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Surplus Powerlessness: The Psychodynamics of Everyday Life … and the Psychology of Individual and Social Transformation, by , Oakland, CA: Institute for Labor and Mental Health, 1986, xii + 350 pages, $9.95
Power. It is a kingly word.
The first draft of this essay review was returned from the editors of Free Associations with a number of critical comments. Apart from those which dealt with points of clarity and of impoverished argument on my part (which I have tried to deal with more successfully in this later version), there was a general objection to the tone of my review, summed up by the criticism that ‘it seems like a very long article that mainly slams a book’. As I dislike articles like that, I had a careful look at what I had written and had to agree with the editors. It is not that I could find nothing of value in the book: even in the first draft I pointed to descriptions, analyses and arguments in which Lerner has made a substantial contribution to me literature on what might be termed ‘radical therapy’. Rather, I showed irritation with what transpires in this book, with the claims it makes, but even more with its style.
This is to present itself as ‘a new kind of self-help book’ (p. xii), telling the reader not only what is wrong with the life she or he lives, but how to do something about it. Both the analysis and the prescription have much to offer, but the attempt to ‘democratize’ the language used seems