healthy development. The ideal self awaits inside each of us, \u201cburied under a lot of wreckage put there by a judgmental, emotionally withholding, unforgiving, and oppressive society.\u201d We all just need to discover that more authentic self and feelings and accept them. But as the authors ask, quoting George Steiner, what if there is nothing to discover or accept?<\/p>\n This social determinism, which blames society for all psychic ills, has fostered as well the transformation of \u201csin to syndrome.\u201d As the authors show, the imperative to be \u201cnice\u201d and non-judgmental has changed what were once venial or even mortal sins to \u201csickness,\u201d and what were once sinners to \u201cvictims\u201d who are now entitled to our empathy and compassion (and frequently our tax dollars). What we have lost from this transformation is the \u201ccapacity for appropriate moral indignation and a willingness to censure irresponsible and destructive behavior.\u201d To Sommers and Satel, this medicalizing of moral failure has had its most destructive impact in the case of the pedophilic Catholic priests, several of whom were \u201ctreated\u201d for their \u201csickness,\u201d and then once \u201ccured\u201d sent out to prey again on children in their parishes. So too with addicts and murderers exculpated by those the authors call the \u201cchampions of therapism,\u201d who speak of \u201cailment, dysfunction, and brain disease\u201d rather than in terms of wrong choices, moral failure, and bad character.<\/p>\n The notion that public emotional expression has therapeutic benefits has also created the authors\u2019 next topic, \u201cemotional correctness,\u201d a whole set of public expectations about what constitutes the proper responses to tragedy and trauma. Despite substantial research showing that the \u201cexpression of feelings is not a sure pathway to fulfillment\u201d and instead \u201coften leads to unhappiness,\u201d people who have suffered tragedy are looked upon as somehow inadequate if they don\u2019t publicly obsess over their experience. In fact, most people rebound from tragedy quickly, especially if they have support from family, friends, or their religion. Indeed, \u201cwhen people are distraught, ruminating about their pain may only intensify the pain: repression and distraction can be the best remedies.\u201d<\/p>\n The final expression of therapism involves what Sommers and Satel call the transformation of \u201cpathos to pathology,\u201d visible everywhere in the idea of \u201cpost traumatic stress disorder\u201d (PTSD). The notion, unsubstantiated by empirical research, that traumatic experiences necessarily leave hidden dysfunctions in the psyche was invented by anti-war activists to pathologize Vietnam veterans. Since then, it has been extended to anyone who has suffered a traumatic experience, becoming \u201can archetype for the experience of adversity in our culture.\u201d\u00a0 Like emotional correctness, PTSD \u201cconfuse[s] pathos with pathology\u201d and \u201cpresume[s] fragility in the face of adversity.\u201d\u00a0 People who suffer tragedy are then assumed to need treatment administered by health care professionals who know better than the person, his family, his religion, and his cultural traditions how he should respond to misfortune. Contrary to what our great literature and religions teach, PTSD ignores \u201chow frequently survivors find sustaining meaning in heartbreak and how often they persevere nobly.\u201d<\/p>\n S<\/span>ommers and Satel finish with the best evidence of our resilience and strength, the response to the terrorist attacks on 9\/11. The nine thousand grief counselors and therapists of various stripes that gathered in New York ended up with very little to do, as most people had their own resources for coping with that disaster. The authors draw several valuable lessons from the victims\u2019 responses to 9\/11: minimizing \u201cdisorder, uncertainty, and economic devastation\u201d benefits people the most; many victims of trauma \u201ccan point to ways they have benefited from their struggle to cope\u201d with life-shattering disaster; and the mental health profession \u201cmust find a balance between offering its services and promoting them too eagerly,\u201d being careful not to assume that \u201cpeople are fragile\u201d or to \u201cunderestimate our natural fortitude.\u201d<\/p>\n One Nation Under Therapy<\/i>\u00a0provides powerful and convincing evidence not just of the inroads therapism has made into our public institutions, but also of the destructive consequences for a political order dedicated to autonomy and freedom, for as Sommers and Satel rightly point out, \u201cOnly a society that treats its members as ethically responsible and personally accountable can achieve and sustain a democratic civil order.\u201d The American political order in particular is dependent on the \u201cAmerican creed\u201d: \u201cself-reliance, stoicism, courage in the face of adversity, and the valorization of excellence.\u201d Unfortunately, the authors conclude, \u201cTherapism is at odds with them all.\u201d<\/p>\n My main reservation with this book regards its grounding in social science and social psychology, for I\u2019m not sure that the real problem Sommers and Satel address doesn\u2019t have its ultimate origins in the modern illusion that there can even exist a \u201cscience\u201d of human identity and behavior, given how complex, quirky, various, and unpredictable we are all. Thus Sommers and Satel answer a flawed study of well-being with one presumably more accurate, but it seems to me that both are vitiated by the subjectivity and fuzziness of terms like \u201chappy,\u201d \u201canxious,\u201d etc., psychological states notoriously difficult to define, measure, and assess consistently just in one person, let alone in a group. And their discussion of free will \u2014 traditionally the key to the ideas of freedom and self-reliance and justice and much else in our American creed \u2014 is much too brief and unsatisfactory, ending as it does with the utilitarian compromise that free will might not even exist, but it\u2019s socially useful to think so. Then what happens when it is no longer socially useful to think that free will exists, when public order and well-being can be achieved by discarding that idea? Political freedom has ever and always depended on the belief in the reality of free will and personal responsibility, but if neither exists, then democratic freedom is a mere delusion that ignores human nature, and social order should be handed over to the elite guardians who can manipulate and control all the deterministic forces afflicting us.<\/p>\n Sommers and Satel, however, are not writing as philosophers, and their attack on therapism in its own social-scientific terms is more likely to be effective than the complaints of cranky humanists. Their well-documented and clearly written tour through the bad science, shaky assumptions, and simplistic nostrums of therapism gives us powerful empirical evidence for resisting the attempts of the those in the \u201chelping culture\u201d to turn us into fragile children dependent on their advice and treatment \u2014 and subjected to their power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Therapism” offers an unsavory salve for emotional trauma. by Bruce S. Thornton Commentary A review of\u00a0One Nation Under Therapy. How the Helping Culture is Eroding Self-Reliance\u00a0by Christina Hoff Sommers and Sally Satel (St. Martin\u2019s Press, 310pp, $23.95).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[87,22,780],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1lD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6606,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/bruce-thornton-on-secure-freedom-radio-with-frank-gaffney\/","url_meta":{"origin":5185,"position":0},"title":"Bruce Thornton on Secure Freedom Radio with Frank Gaffney","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Seth Jones, Bruce Thornton, Peter Pham, Diana West October 9th, 2013\u00a0\u00b7\u00a0Comments SETH JONES, Associate Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation, joins guest host DAN BONGINO, to help explain the terror threat from and historical background of the terrorist organization al-Shabaab. BRUCE THORNTON, a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3351,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/foreign-policy-charity-should-start-at-home\/","url_meta":{"origin":5185,"position":1},"title":"Foreign Policy Charity Should Start at Home","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society The outbreak of protests and rebellion throughout the Middle East have quickly generated an orthodox narrative: When people suffering under brutal autocrats and dictators have finally risen up to satisfy the innate human longing for freedom and democracy, we should support these aspirations\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5514,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/just-deserts\/","url_meta":{"origin":5185,"position":2},"title":"Just Deserts","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Separating Hussein's execution from therapy. by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers In Mark Twain\u2019s\u00a0Tom Sawyer, a \"committee of sappy women\" petition the governor to pardon the murderous Injun Joe.\"If he had been Satan himself,\u201d Twain snorts, \u201cthere would have been plenty of weaklings ready to scribble their names to a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. 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Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":868,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/appeasement-bode-war-not-peace\/","url_meta":{"origin":5185,"position":4},"title":"Appeasement Bode War Not Peace","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 3, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Scambray New Oxford Review A review of\u00a0The Wages of Appeasement: Ancient Athens, Munich, and Obama's America\u00a0by Bruce S. Thornton. (Encounter Books, 2011 pp. 283) Winston Churchill famously said, \"An appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile hoping it will eat him last.\" In\u00a0The Wages of Appeasement: Ancient Athens,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2416,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-lovely-little-nato-intervention\/","url_meta":{"origin":5185,"position":5},"title":"A Lovely Little NATO Intervention","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine World powers sometimes have to fight wars not for some material interest, but for bolstering a nation\u2019s prestige in order to deter more dangerous aggressors. As Margaret Thatcher said after England\u2019s defeat of Argentina in the 1982 Falklands War, the conflict showed that \u201cnow\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. 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