It’s not always good to talk

This article discusses the ways in which individualism has become more prevalent in Western culture in recent years, creating a ‘culture of narcissism’, in which people are dependent on various forms of therapy as the everyday world has become an atomised space of interpersonal alienation. Increasingly, perhaps, we imagine that the proper place for emotional talk and reflection is the professionalized and relatively costly space of the therapeutic encounter. The article comments on the popularity of talk shows such as Trisha, the mass-marketing of books on ‘emotional intelligence’, and the manifold ways in which the vocabulary and terms of psychotherapy and counselling have entered everyday life and asks if psychologists should be preaching the importance of expressing and listening to emotional experiences informally, with friends and family and in other types of discursive practice.

Citation:
Ellis, D., Cromby, J. (2004) ‘It’s not always good to talk’ The Psychologist 17 (11) 630-631.