half of this website believes that all of your problems can be solved by going to therapy

another half thinks that the entire psychological profession is fake and after some vaguely construed revolution mental health will be solved

what's funny about this is that nothing about it new

I wish this wasn't paywalled because the books Lasch reviewed (in 1976!) sound very familiar. The same kind of dumb debates on this subject that occur constantly here are inherited from boomers

the point Lasch makes towards the end is that all of these books are grasping towards something that neither therapy or politics fully covers, even if both are obviously relevant.

but first, he does a tour through the books. he encounters people who believe all character traits are a product of "propaganda" and "conditioning" that can be fixed with therapy or therapy-like processes, and people who think therapy is a distraction from politics