Recent observations on trust, the celebrity-cult, compensation culture, and most recently the therapy-cult (Prof. Frank Furedi, Sunday Times 21^st Sept 2003) have been astute, but limited. They have provided little attempted interconnection, something which can limit the range of responsive options to either a social-weary lament or a tinkering-round-the-edges.

Therapeutic treatment of issues of emotional health is a symptom of a much larger disease. We understand ourselves precisely as victims by way of response to feeling overwhelmed. In high-pressure market-driven societies such as the UK’s structures that once provided fundamental markers of identity (familial relationships, religion, public citizenship) are essentially in flux, and frequently defined in terms of the market (now presented as matters of lifestyle choices). Anxiety is intensified by ascending levels of expectation, job instability and the insecurity of job mobility, and the untrustworthiness generated by those solely interested in ‘getting ahead’. This further increases social atomism as relationships become more difficult to create and sustain.

The cult of therapy, compensation, celebrity, and self-concern may well be the price that our society has to pay for allowing the market to dictate its terms to us. Margaret Thatcher’s earlier declaration of there being no society is proving to have been a self-fulfilling prophecy.