Rieff, Philip

An American social theorist and analyst of culture, Philip Rieff (b. 1922) is best known for two acclaimed books on Freud and his influence on twentieth-century culture, Freud: The Mind of the Moralist (1959) and The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud (1966), and as the editor of the 10-volume edition, The Collected Papers of Sigmund Freud (1963). Educated at the University of Chicago and for many years a member of the sociology faculty at the University of Pennsylvania (1961–1993), Rieff is a wide-ranging theorist who has focused on developing a concept of culture that draws heavily from the humanities and religious sources. Within the discipline of sociology, Rieff is most deeply indebted to the works of Max Weber and Charles Horton Cooley. Broadly speaking, Rieff has explored the implications of the rise of psychology for Western culture and the decline of cultures of faith. More specifically, Rieff can fairly lay claim to having originated the concept of “therapeutic culture” and tracing its emergence in Western societies. In his later writings, Rieff has attempted to advance a moral theory of culture that is notable for its uncompromising critique of therapeutic culture and that is closely linked to his efforts to clarify a concept of the sacred.

Rieff's early work, which culminated with the publication of Freud: The Mind of the Moralist, argued that Freud, more than any other modern intellectual figure, charted the spiritual course of the twentieth century for America and Europe because he was “the first completely irreligious moralist… without even a moralizing message” ([1959] 1979:xi). As a secular guide to the conduct of life, Freud exemplified the strange new ideal of “psychological man” who has nothing left to affirm except the self. Offering neither religious nor political salvation, Freud counseled that individuals should strive for no ethical heights but, rather, settle for training in an “ethic of honesty” that teaches a certain detachment from communal ideals and tolerance toward the irresolvable complexities of the self. According to Rieff, the Freudian ethic demanded lucid insight rather than sincere action, self-awareness rather than heroic commitment, to escape the dialectic of hope and despair, illusion and disillusion, to which human beings are prone. Rieff points out that in practice, however, Freud's cautious, stoic ethic became popularized into therapeutic doctrines of liberation from normative constraints—sexual, political, and otherwise—which Freud never intended.

In The Triumph of the Therapeutic, Rieff proceeded to clarify how “the analytic attitude” of Freud was corrupted and abandoned by seminal cultural figures directly influenced by Freud, such as C. G. Jung, Wilhelm Reich, and D. H. Lawrence, who were the predecessors of a full-blown therapeutic culture, which Rieff saw emerge in the 1960s. Although Rieff wrote largely in defense of Freud's analytic attitude against those who advocated some variety of therapeutic liberation, the ironic and irenic style of The Triumph of the Therapeutic sometimes leaves readers in doubt as to where the author stands. In subsequent writings, Rieff leaves little doubt that he rejects not only the triumphant therapeutic culture but also Freud's analytic attitude, which he holds at least partially responsible for the therapeutic revolution.

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