Control and Consolation in American Culture and Politics: Rhetorics of Therapy

Cloud, Dana L.

doi:10.4135/9781483327921

Cited by 128 publications

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“…The coverage stopped short, however, of connecting the personal hardship of the attackers to the broader social context of economic recession and generalized economic anxiety. Instead, the press coverage of the attempts followed a pattern identified by Cloud (1998), who has argued that therapeutic discourse encourages audiences to "think of crisis, resolution, change, and stability as personal issues rather than as structural ones" (p. 160); and that in the contemporary system, "We are asked to shoulder the responsibility for change as individuals, no matter the extent of our suffering or the structural causes of our despair" (p. 165). The dislocation of attention to social issues like economic recession and social inequality into the realm of personal suffering and responsibility is the hallmark of the therapeutic frame.…”

Section: A1) Another New Yorkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…So, too, was his relationship with the citizenry. As Cloud (1998) has noted, the language of recovering and getting on with things in spite of trauma is a common characteristic of a therapeutic discourse that can discourage publics from dwelling on the causes and solutions of the crisis or trauma. In this case, President Ford was depicted as moving on from the attack; the language and imagery of these articles encouraged the reading public to do so as well.…”

Section: Media Frames Of Assassination Attempts As Psychopathologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cloud (1998) writes, "The framing of responses to the war [as to assassination attempts] represented a therapeutic displacement of political energy, effectively cordoning off and muting the voices of opposition . .…”

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confidence: 99%

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Deranged Loners and Demented Outsiders? Therapeutic News Frames of Presidential Assassination Attempts, 1973-2001

Hoerl

Cloud

Jarvis

2009

Communication, Culture &Amp; Critique

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There were seven assassination attempts on U. S. Presidents between 1973 and. In this article, we critically examine coverage of each attack in The New York Times and The Washington Post, describing how the coverage employs therapeutic discourse frames that position the President as vulnerable and portray the attackers as lonely and demented outsiders.Noticing contradictions in this pattern, we also identify counterframes, including those acknowledging the political motivations of the assassins, the diminished public sphere that is a context for those actions, and the contradictions in a legal system that denies the insanity pleas of those framed so extensively as mentally ill. Political science, psychology, and law enforcement researchers have recognized that assassination attempts are often driven by rational political and economic concerns. Our analysis thus points to the need for further research exploring therapeutic framing techniques of other instances of political violence that may discourage publics from thinking critically about protest, violence and tragedy in the United States.KEYWORDS: assassination attempts, media framing, protest, public sphere, therapeutic discourse, US Presidency coverage that has framed their discontent largely in terms of personal psychological disturbance.The tendency of journalists to foreground the personal psychopathology of would-be assassins has located these attacks in the private, deluded worlds of the attackers rather than as public moments of opposition or as markers of broader social anxiety.Cloud (1998) has labeled this dislocation of social problems into a private, familial or psychological frame therapeutic discourse (see also Cloud, 2003 a & b;Rockler, 2003). Such discourse emphasizes individual responsibility for and the necessity of private rather than societal response to social problems. Cloud (1998) writes,The therapeutic refers to a set of political and cultural discourses that have adopted psychotherapy's lexicon-the conservative language of healing, coping, Table 1). These cases share in common the fact that none was successful and all targeted sitting Presidents or the White House. In addition, all occurred after 1973, a year that marked the beginning of a period in U.S. history of economic downturn (Harvey, 1989). The state of the U.S. economy is important for the current analysis because economic concerns were considered to be connected to some of these attacks (see Clarke, 1982) and because Feierabend, Feierabend, Nesvold, and Jaggar (1971) have observed correlations between economic and systemic grievances and acts of political violence. INSERT TABLE 1Therapeutic Framing of Assassination Attempts 5Furthermore, these assassination attempts all took place in years marked by growing political alienation and frustration. Although collective protest was recognized as a powerful and legitimate form of political engagement during the 1960s, U.S. cultural life increasingly emphasized private, individualized concerns during the decades thereafter (G...

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Section: A1) Another New Yorkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Media Frames Of Assassination Attempts As Psychopathologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Deranged Loners and Demented Outsiders? Therapeutic News Frames of Presidential Assassination Attempts, 1973-2001

Hoerl

Cloud

Jarvis

2009

Communication, Culture &Amp; Critique

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“…The last characteristic is the emotivist ethic, according to which emotions are the underlying reason for moral decisions and for understanding the relationship with others and with oneself. However, Dana Cloud (1998) argues that the therapeutic ideas are used to pacify and weaken the criticism of modern capitalism. Her approach is based on a Marxist rhetoric analysis of several types of cultural products -films, news and feminist politics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The argument she proposes is that the language of therapy has become hegemonic because it is being used by politicians, managers, 51 Unauthenticated Download Date | 5/12/18 5:32 PM entrepreneurs, feminists and neo-Marxists. They use what Cloud (1998) called personalized and privatized explanations that reject determining systemic social problems such as discrimination, exploitation, poverty and wars. Personal development is an extension of the patriarchal discourse, and the books are a form of consolation, not of strength.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

I Am Worthy, I Want, and I Can: The Social Implications of Practicing Personal Development

Trifan

2016

Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai Sociologia

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ABSTRACT. This paper addresses the consequences of practicing personal development upon the daily life and interactions of individuals. In this context, I will describe how practitioners are applying the principles and techniques of personal development in order to transform the way individuals are relating to themselves and to others. In parallel, I will analyse how the ideology of personal development is assumed, by negotiation, in connection with the neoliberal project. This article aims to bridge a gap in the literature by showing how practicing personal development can restructure everyday experiences, emphasizing the negotiation of the intrinsic values of personal development techniques and how it (re)configures relationships and social interactions.

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The Bachelorette 's Postfeminist Therapy

Dubrofsky¹

2013

A Companion to Reality Television

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Control and Consolation in American Culture and Politics: Rhetorics of Therapy

Cited by 128 publications

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Deranged Loners and Demented Outsiders? Therapeutic News Frames of Presidential Assassination Attempts, 1973-2001

Deranged Loners and Demented Outsiders? Therapeutic News Frames of Presidential Assassination Attempts, 1973-2001

I Am Worthy, I Want, and I Can: The Social Implications of Practicing Personal Development

The Bachelorette 's Postfeminist Therapy

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