[.ca] The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud (ISBN 1932236805)

The ties that bind:
In this brilliant work Philip Rieff expands on his first book on Freud, The Mind Of The Moralist. He looks at the moral aspects of the writings of Freud, Carl Jung, Wilhelm Reich and DH Lawrence, in which he sees the birth of Psychological Man and the victory of relativism. He observes that psychoanalysis was instrumental in breaking down standards of morality and undermining religion. But in the 19th century, rationalism had already weakened Christianity in its heartland. The negative trends that replaced it contain no positive symbolism and above all, require no commitment. Rieff does not deny the manifest genius of these authors and thinkers, but rejects their respective faiths of the inner God, hedonism and impulse. Defining faith as "the compulsive dynamic of culture," Rieff does not think that any of the aforementioned substitutes has what it takes to serve as integrating factor for Western culture. He considers the negation of concepts like good and evil as the base upon which personality is formed nowadays. The therapeutic society provides an easy, feelgood or "touchy-feely" substitute that leads to utter shamelessness. I'm not so sure about his criticism of Jung's idea of the immanence of God, but it cannot be denied that this often leads to New Age drivel and fake spirituality. The Triumph Of The Therapeutic is a brilliant study of faith and culture and the ties between them, whether one always agrees with the author or not. The writing style is elegant with many a bon mot and memorable turn of phrase.