Theorizing therapeuti culture · illustration, it considers two historic moments in Australia in which the therapeutic ethos became manifest in socio-political practices: the advent

T heorizing therapeuticculturePast influences, future directions

KatieWrightThe University of Melbourne

For close to half a century, social scientists and cultural analysts havewarned of the perils of the increasing influence of psychology, the rise ofcounselling, and an associated preoccupation with the self and internal life(Bellah et al., 1985; C loud, 1998; Furedi, 2004; Lasch, 1979; M oskowitz,2001; Rieff, 1959, 1966). From a variety of intellectual traditions and

Journal of Sociology © 2008The Australian Sociological Association, Volume 44(4): 321–336DOI:10.1177/1440783308097124 www.sagepublications.com

AbstractAnalyses of the influence of psychology and the growth of counselling duringthe 20th century commonly point to the deleterious effects of a cultural shiftfrom reticence and self-reliance to emotional expressiveness and help-seeking.Indeed, the ascendancy of therapeutic culture has been widely interpreted asfostering cultural decline and enabling new forms of social control. Drawing onless pessimistic assessments of cultural change and recent directions in socialtheory, this article argues for greater recognition of the ambivalent legacy of thetherapeutic turn.Through a reinterpretation of the consequences of the diminu-tion of traditional authority, the weakening of the division between public andprivate life, and the rise of the confessional, the article challenges dominantreadings of decline and control. In doing so, it draws attention to how psycho-logical knowledge and therapeutic understandings of the self have given legiti-macy to, and furnished a language with which to articulate, experiences ofsuffering formerly confined to private life. In advancing a less pessimistic inter-pretation of cultural change, it considers two historic moments in Australia: theadvent of telephone counselling in the 1960s and the Royal Commission onHuman Relationships in the 1970s.

Keywords: authority, confession, counselling, gender, public/private,therapeutic culture

theoretical standpoints, it has been widely argued that the ascendancy of amodern therapeutic ethos has been a pernicious and lamentable develop-ment, inciting cultural decline (Rieff, 1966) and narcissistic concern with theself (Lasch, 1979), and leading to a rise of victim culture (Furedi, 2004).W hile Philip Rieff and his followers predicate readings of the deteriorationof social and cultural life upon an interpretation of the therapeutic as remis-sive, analyses emphasizing the capitalist political economy, as well as thosefollowing M ichel Foucault (1978), advance an alternate critique of psycho-logical knowledge and therapeutic practices as insidious and regulatory formsof social control (C hriss, 1999; D onzelot, 1979; Lasch, 1979; Rose, 1990).

T his article seeks to problematize the orthodo x y of both social controland cultural decline perspectives, and to advance a more ambivalent read-ing of the therapeutic turn. F irst, an overview of the main strands in the his-tory of debates about therapeutic culture is presented. Second, assumptionsimplicit in dominant approaches, notably those concerning the importanceof traditional authority, the sanctity of private life and the rise of theconfessional, are questioned. D ra w ing on recent directions in social theoryand less pessimistic interpretation of late-modern culture and therapeuticpractices (E lliott, 1996; E lliott and Lemert, 2006; G iddens, 1991, 1992),the article develops an alternative account that pays greater heed to thecomplex and contradictory dimensions of therapeutic culture. By w ay ofillustration, it considers tw o historic moments in A ustralia in w hich thetherapeutic ethos became manifest in socio-political practices: the advent oftelephone counselling in the 1960s and the R oyal C ommission on H umanRelationships in the 1970s. In ex posing private suffering, these ex ampleslend support to a more ambivalent interpretation of cultural change, onethat ack no w ledges ho w attention to the emotional realm and ‘personalproblems’ has challenged a set of gendered arrangements governing bothpublic and private life.

Narratives of personal and cultural declineA persistent theme in critiques of therapeutic culture is that the conco-mitant focus on the self and internal life has fostered a pervasive moralcollapse (Bellah et al., 1985; F uredi, 2004; L asch, 1979; R ieff, 1966).U nderpinning this line of analysis is disquiet about the displacement of tra-ditional forms of authority, a concern definitively elaborated in 1966 w iththe publication of Philip R ieff’s seminal te x t T he T riumph of theT herapeutic, but foreshado wed earlier w ith his declaration that ‘the emer-gence of psychological man’ sounded the death k nell for W estern culture(R ieff, 1959). R ather than ‘directing the self outw ard’ to w ards communalpurposes – w hich in R ieffian sociology is the primary function of cultureitself – R ieff identified the driving impulse of the therapeutic as one of inte-riority. By contrast w ith the moral authority of religion, he argued that the

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therapeutic had given rise to the birth of a society in w hich ‘[the] self,improved, is the ultimate concern of modern culture’ (R ieff, 1966: 62).

R ieff’s preoccupation w ith a sacred order as essential to maintainingcommunal purpose reflects his debt to both D ur k heim and N ietzsche.H o wever, it is the F reudian view of the critical role played by a strong cul-tural super-ego in containing the id – both at the individual and collectivelevel – w hich underpins his interpretation of decline. In his view , the dis-placement of a religious framewor k w ith a psychological w orldview hasresulted in diminished levels of repression, and fundamental to his analysisis the assumption that the private domain of intimate and familial relationscannot form the basis of a moral order. W ith the decline of religious author-ity, psychological ex perts – ‘secular priests’ as N orth (1972) called them –are seen as having ta ken over the function of the spiritual guide ( H almos,1965; M osk o w itz, 2001). In contrast to the clergy w ho enforced the moralorder, the therapeutic professional, as interpreted by R ieff and those w hofollo w his lead, is regarded as an advocate of the id rather than an embod-iment of the cultural super-ego. T he role of the counsellor or psychothera-pist is therefore to bolster self-sufficiency through the eradication of thedread, guilt and an x iety that become manifest in the individual w hen tradi-tional authority has been supplanted by a preoccupation w ith the self( C arroll, 1977; C asey, 2002; G ross, 1978; R ieff, 1966). As M ichael C asey(2002: 82) puts it: ‘ A uthority, after all, is the foundational problem of ther-apy, the problem therapy w as created to solve’. R ieff himself argued thattherapists, as the pace-setters of change, have played a crucial role in thedecline of W estern culture, interpreting them as a pseudo authority ratherthan carrying legitimate moral weight.

A similar theme of moral indignation about the role of the helping pro-fessions emerges in C hristopher L asch’s (1979) analysis of the therapist asprincipally charged w ith consoling the discontents of the modern age. F orL asch, the reliance on psychological ex pertise undermines parental (butnotably paternal) authority. H is concern w ith the decline of authority in thefamily, and in particular his an x iety about the ‘absent father’, shares some-thing of the conservatism of the R ieffian tradition (L asch, 1979, 1984).H o wever, he couches his critique of the wea kening of the cultural super-egoin terms of the impact of capitalism on w or k ing life and familial relations.In his account of narcissism, the therapeutic ethos fosters a preoccupationw ith lifestyle and the self, a preoccupation w hich arouses individualism andhas led to the w aning of communal bonds and civic responsibility (see alsoBellah et al., 1985; M osk o w itz, 2001).

A fixation with the self, especially in relation to internal and emotional life,has been a key point of criticism of therapeutic culture. Y et the modern self isnot only valorized, critics argue, but at once pathologized. In Frank Furedi’s(2004) analysis, narratives of vulnerability and representations of a weak ,emotionally ‘at risk’ individual are hallmarks of contemporary therapeutic

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culture. W hile apparently less preoccupied than Rieff and Lasch with thedecline of traditional authority, Furedi is particularly troubled by the chang-ing relationship between the private and public spheres. H e argues that the‘disorganisation of the private sphere’ (Furedi, 2004: 83) represents a disturb-ing and destructive trend of devaluing private life, and he expresses a conso-nant concern that the proliferation of confessional narratives and discoursesof vulnerability have led to the diminishment of public life.

Narratives of social control and disciplinarydiscoursesW hile F uredi’s recent delineation of therapy culture accords w ith earlieraccounts of decline, his critique of the management and policing of emo-tions also resonates w ith social control and governmentality perspectives. Incontrast to the R ieffian reading of the therapeutic ethos as resulting inlo wer levels of societal repression, neo- M ar x ist and F oucauldian perspec-tives implicate the elaboration of psychological k no w ledges and therapeu-tic practices in new forms of social control and self-surveillance. In the1970s, L asch argued that under the conditions of advanced capitalisma preoccupation w ith personal change had become the sole means byw hich individuals could exercise control over their lives. Such strategies of‘psychic survival’ had brought about, in his view , an unfortunate shift frompolitics to self-ex amination. H e argued:

H aving displaced religion as the organizing framew or k of A merican culture, thetherapeutic outloo k threatens to displace politics as well, the last refuge of ide-ology. Bureaucracy transforms collective grievances into personal problemsamenable to therapeutic intervention. (1979: 13–14)

L asch’s view of the therapeutic as a mechanism of depoliticization has beenone of the most salient contributions to debates about therapeutic culture.Indeed, the personalization of social problems has been w idely read as itscentral impulse (C loud, 1998; C hriss, 1999; F uredi, 2004; M osk o w itz,2001; N olan, 1998; Polsk y, 1991). A ccording to this critique, therapeuticdiscourses and practices displace social and political action, stifle dissentand obscure structural and systematic disadvantage through the rhetoric ofindividual responsibility and consolation (C loud, 1998). As D ana C loud(1998: x ii) argues, consolation has established itself as ‘the prevailingstrategy of crisis management’ in modern organizations. T he systematicex pansion and institutionalization of counselling services targeting theunemployed has similarly been critiqued. F uredi (2004) follows L asch inunderstanding the dominant response to free-market capitalism as a retreatin w ards, but presents a somew hat different slant on this theme by arguingthat social problems are not only individualized, but are ‘recast’ as ‘emo-tional deficit’.


W hile sharing concerns of political economy critics about social control,interpretations informed by M ichel F oucault (1978) have developed analternative line of analysis (C hriss, 1999; D onzelot, 1979: N olan, 1998;Polsk y, 1991; R ose, 1990). In his genealogies of the modern self, F oucaultsho wed ho w the elaboration of the human sciences w as implicated in mod-ern systems of po wer and he drew attention to the centrality of confessionto the constitution of the modern subject. W hile Jacques D onzelot (1979),for ex ample, shared w ith L asch a concern about the intrusion of ex pertsinto private life, he follo wed F oucault in arguing that new forms of psy-chological k no w ledge were instrumental to the changing means by w hichpopulations were governed. In D onzelot’s analysis, psychological k no w l-edge, coupled w ith diminishing patriarchal authority, made possible thecolonization of the family. O n the one hand, according to this reading, ther-apeutic intervention operates as a means of ‘support’ for the middle classesw ho are able to choose w hen to begin and w hen to end treatment. F ormarginal populations, on the other hand, it operates as a po werful mecha-nism of normalization (C hriss, 1999; D onzelot, 1979; Polsk y, 1991).

C oncern about the role of psychological knowledge in relations of powerhas similarly informed feminist analyses of therapeutic culture and practices(Becker, 2005). T he overlaying of the therapeutic on pre-existing unequalsocial relations has, most commonly, been interpreted as yet another meansby which women have been controlled and disempowered. Feminist inter-pretations of the therapeutic have largely focused on the ‘psy-professions’and associated clinical practices, which are seen to personalize the politicalby valorizing the emotional realm and the inner life of women (Becker,2005; K itzinger, 1996). O thers have argued that the construction of mentalillness is a key way in which oppressive gender relations in patriarchy havebeen maintained through the authority of the psychiatric professions(C hesler, 1972; Showalter, 1997) and there has been widespread disquietabout the medicalization of women’s unhappiness, as evidenced by diag-noses of depressive disorders and the increased use of pharmaceuticals (Blumand Stracuzzi, 2004). Similarly, critiques of therapeutic cultural forms, suchas self-help literature and television talk shows, strike a particularly strongchord in feminist accounts. Such manifestations of a therapeutic ethos arecommonly regarded as merely a panacea for alienation and an impedimentto social action (Faludi, 1992; Lowney, 1999; Simonds, 1992).

Troubling dominant accounts of cultural declineand social controlAs the foregoing discussion establishes, social-theoretical literature of thepast half-century provides wide-ranging analyses of major dimensions of thetherapeutic turn. W hat distinguishes these varying interpretations fromthose emanating from within the therapeutic itself – exemplified by the


promise of the human potential movement and the industry of self-help thatit spawned – is a broad consensus that the therapeutic is inimical to socio-political, cultural and personal life. T hat this dominant narrative is sharedby vastly divergent intellectual traditions – from the conservatism of Rieffiancultural sociology to radical feminism, the materialism of neo- M arxism andFoucauldian analyses of power – suggests that it is a compelling critique.N evertheless, there remain important issues that have yet to be addressed.

W ithout resorting to an overly optimistic position, it is possible to challengeexcessively negative interpretations by problematizing underlying assum-ptions in orthodox readings and by paying heed to dimensions that havethus far been under-theorized, notably, how therapeutic culture is implicatedin shifts in the gender order and how it has facilitated a greater concern withsuffering in the private domain. As Iain W ilkinson (2005: viii) has recentlyargued, the failure to attend to the problem of suffering leaves sociologywith a ‘diminished account of the social reality of human experience’.T herapeutic culture cannot be adequately understood without considerationof the problem of suffering, however that may be defined. M oreover, mak-ing gender central to analyses of therapeutic culture invites a different inter-pretation of the consequences of the diminution of traditional authority, theweakening of the boundaries between public and private life, and the rise ofthe confessional. M ore optimistic, or at least more ambivalent, readings ofthese developments prompt a different set of questions about the effects ofthe therapeutic turn, in particular how it has fostered new moral concerns.From this standpoint, it becomes possible to understand therapeutic culturenot simply as either the harbinger of decline or as enabling new forms ofcontrol, but as an important cultural imperative that has fostered a greaterrecognition of pain and suffering in the private domain.

T he heightened concern with ‘private problems’ and the ascendancy of a‘culture of emotionalism’, as central characteristics of the therapeutic, have todate been interpreted predominantly in a negative light (C loud, 1998; Furedi,2004; Lasch, 1979; Sommers and Satel, 2005). Y et much unease about ther-apeutic culture has gendered undertones ( M cLeod and W right, 2009; W right,2006). M oreover, the composite picture that emerges from existing culturalanalyses still reflects traditional Freudian notions of authority and, moreover,is premised upon unproblematic readings of the dichotomy of the public andprivate spheres. T hrough a preoccupation with attempts to theorize the desta-bilization of the self, there has been, furthermore, a failure to identify anddraw out the implications of changes in the personal realm and shifts in thegender order. In short, there has been little analysis informed by feminist the-ory and, where it exists, it is limited by what W illiams (2000) calls a ‘foot onthe neck’ approach to understanding women’s subordination. Rather, utiliz-ing a framework of gender as a system of power relations (C onnell, 2002;W illiams, 2000) allows for a more complex conceptualization of gender, andcan provide the basis for an alternative reading in which the therapeutic is


more positively implicated in the destabilization of a set of traditional gen-dered arrangements governing public and private life.

Rieff’s (1966) influential reading of cultural decline reflects his conserva-tive view of the necessity of a hierarchically differentiated social order, aposition that is not advanced here. Y et his erudite delineation of the weak-ening of traditional authority remains the most cogent analysis of the socialand cultural issues at stake. In his view , a ‘cultural elite’ is fundamental forthe transmission of the ‘moral code’. T hus the diminution of the authorityonce embedded in the traditionally powerful figures of the clergy and, closerto home, the father, is interpreted as a precipitating factor in the collapse ofthe moral order. Lasch similarly advanced the view that the weakening oftraditional authority had brought grave consequences for self and society. Inmore recent accounts, narratives of personal and cultural decline continue tobe re-inscribed (Furedi, 2004; Sommers and Satel, 2005). H owever, to assessthe merit of this position, it is first necessary to interrogate the basis uponwhich its claims rest. C ritically, Rieff’s account of weakening culturalauthority is predicated upon a Freudian model of personality developmentthat regards the internalization of a powerful cultural super-ego as essentialto the development of an individuated personality and to social life morebroadly.

Y et critiques of cultural theories of narcissism (Barrett and M cIntosh,1982) and the ‘absent father’ (Benjamin, 1990) raise doubts that, in under-mining older forms of authority, the ascendancy of the therapeutic ethosleads inexorably to personal and cultural decline. Feminist theorists havedrawn on other psychoanalytic traditions, notably object-relations and ego-psychology, to question the salience of the Freudian account of infant psycho-sexual development which forms the basis of the cultural critique. As N ancyC hodorow (1978, 1989) and Jessica Benjamin (1990) have both elaboratedin theorizing self–other relationships, the Freudian view of personality devel-opment and selfhood bound up with the ideals of autonomy and separationis a highly masculinist one. Following Benjamin, who argues that the ideal ofthe individual embodied in the O edipal theory is not ‘universal and neutral,but masculine’, a critical analysis of the O edipal model renders it rather as:

… a version of male domination that w or ks through the cultural ideal, the idealof individuality and rationality that survives even the w aning of paternal author-ity and the rise of more equitable family structures. (Benjamin, 1990: 172–3)

T he main alternative standpoint to the F reudian informed cultural cri-tique is that available in the w or k of F oucault and his follo wers. Such read-ings have provided a valuable framew or k for understanding the regulatorydimensions of therapeutic culture and the w ays in w hich therapeutic dis-courses are implicated in contemporary forms of self-government (R ose,1990). Y et there are problems too w ith the implicit model of subjectivitythat emerges from F oucauldian theory. As A nthony E lliott (2007: 100–1)


has argued: ‘ F oucault’s obsessively self-mastering individual is intrinsicallymonadic, closed in on itself, and shut off from emotional intimacy and com-munal bonds.’ In contrast to the F reudian privileging of the father’s author-ity and the F oucauldian obliteration of connectedness, both Benjamin andC hodoro w suggest that the constitution of the self is grounded in relationsw ith others. T he central psychological tasks of development are thus asso-ciated w ith balancing separation–connection between self and other, ratherthan being reliant upon repression and authority. W hile the complex ities oftheir accounts of gendered personality development cannot be ex ploredhere, it is possible to utilize some basic insights from such K leinian influ-enced feminist object-relations theory to challenge the presumed gender-neutral self of F reudian and F oucauldian theory. A different account ofpersonality development can thus provide the basis for an alternative cul-tural critique, one that includes w omen and, indeed, recognizes genderedsocial processes more broadly, especially those associated w ith the divisionbet ween the public and private spheres.

F or, as w ith the supposedly gender-neutral accounts of personality devel-opment w hich underpin many analyses of the therapeutic, a related set ofassumptions about the public and private spheres ta kes for granted the his-torical emergence of a gendered division bet ween the private w orld of homeand family and the public w orld of politics, w or k and civil society (seeBenjamin, 1990; E lshtain, 1982; Z aretsk y, 1976). Both F reudian inflectedand F oucauldian informed perspectives commonly rest on conceptualiza-tions of an overly determined public sphere and an inadequately theorizedprivate one. T hough L asch, for ex ample, mounted his case againstadvanced capitalism, capitalism itself, as E li Z aretsk y (1976) establishes,gave rise to the particular form of family life premised on the ‘patriarchal’family, the very form that L asch w as trying to defend. ‘ D efenders of the pri-vate sphere’, to borro w Benjamin’s phrase (1990: 198), thus accept not onlyas inevitable but also as desirable the implicitly gendered dichotomizationbet ween a public rationality and a private realm of emotions. T he majorproblem w ith this position is that it does not adequately consider the rela-tions of domination and subordination associated w ith this split, namelyw omen’s exclusion – both physical and symbolic – from the public sphere,as well as the unequal and ex ploitative social relations between men andw omen – and indeed children – in the home ( Z aretsk y, 1976). T hus the ‘dis-organisation of the private sphere’ as the ‘main accomplishment of thera-peutic culture’ (F uredi, 2004: 21) becomes more complex in light offeminist and other social theory that interrogates assumptions about thesanctity of the domestic realm.

W hat is still largely missing in ex isting accounts is ack no w ledgement ofthe emancipatory potential of the change in the relationship between pub-lic and private life, and ho w ‘spea k ing out’ about personal problems hasopened up new discursive space in w hich it is not only the po werful that can


have a public voice ( W right, 2006). A n alternative w ay in w hich to under-stand the nex us between the therapeutic, authority and changes in privatelife is available in G iddens’ (1991) account of reflex ive modernity. H is anal-ysis suggests that, rather than signalling moral collapse or social decline,transformations in private life and the dissolution of traditional forms ofauthority represent a democratic current ( G iddens, 1992; see also Scanzoni,2000; W eeks, 1995). As G iddens argues:

A liberalising of the personal sphere w ould not mean the disappearance ofauthority; rather, coercive po wer gives w ay to authority relations w hich can bedefended in a principled fashion. (1992: 109)

Similarly, E lliott (1996: 57) argues that ‘[i]n terms of the opening out of thepersonal sphere, psychoanalytic theory and therapy can be said to offerindividuals a radical purchase on the dilemmas of living in the modernepoch’. T his perspective offers an alternative to accounts that stress culturaldecline and negative self-regulation. G iddens’ and E lliott’s readings suggestthat the opening up of the personal sphere has enabled a different set ofmoral and ethical questions to be posed from those associated w ith tradi-tional social order. E lliott and Lemert’s (2006) recent w or k on the role ofconfessional practices is instructive too. As they argue, confessional culture‘can promote a narro w ing of the arts of public political life; but it needn’t.T he public confession of private sentiments can, in fact, w or k the otherw ay’ (2006: 131).

As well as an at times self-indulgent preoccupation w ith personal ful-filment, therapeutic culture has facilitated the assertion of individual rightsto bodily autonomy, emotional well-being and personal safety. T hese areimportant moral dimensions w hich, in the remainder of the article, aregiven empirical consideration in tw o historical moments in A ustralia – theadvent of telephone counselling and the R oyal C ommission on H umanRelationships. T hese tw o ex amples capture some of the complex ity of theascendancy of therapeutic culture and further problematize prevailingaccounts of control and decline.

The advent of telephone counsellingIn 1958, just tw o years after television w as introduced into A ustralia, theReverend A lan W al ker of Sydney’s C entral M ethodist M ission w as appear-ing on a week ly evangelical television programme called I C hallenge theM inister (A B C , 2003). E ach week , W al ker w ould address a subject beforeta k ing questions from the audience. T he sho w w as enormously successful:reportedly the highest-rating evangelical programme in A ustralian history.Politically left, but socially conservative, W al ker’s evangelism struck achord. H e w as, according to Stephen C rittenden, presenter of A B C R adio’sT he Religion Report, ‘not someone w ho brandishes a Bible at you … hisstarting point [w as] people’s real, everyday lives’ (A B C , 2003). W al ker


clearly possessed a capacity to understand people’s everyday lives and thedifficulties they faced, for his appearances on television and radio prompteda significant number of people in crisis to telephone him directly and seekadvice. So desperate were some of the pleas for assistance and such w as thedemand for help via the telephone that, w ith the support of the C entralM ethodist M ission in Sydney, W al ker founded the first telephone coun-selling service of its k ind in the w orld: L ifeline.

Established in 1963, L ifeline provided a new model of social support forpeople in distress. W ithin days of commencing operation in A ustralia, thehelp-line had received more than 100 calls, and by 2007 w as ta k ing onaverage more than 1200 calls daily (L ifeline A ustralia, 2007). T he estab-lishment of a prevention programme of telephone counselling for parents ofabused children w as an initiative that followed. Bill C rews, director of theC risis C entre at Sydney’s W ayside C hapel, ex plains ho w their ‘Prevention’programme arose in the 1970s:

T he w hole idea came because one father came in w hose w ife that morning hadk illed their child and he said, ‘ W here do you go? I had come in various days andthe child had had a black eye or something and she w ould say it hit itself w ith aspoon or fell off its high chair. I k new there w as something w rong, but w here doyou go, w hen you have doubts?’ ( D eveson, 1978: 137)

T his man’s question – where do you go? – is a poignant rejoinder to vocifer-ous critiques of the therapeutic. As with other forms of social and psycholog-ical support, the advent of telephone counselling cannot simply be understoodas arising as a result of the decline of religious authority. Rather, its emergencesignalled a greater responsiveness of religious authorities to suffering in theprivate domain. Recognition of how (and why) therapeutic dispositions andpractices emerged in particular social and historical contexts makes possiblean alternative reading of these developments (van K rieken, 2004; W right,2007). C ertainly, as theorists since Lasch have reminded us, counselling is nopanacea for social ills, but neither is it simply a reflection of the collapse of themoral order. A more helpful understanding would begin with acknowledge-ment of the emergence of these services as part of a series of responses to suf-fering and social crisis – responses that are, moreover, not antithetical to socialjustice, but in which questions of justice are thoroughly implicated, includingattempts to prevent abuse of the less powerful in society.

Yet, in understanding the therapeutic turn, it is necessary to move beyond itsmanifestation in forms of individual and social support such as counselling andtherapy, as important as these practices clearly are. Indeed as both the remissivereading of the Rieffian standpoint and the regulatory interpretations of theFoucauldian perspective make clear, its cultural diffusion is arguably more pow-erful than its clinical manifestation. I turn now to a second historical examplewhich strikingly illustrates how the airing of concerns about emotional suffer-ing in the private domain has profoundly reshaped public discourse.


The Royal Commission on Human RelationshipsO n 21 A ugust 1974, A ustralian Prime M inister G ough W hitlam announcedthe establishment of a Royal C ommission on H uman Relationships. T heC ommission’s terms of reference were broad: ‘to inquire into the family,social, educational, legal and sexual aspects of male and female relation-ships’ (Royal C ommission on H uman Relationships, 1977: vol. I, ix). T hat‘relationships’ should warrant investigation by a Royal C ommission signalsthe extent to which private life – as distinct from ‘the family’ – had becomeby the 1970s a public and political concern. C ertainly the issue of abortionwas the precipitating factor, for as one of the C ommissioners was to laterwrite, the establishment of the C ommission was essentially ‘a political com-promise’ over moves to reform abortion laws (D eveson, 1978: 2–3). Y et,despite the motives driving the investigation, the C ommission subjected pri-vate life in A ustralia to political and public examination as never before.

D uring their investigations, the C ommissioners spoke on radio, televisionand at public forums, encouraging ‘ordinary people’ to share their views andexperiences on a wide range of issues affecting individuals and families.H undreds of people gave oral testimony and more than 1200 written sub-missions were received (Royal C ommission on H uman Relationships, 1977).T he voices of women, children, migrants, people with disabilities, thosefrom sexual minority groups and indigenous A ustralians were publicly artic-ulated and formally documented. A comprehensive picture of widespreademotional pain and suffering in the personal domain emerged, makingpublic experiences of distress, fear and abuse that had hitherto been largelyhidden. D omestic violence and child abuse were two issues that the investi-gation of family life uncovered. H undreds of cases of child abuse wererevealed to C ommissioners, including those from parents who had ‘battered’their children. O ne parent confessed that:

H e’d have been t w o w hen I first really used to get stuck into him. I used to punchhim. A nd I used to belt him hard. I can remember brea k ing w ooden spoons onhim. I used to get him around the throat, and I’d hit his head up against things,and I couldn’t understand w hy I w ould do this to a child. I used to be all sort oftense inside. It w as a terrible thing and w as just terrifying, but I couldn’t stop.(R oyal C ommission on H uman Relationships, 1977: vol. I V , 156)

Revelations about cases of abuse brought to light by the C ommission –from those w ho had been subject to maltreatment and violence as well asthe perpetrators – arose in the contex t of an increasing concern w ith fam-ily violence and the criminalization of child abuse both in A ustralia andinternationally ( D eveson, 1978; Pfohl, 1977; R oyal C ommission on H umanRelationships, 1977). In the mid-1970s, w hen counselling services were stilllimited in number in A ustralia, the C ommission proved to be not only ameans of gathering information but also provided an opportunity for peo-ple to voice their ex periences of personal distress, articulate their fears and


also seek advice on w here to go for assistance. T hat the issue of child abusearose and that parents had begun to seek help by the 1970s w as understoodby the C ommissioners as having been brought about by a number of inter-related factors:

C hange in public attitude has come about partly because of a gro w ing sensitiv-ity to the legal and human rights of individuals, partly w ith improved k no w ledgeof childhood development, and partly because of the increased importance ofoutside agencies to families. Private life is no w more public. (R oyal C ommissionon H uman Relationships, 1977: vol. I V , 160)

T herapeutic culture is deeply implicated in the growing recognition ofchild abuse and family violence. W hile professional intervention into privatelife may have subjected the less powerful and marginalized to ‘disciplinary’practices and control, as D onzelot and others have argued, it has often doneso in the name of those historically possessing even less power – women andchildren. T he Report of the Royal C ommission on H uman Relationships notonly threw light on experiences of suffering, but it revealed – as much soci-ological and psychological research has also done – that distress is notequally distributed throughout the population. T here is no question thattherapeutic culture has disrupted the boundaries between public and privatelife. Y et rather than reading this in terms of control and/or decline, it is pos-sible to view these developments in a more positive light (W right, 2006).T hrough the opening up of the private, the legitimizing of the emotionalrealm and the speaking of the hitherto unspeakable, therapeutic culture hasengendered more complex consequences – particularly for women and othermarginalized groups – than dominant accounts have thus far suggested.

The therapeutic turn: lifting the lid on private painT he establishment of telephone counselling services in A ustralia and theR oyal C ommission on H uman Relationships provide illustrations of ho wrevelations of distress and abuse arose w ithin a cultural climate that hadbecome amenable to public recognition of personal pain and suffering, andalso, importantly, ho w therapeutic strategies arose in response to emergentsocial dilemmas. As manifestations of therapeutic culture, they provide focalpoints from w hich to assess the limitations of dominant interpretations thatstress control and decline. W hile much critique of the therapeutic turn hascentred upon the privatization of social problems and the diminishment ofpublic life through new forms of confessional practice, there has been rela-tively little emphasis on the politicization of the private realm. Y et, in bring-ing the private into the public sphere, therapeutic culture – especially theconfessional mode – has been instrumental to the legitimation of emotionalsuffering through the opening up of a discursive space w hich has madepossible the discussion of personal pain.


Indeed, as personal pain has assumed legitimacy in the public domain,greater accountability for and recognition of distress has also emerged.F raming this as a gendered issue, the increasing legitimacy accorded to psy-chological and emotional life, as well as the public articulation of personalinadequacy and suffering, is also implicated in the disruption of a tradi-tional set of gendered arrangements governing both public and private life.Y et there is also another aspect. W hile casting their arguments in slightlydifferent w ays, R ieff, L asch and F uredi all regard the therapeutic self asessentially amoral – caught on a treadmill of meaningless self-improvementin an ultimately fruitless quest for subjective well-being. H o wever, to viewtherapeutic culture as amoral – regarding the preoccupation w ith self-grat-ification, pleasure and happiness as its only facet – is to fail to recognize itsmultidimensionality. W ithout dismissing the potential for narcissistic self-absorption, it is important to ack no w ledge that valuing the self also entailsrecognition of suffering, w hich has a thoroughly moral dimension. F romthis standpoint, the sanctity of the self in therapeutic culture cannot beunderstood merely as hedonistic and amoral. F or the therapeutic has itso w n moral logic, one in w hich the authority of the self can be marshalledto spea k against oppression. T o the ex tent that therapeutic culture encour-ages and legitimizes the claims of damage inflicted upon the individual –often in the private sphere – the argument of amorality becomes a prob-lematic one.

D ifficult political questions remain. W hile theorists since L asch haverecognized the depoliticizing tendency of the therapeutic, it is importanttoo to ac k no w ledge that lifting the lid on pain w as itself a politicaldevelopment. A s w ith second w ave feminism and the politicization of thepersonal, in the opening up of private life the therapeutic has been pro-foundly political. In moving for w ard, it is important to loo k carefully atthe historical processes that give rise to contradictions of the therapeutic,w ith an eye to both the potential for social control and hollo w individu-alism – in short, the negative strands – but also to the therapeutic’spromise: the potential for increasing caring relations and remedying formsof social injustice. W hat also has yet to be adequately considered is ho wconfessional narratives and the therapeutic ethos have engendered ne wconcerns w ith private suffering that challenge traditional (gendered)forms of authority in the name of those possessing less po w er. T he ascen-dancy of therapeutic culture has been instrumental in the e x posure ofabuse against some of the least po w erful in society by legitimizing emo-tional pain, furnishing a language w ith w hich to articulate injury to theself and in the development of e x pertise w ith w hich to redress the dam-age. R eading the therapeutic predominantly in terms of ne w desires forself-fulfilment and happiness obscures its multidimensionality and fore-closes recognition that it may not simply reflect an unfettered desire forhappiness, but rather a shifting orientation to suffering.


AcknowledgementsI than k K erreen Reiger and John C arroll for the many discussions abouttherapeutic culture w hich have helped shape my ideas on the subject, andJulie M cLeod for helpful suggestions on an earlier draft of this article.

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Biographical noteKatie Wright is a Research Fellow in the M elbourne G raduate School ofEducation at the University of M elbourne. H er recently completed doctoraldissertation examined the ascendancy of therapeutic culture in A ustralia.A ddress: M elbourne G raduate School of Education, University of M elbourne,V ictoria, 3010, A ustralia. [email: k [email protected]]


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Theorizing therapeuti culture · illustration, it considers two historic moments in Australia in which the therapeutic ethos became manifest in socio-political practices: the advent