Saving the Modern SoulTherapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help

“Illouz (2008) and Nolan (1998, 2002) cite in this regard the rise of a therapeutic ethos, which, Nolan argues, entered state bureaucracies to fill the void of meaning left by a rationalizing state.”

“…ideologies of the cold war period (Tadajewski, 2006a); humanist psychology and its influence on an American popular culture of self-actualization (Illouz, 2008); or contemporary neoliberalism (e.g. Shankar et al., 2006; Zwick et al., 2008) overshadow the notion that the human being is first and…”

“While sociologist of emotions Eva Illouz does not herself define sharing, this sense of the word is unmistakable in her definition of the therapeutic ideal as ‘the injunction to share all needs and feelings’ (Illouz, 2008: 227).”

“Although Freudian psychodynamic theories have engendered a hermeneutics of suspicion regarding all forms of repressed memories (Illouz 2008), the repression of traumatic memory and the ensuing silence have recently taken center stage (Ballinger 1998).”

“…principles of psychology into personal relationships, and the way we understand our selves: for example, that the structure of our personality is a function of significant events in our childhood and early family life (Illouz, 2007, see especially Chapter 1; Illouz, 2008, see especially Chapter 3).”

“The suppression of tears aligns with a “verbal overshadowing” (Illouz 2008, 245) that prioritizes linguistic disclosure over nonverbal therapeutic release.”

“In exploring this particular discourse, I seek to shed light on an erotic subculture (professional erotic dominance) that has received little attention from researchers, as well as contributing to a literature that explores rhetoric about ‘the therapeutic’ beyond traditional clinical settings (Becker, 2005; Cloud, 199…”

“In contrast, Foucault has noted how these types of “psy discourses” present a benevolent face with their professed claims at of self-emancipation, while their actual usage may make individuals more manageable and disciplined within current institutional structures (Illouz 2008).”

“…© 2013 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Following the steady individualisation of emotions that is prevalent in emotional education (Illouz 2008), the SEAL programme invests considerable faith in the ability of students to actively control their emotions.”

“Technology presses toward efficiency, standardization, and systematization, and the elimination of variability which requires inattention to individual differences (e.g. Illouz, 2008).”

“While previous scholarship has highlighted the interconnections between capitalism and self-help technologies (e.g. Hochschild, 1994; Illouz, 2008; McGee, 2005), this article’s contribution is to bring post-feminism into the equation and to demonstrate how popular psychology, neoliberal capitalism…”

“…the helping professions and possible remedies, including the consumer-oriented society in which we live—defining ourselves by the commodities we possess—including the ‘‘appropriate’’ communication styles emphasized in the culture of therapy, which are also promoted in corporations (Illouz, 2008).”

“However, it also substituted a new idea of conflict resolution, which relied on partners developing adequate linguistic techniques (Illouz, 2008: 134).”

“…Illouz and others working within the sociology of emotions, that the rise of emotional capital and a shift from more repressive to more expressive emotional regimes is a key aspect of the cultural transformation characteristic of late or liquid modernity more generally (Ready, 2001, Illouz 2008).”

“In contemporary society and within the context of an intimate relationship, the expectation of emotional disclosure is highly informed by the therapeutic discourse (Illouz, 2008).”

“This line of argument has continued through, for example, the work of Furedi (2003) and Illouz (2008).”

“…across socioeconomic status even in the more representative sample of Study 2, it appears that the therapeutic discourse underlying NM ideology is quite 418 Men and Masculinities 20(4) pervasive and is not restricted to the upper echelons of society, as often assumed (Messner 1993; Illouz 2008).”

“Eva Illouz (2007, 2008), for instance, has coined the term ‘‘emotional capitalism’’ to show the intimate relationship between the demand for emotional self-control and the logic of consumption in advanced capitalist societies.”

“…interventions, including a diagnosis, for difficulties associated with identity development, the labeling process might trigger a therapeutic identity narrative to explain his or her situation (cf. Furedi, 2013; Hayes & Wynyard, 2016; Illouz, 2008; McAdams, 2011; McLean & Pasupathi, 2012).”

“…of Eva Illouz who in a number of substantive works plumbs the therapeutic ethos by analysing and mapping its spectre, development and impact across consumer culture, work environments, class and gender relations, and prevailing ideals of well-being and ‘authentic’ selfhood (Illouz, 2007, 2008).”

“Self-help of any kind risks lapsing into individualistic projects of self-transformation (Illouz 2008).”

“logical discourse they are expressed in strict distinctions between men and women, children and adults, and again, normal and abnormal [41].”

“Eva Illouz (2008) offers unique insights into the development and nature of this culture in her penetrating critique of clinical psychology, approaching this topic through the lens of the sociology of culture.”

“…the lessoptimistic Freudian notion of the psyche, the convergence of Freudian psychology and the self-help ethos in American culture today was made possible precisely “because the language of psychotherapy left the realm of experts and moved to the realm of popular culture” (Illouz, 2008, p. 155).”

“…therapy do not always generate the forms of ‘ neoliberal selfhood ’ imagined by scholars as disengaged from broader sociocultural processes in the pursuit of individual success (e.g. Illouz 2008; Wilce & Fe-nigsen 2016).”

“The cultural resonance between those two discourses has also been pointed out by other scholars such as Illouz (2008), who has shown the constitutive role that suffering has acquired in narratives of the self shaped by therapeutic culture.”

“…not a model of feminine emotionality, but the feminization of masculinity, a hybrid model of emotionality which prioritized the male gender by stipulating that only the strong male mind would control the torrent of excesses which the attunement to the emotional self would spew forth (Illouz, 2008).”

“…and its dominance over psychiatry for much of the mid-century (primarily a North American story; Lunbeck, 1994); and the proliferation of psychotherapy and other talk-based interventions, popular psychology, and self-help movements (Caplan, 1998; Carr, 2010; Illouz, 2008; Kirmayer, 2007).”

“…mental illness and feeds discourses that encourage everyday people to feel compelled to work on themselves to meet prescribed ideals of wellness ( Illouz, 2008; McGee, 2005), potentially creating heightened anxiety and fueling constant regimes of self-care—including increased participation on…”

“Paradoxically, resistance to cultural outlooks can also result in a strengthening of the very views it opposes because resistance suggests “ recognition of their centrality ” (Eva Illouz 2008, 31).”

“However, it has largely overlooked what people do with therapeutic vocabularies and techniques and what they are ‘good for’ (see Illouz, 2008, p. 18).”

“Not only do they address adults, but they address adults who are assumed to be conversant in the language of therapy culture and compliant with its injunction to share (Illouz, 2008; John, 2016).”

“As various social critics have suggested, this discourse draws on psychological knowledge and utilizes therapeutic practices to define human behaviour in terms of health and pathology (Illouz 2008, Nolan 1998, Rose 1996).”

“Without a critical integral awareness, secular mindful therapy reinforces the therapeutic and wellness culture that sees the self as both the problem and the solution for society’s illnesses (Ilouz 2008; Rakow 2013).”

“…1994; Stearns & Stearns, 1985; Pfister & Schnog, 1997; Blackburn, 1998; Lewis & Stearns, 1998; Miller, 1998; Chodorow, 1999; Schlaeger & Stedman, 1999; Illouz, 2008; Reddy, 2001; Rosenwein, 2002; Corrigan, 2004; Lear, 2004; Nussbaum, 2004; Davidson, Bondi, & Smith, 2005; Gouk & Hills, 2005;…”

“This overlaps with other sociological scholarship indicating that informal selfhelp communities are common arenas of ‘reskilling’ [69].”

“While her career plans sounded typically bourgeois, the rhetoric of free choice was consistent with late modernity’s consumerism (Illouz 2008) an attitude distributed unevenly across the social field.”

“The aforementioned evidence that holistic practices contribute to recreate intimacy in a prison context is related to the fact that these “therapeutic narratives” through which inmates learn to narrate themselves are based on a language usage that has gradually gained more institutional recognition, both within prison…”

“Eva Illouz (2007, 2008) has coined the term “emotional capitalism” to refer to this wide cultural process in which psychological management and economic behavior have progressively shaped each other.”

“The importance on awareness and positive feeling must, simultaneously, be recognized as embodying the normalization of middle-class affective repertoires (Illouz, 2008).”

“Since Christopher Lasch’s (1979) famous critique of “the culture of narcissism,” it has become something of an orthodoxy within the critical social sciences, generally, and CMS, more particularly, to highlight the oppressive or in other ways problematic aspects of the individual pursuit of authenticity and self-realiz…”

“…disciplines of natural and social science, such as psychology, anthropology, sociology, medicine, and neurophysiology (Barbalet, 2002; Bendelow and Williams, 1998; Davidson et al., 2005; Ferguson, 1981; Fry, 2003; Grandey, 2000; Illouz, 2008; Lutz, 1986, 1988; Oatley et al., 2007; Rose, 1998).”

“…capitalist societies cluster around unveiling and representing hidden social suffering—environmental, humanitarian, consumer, labor, and emotional issues, to start (Boltanski 1999; Chouliaraki 2012; Erikson 1994; Hochschild 2011; Ilousz 2008; Krause 2014; Szasz 1994; Wilkinson and Kleinman 2016).”

“Illouz (2008) argues that an ideal of social communication was created, incorporating the view that we gain selfknowledge by introspection which can provide guidance in understanding, controlling, and dealing with both our social and our emotional environment.”

“…religiously or ideologically inspired ethics, self-evident tradition, traditional role behavior, and sensitivity to command, a number of detraditionalized societies make the transition to a new mode of social control centered on the self (Dean, 1999; Illouz, 2007, 2008; Rose, 1998, 1999).”

“If Illouz is right, the contradiction is only apparent: ‘The emotionalization of economic conduct and the rationalization of intimate relations have given rise to a form of selfhood in which strategic self-interest and emotional reflexivity are seamlessly interconnected’ (Illouz 2008, 239).”

“It is not difficult to see how individuals may be encouraged to engage in EI’s therapeutic practices to make sense of themselves, explore past feelings in relation to current thinking and behavior, and how EI may instantiate a sense of vulnerability and the need for support (Illouz, 2008).”