Anxiety in Middle-Class America: Sociology of Emotional Insecurity in Late Modernity

The book "Anxiety in Middle-Class America" explores the rise of anxiety in middle-class America and the self-help empowerment model that people have turned to to manage their chronic feelings of insecurity. It is the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting almost a quarter of its adult population every year. The book provides a sociologically informed account of emotional troubles and the historical pressures that promote them and is of interest to researchers in a broad range of fields, as well as mental health professionals and cultural critics.

Format: Hardback
Length: 312 pages
Publication date: 30 July 2021
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Showing how Americans have massively turned to a self-help empowerment model to manage chronic feelings of insecurity, Anxiety in Middle-Class America delves into the underlying reasons why no group has ever been as anxious about anxiety and actively engaged in addressing it as a moral and personal concern.

Anxiety has become a focal point of increasing preoccupation and intervention in middle-class America and the late modern world. It is reportedly the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting nearly a quarter of its adult population annually. Opinions on what this signifies vary widely. This work is intended for readers who are intrigued by the exponential rise in reported rates of anxiety across the lifespan and the widespread discussions about anxiety. They may be dissatisfied with non-sociological and symptom-based accounts of mental health and willing to consider the self-help phenomenon as more than just a trendy craze driven by capitalist industry, neoliberal ideology, complicit publishers, formulaic writers, and irreflexive consumers.

In offering a sociologically informed account of some of the most widespread emotional troubles of late modern life and the specific historical pressures that contribute to them, this work will appeal to researchers across a wide range of disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, mind/body/society studies, cultural history, communications, and social philosophy. Mental health professionals and cultural critics will also find it of interest.

Weight: 638g
Dimension: 161 x 242 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367760700