“Notice that I am treating psychotherapy as a cultural artifact that can be interpreted, rather than as a universal healing technology that has already brought a transcendent "cure" to earthlings. As a matter of fact, nothing has cured the human… — Philip Cushman Copy Share Image
“We in the West are accustomed to thinking that humans are all basically the same underneath our different cultural clothing, that the concerns the middle class struggles with in contemporary society are at bottom the same concerns with which all other classes societies and cultures struggle. To glimpse the possibility that that is not so comes as an unwelcome surprise.” — Philip Cushman Copy Share
“He accepted without question the notion that there is such a thing as 'normal,' that most people have attained it, and that it could… — Philip Cushman Copy Share Image
“The self is configured in ways that both reflect and influence the very foundations of social life and everyday living. Without the guidance set by a particular set of ideas about what it means to be human, political conflict would be impossible. The shape of the self in a particular era indicates which goals individuals are supposed to strive toward,… — Philip Cushman Copy Share
“In the West, there have been many pre-twentieth century configurations of the self...Each of these selves are part of the heritage of the West. Each of these selves, all sure that they were the one, proper way of being human, all sure that their way of arranging power relations of gender, race, community and age was the one natural arrangement,… — Philip Cushman Copy Share
“The message is constantly displayed on television commercials, where the motive of keeping up with (rather than cooperating with) the Jonses is treated as… — Philip Cushman Copy Share Image
“The self embodies what the culture believes is humankind's place in the cosmos-- its limits, talents, expectations and prohibitions... There is no universal, trans-historical… — Philip Cushman Copy Share Image
“This taken-for-granted understanding about what it means to be human-- that one must be fixed, adjusted, remade, or healed-- seems to be so central… — Philip Cushman Copy Share Image
“Vast historical changes in the last 500 years in the West have slowly created a world in which the individual is commonly understood to… — Philip Cushman Copy Share Image
“Notice that I am treating psychotherapy as a cultural artifact that can be interpreted, rather than as a universal healing technology that has already… — Philip Cushman Copy Share Image
