Volume 23, Number 17 · October 28, 1976
Planned Obsolescence
By Christopher Lasch
Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life
by Gail Sheehy
Dutton, 393 pp., $10.95
Psychiatric self-help, the twentieth century's equivalent of 'self-culture,' commends itself as the shortest road to health and happiness, at least for those who can't afford regular visits to a psychiatrist. The market for books of psychiatric advice and consolation appears inexhaustible. The style of these manuals, however, has recently undergone a certain refinement. Exhortation has yielded to analysis, positive thinking to study of the laws of psychological development. The popularization of psychiatric jargon and concepts has created a half-knowledgeable readership that can no longer be satisfied with slogans and proverbs, formulas for winning friends and influencing people, injunctions to keep smiling.
Review, 1971 words
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