This book offers a compelling critical analysis of American society by examining the role of psychotherapy within social policy and the culture that has fashioned it. It takes a deeply critical look at 'the social clinic,' defined here as a ubiquitous organizational arrangement that includes clinical and community psychology, counseling, clinical social work, psychiatry, much of the self-help industry, complementary and alternative medicine and others. Epstein's analysis concludes that the social clinic lacks credible evidence of effectiveness and its continued popularity expresses popular but predatory American values such as romantic individualism, the triumph of the subjective, a sense of personal and political chosenness, persistent bigotry, and a preference for tribal as opposed to civic identities. This careful examination of American society through the lens of psychotherapeutic practice characterizes the social clinic as a soothing fiction of the United States. The book offers caring services as the unrealized alternative to clinical treatment, capable of achieving greater personal adjustment as well as social and economic equality. It will appeal to readers with an interest in social welfare, public policy, and public administration, as well as to students and scholars of psychotherapy, counseling, social work, rehabilitation, and community psychology.

This book offers a compelling critical analysis of American society by examining the role of psychotherapy within social policy and the culture that has fashioned it. It takes a deeply critical look at 'the social clinic,' defined here as a ubiquitous organizational arrangement that includes clinical and community psychology, counseling, clinical social work, psychiatry, much of the self-help industry, complementary and alternative medicine and others. Epstein's analysis concludes that the social clinic lacks credible evidence of effectiveness and its continued popularity expresses popular but predatory American values such as romantic individualism, the triumph of the subjective, a sense of personal and political chosenness, persistent bigotry, and a preference for tribal as opposed to civic identities. This careful examination of American society through the lens of psychotherapeutic practice characterizes the social clinic as a soothing fiction of the United States. The book offers caring services as the unrealized alternative to clinical treatment, capable of achieving greater personal adjustment as well as social and economic equality. It will appeal to readers with an interest in social welfare, public policy, and public administration, as well as to students and scholars of psychotherapy, counseling, social work, rehabilitation, and community psychology.

The conservative attacks on the welfare system in the United States over the past several decades have put liberal defenders of poverty relief and social insurance programs on the defensive. In this no-holds-barred look at the reality of American social policy since World War II, William Epstein argues that this defense is not worth mounting--that the claimed successes of American social programs are not sustained by evidence. Rather than their failure being the result of inadequate implementation or political resistance stemming from the culture wars, these programs and their built-in limitations actually do represent what the vast majority of people in this country want them to be.

However much people may speak in favor of welfare, the proof of what they really want is in the pudding of the social policies that are actually legislated. The stinginess of America's welfare system is the product of basic American values rooted in the myth of "heroic individualism" and reinforced by a commitment to social efficiency, the idea that social services need to be minimal and compatible with current social arrangements.