2 :: THE REINVENTION OF PERSONS
Self-reflection and critical self-examination are not qualities most people might
associate with parties, but psychologists and psychotherapists who run “speed
shrinking parties” apparently thrive on mixing advice and adventure in newfound
proportion. Parties of the speed shrinking variety represent a new trend in
psychotherapy, one geared to the denizens of a 24/7 media culture in which the desire
for fast lifestyles is matched by a desire for quick assessment of any associated
emotional problems. In a world of corporate networking, short-term contracts,
negotiated intimacies and just-in-time deliveries, the three-minute analytical session
offered by speed shrinking is one clearly geared to those seeking reinvention on the
run. This is no doubt a central reason for the explosion of interest in fast therapy, which
as Susan Shapiro – author of Speed Shrinking – notes has taken off “like wildfire”.The rapid-fire therapy dished out at speed shrinking parties, writes Vincent M.
Mallozzi in The New York Times, consists of “therapists, many sitting behind piles of
business cards and books they had written, hoping to achieve chemistry with their
newfound clients”. Such sought after chemistry, presumably desired as much by the
patient (read: client) as the therapist, needs to be mixed in three-minute bursts – for
this is a form of therapy in which overshooting the allotted analytic session time
equals only thirty seconds. Mallozzi reports from one such speed shrinking party the
plight of a middle-aged man worried about the tenure of his job, and increasingly
anxious at the prospects of finding himself unemployed. With the clock ticking on the
session, the therapist queried whether her client had any fallback skills, or perhaps
residual career ambitions. Nothing readily came to mind for the client, although the
desire to write a work of fiction is mentioned in passing. As the three-minute
deadline approaches, the therapist delivers her fast assessment: “Pursue this new
venture. When you are in a situation like this, you must reinvent yourself.” Therapy
and reinvention, it transpires, go together hand in hand.In this chapter, elaborating upon the theme of the reinvention of persons, I shall
critically examine the rise of therapy and uses of self-help literature. In examining
the pervasiveness of therapy in contemporary societies, I shall in the first section of
the chapter briefly consider the views of those writers who have suggested that
therapy represents an oppressive conformity through the management of people’s
emotions. Rejecting such evaluations, I want to suggest that therapy should be
understood instead as primarily a mechanism of self-reinvention, one increasingly
geared to speed and instant change. The second section of the chapter turns to
consider the centrality of self-help literature in reconstituting the self today. In the
final section I discuss the intricate connections between celebrity culture and
reinvention society.The following is excerpted from
Reinvention by Anthony Elliott.
©2013 Taylor & Francis Group.
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