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Monday, October 17, 2005

# Posted 10:57 AM by Patrick Belton  

WRITING IN THE PAGES OF COMMENTARY, Bruce Thornton deftly takes apart the cult of 'therapism' which is at odds with each nobler virtue - 'self-reliance, stoicism, courage in the face of adversity, and the valorization of excellence.' For him and for the authors he reviews, post-tramautic stress syndrome, and its treatment through self-preoccupation and psychic release, has become archetypal for the experience of adversity in western cultures - with the precise effect of marginalising ways those who suffer can find sustaining meaning in heartbreak through reliance on classical, sterner virtues, and ultimately, and ironically, quite skillfully disempowering them.
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