What About Me?: The Struggle for Identity in a Market-Based Society
Author: Verhaeghe, Paul
ISBN: 9781922070906
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Year First Published: 2014
Pages: 272
Dimensions: 208mm x 135mm x 20mm
Format: Paperback / softback
Description
According to current thinking, anyone who fails to succeed must have something wrong with them. The pressure to achieve and be happy is taking a heavy toll, resulting in a warped view of the self, disorientation, and despair. People are lonelier than ever before. Today's pay-for-performance mentality is turning institutions like schools, universities, and hospitals into businesses - even individuals are being made to think of themselves as one-person enterprises. Love is increasingly hard to find, and we struggle to lead meaningful lives. In What about Me?, Paul Verhaeghe's main concern is how social change has led to this psychic crisis and altered the way we think about ourselves. He investigates the effects of thirty years of neoliberalism, free-market forces, privatisation, and the relationship between our engineered society and individual identity. It turns out that who we are is, as always, determined by the context in which we live. From his clinical experience as a psychotherapist, Verhaeghe shows the profound impact that social change is having on mental health, even affecting the nature of the disorders from which we suffer. But his book ends on a note of cautious optimism. Can we once again become masters of our fate - if we accept the challenge.
ISBN: 9781922070906
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Year First Published: 2014
Pages: 272
Dimensions: 208mm x 135mm x 20mm
Format: Paperback / softback
Description
According to current thinking, anyone who fails to succeed must have something wrong with them. The pressure to achieve and be happy is taking a heavy toll, resulting in a warped view of the self, disorientation, and despair. People are lonelier than ever before. Today's pay-for-performance mentality is turning institutions like schools, universities, and hospitals into businesses - even individuals are being made to think of themselves as one-person enterprises. Love is increasingly hard to find, and we struggle to lead meaningful lives. In What about Me?, Paul Verhaeghe's main concern is how social change has led to this psychic crisis and altered the way we think about ourselves. He investigates the effects of thirty years of neoliberalism, free-market forces, privatisation, and the relationship between our engineered society and individual identity. It turns out that who we are is, as always, determined by the context in which we live. From his clinical experience as a psychotherapist, Verhaeghe shows the profound impact that social change is having on mental health, even affecting the nature of the disorders from which we suffer. But his book ends on a note of cautious optimism. Can we once again become masters of our fate - if we accept the challenge.
