One of the repeated themes of religion concerns therapeutic values as significant moral norms within the modern era, and this is also a theme of importance in some respects in philosophy, sociology, and psychology. Therapy is described as one of the forces in modern life that offers a normative order of life involving character ideals, images of the good life, and methods of attaining it. At the same time, it is an understanding of life that is generally hostile to older ideas of moral order:
Its center is the autonomous individual, presumed able to choose the roles he will play and the commitments he will make, not on the basis of higher truths but according to the criterion of life-effectiveness as the individual judges it (Bellah, Sullivan, Swidler, and Tipton 47).
The term "therapeutic" applied to life indicates that there is a focus on a need for cure. Bellah and his associates offer an answer to this question:
In the final analysis, it is cure of the lack of fit between the present organization of the self and the available organization of work, intimacy, and meaning. And this cure is to take the form of enhancing and empowering the self to be able to relate successfully to others in society, achieving a kind of satisfaction without being overwhelmed by their demands (Bellah, Sullivan, Swidler, and Tipton 47).
Therapeutic values are those values contributing to this process of cure. Such values are addressed as significant constructs or moral norms in the modern era, though precisely what those values may be is often in dispute.
Bellah and associates have considered the issues of values and therapy in American life with the close examination of a number of individuals in that society to ascertain how they relate to their societal setting and what values they may use to do so. In an earlier era, Alexis de Tocqueville analyzed American society and indicated the unique nature of American individualism. T...