Why read The Triumph of the Therapeutic?

Book cover of The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud

Book description

Since its publication in 1966, The Triumph of the Therapeutic has been hailed as a work of genuine brilliance, one of those books whose insights uncannily anticipate cultural developments and whose richness of argumentation reorients entire fields of inquiry. This special fortieth-anniversary edition of Philip Rieff's masterpiece, the first volume…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Triumph of the Therapeutic as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Dennis Hayes

Author

Rieff wrote this book in 1966. It is prescient in seeing the coming of what we now call ‘therapy culture’. It must be read to understand the profundity of the changes that we face over fifty years since it first appeared. He describes the collapse of traditional values and beliefs but sees nothing positive that could take their place. He warns of a fundamental shift in the entire continuity of our culture that is probably irreparable: ‘That a sense of well-being has become the end, rather that a by-product of striving after some superior communal end, announces a fundamental change…

From Dennis' list on The best books on how to recognise the therapeutic turn in education.