Eva Illouz 
Saving the Modern Soul 
Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help

The language of psychology is all-pervasive in American culture—from
The Sopranos to
Oprah, from the abundance of self-help books to the private consulting room, and from the support group to the magazine advice column.
Saving the Modern Soul examines the profound impact of therapeutic discourse on our lives and on our contemporary notions of identity. Eva Illouz plumbs today’s particular cultural moment to understand how and why psychology has secured its place at the core of modern identity. She examines a wide range of sources to show how self-help culture has transformed contemporary emotional life and how therapy complicates individuals’ lives even as it claims to dissect their emotional experiences and heal trauma.

Table of Content

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

Cultural Sociology and the Therapeutic

Therapy as a New Emotional Style

Texts and Contexts

Cultural Critique and Psychology


2. Freud: ACultural Innovator

Psychoanalysis as a Charismatic Enterprise

The Social Organization of Freudian Charisma

Freud in America

The Freudian Cultural Matrix

The Romance of Psychology and Popular Culture

Conclusion



3. From Homo economicus to Homo communicans

Emotional Control in the Sociology of Organizations

The Power of Control and the Control of Power

Psychologists Enter the Market

ANew Emotional Style

Emotional Control

The Communicative Ethic as the Spirit of the Corporation

Emotional, Moral, and Professional Competence

Conclusion


4. The Tyranny of Intimacy

Intimacy: An Increasingly Cold Haven

Beyond Their Will? Psychologists and Marriage

What Feminism and Psychology Have in Common

Intimacy: ANew Emotional Imagination

Communicative Rationality in the Bedroom

Toward the Ideology of Pure Emotion

The Cooling of Passion

Conclusion


5. Triumphant Suffering

Why Therapy Triumphed

The Therapeutic Narrative of Selfhood

Performing the Self through Therapy

ANarrative in Action

Conclusion


6. ANew Emotional Stratification?

The Rise of Emotional Competence

Emotional Intelligence and Its Antecedents

The Global Therapeutic Habitus and the New Man

Intimacy as a Social Good

Conclusion


7. Conclusion: Institutional Pragmatism in the Study of Culture


Notes

Index

About the author

Eva Illouz is a professor of sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a member of the Center for the Study of Rationality. She is also the Academic Director of the Program in Cultural Studies. She is the author of Consuming the Romantic Utopia: Love and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (UC Press; honorable mention, Outstanding Contribution Award, American Sociological Association, 2000); The Culture of Capitalism (in hebrew); Oprah Winfrey and the Glamour of Misery: An Essay on Popular Culture (Best Book Award, American Sociological Association, 2005); and Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism.