Inventing the Psychological: Toward a Cultural History of Emotional Life in America

by Joel Pfister

Book Overview

When and why did it become chic for members of the white middle and upper classes to perceive and value themselves as neurotic, primitive, and emotionally fragile? Is the popular tendency to define the self in psychological language derived from revealed (Freudian) "truths," or does American culture for various purposes invent and promote "emotional" and "psychological" identities?

In this fascinating book, distinguished interdisciplinary scholars...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300070063
• ISBN13: 9780300070064
• Release Date: February 1997
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.3"