The Therapeutic State: Justifying Government at Century's End

James L. Nolan Jr. examines the shift of therapeutic culture from symbols and codes into the core of modern American state institutions, including education, criminal justice, welfare, and civil law.

He argues that amid declining public confidence, the state adopts a therapeutic ethos to legitimize its programs, profoundly shaping the relationship between government and citizens.

The book provides a methodological framework to study this cultural-political dialectic without polemic.