In the present decade, "co-dependency" has sprung up on the
landscape of American popular culture. Portrayed as an
addiction-like disease responsible for a wide range of personal and
social problems, co-dependency spawned a veritable social movement
nationwide. A Disease of One's Own examines the phenomenon of
co-dependency from a sociological perspective, viewing it not as
something a person "has," but as something a person believes; not
as a psychological disease, but as a belief system that offers its
adherents a particular way of talking about the self and social
relationships.
The central question addressed by the book is: Why did
co-dependency--one among a plethora of already-existing discourses
on self-help--meet with such widespread public appeal? Grounded in
theories of cultural and social change, John Steadman Rice argues
that this question can only be adequately addressed by examining
the social, cultural, and historical context in which co-dependency
was created and found a receptive public; the content of the ideas
it espoused; and the practical uses to which co-dependency's
adherents could apply those ideas in their everyday lives.
In terms of the larger American context, his analysis links the
emergence of co-dependency with the permeation of psychological
concepts and explanations throughout Western culture over the past
thirty years, focusing particularly on the cultural and social
impact of the popular acceptance of what the author calls
"liberation psychotherapy." Liberation psychotherapy portrays the
relationship between self and society as one of intrinsic
antagonism, and argues that psychological health is inversely
related to the self's accommodation to social expectations.
Rice argues that a principal source of co-dependency's appeal is
that it affirms core premises of liberation psychotherapy, thereby
espousing an increasingly conventional and familiar wisdom. It
simultaneously fuses those premises with addiction-related
discourse, providing people with a means of making sense of the
problems of relationship and identity that have accompanied what
Rice terms the "psychologization" of American life. This brilliant
analysis of the phenomenon of co-dependency will be of interest to
psychologists, sociologists, psychotherapists, and those interested
in American popular culture.
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