Understanding contemporary modernity through the trends of therapy and life-'skills' training

This article examines the contemporary trends of therapy and life-'skills' training. Several interrelated implications are drawn for the understanding of contemporary modernity. There is a continued modernist belief in the attainability of complete control in life, and faith in knowledge/expertise and instrumental rational control. Hence, life's contingencies are construed as eliminable or resolvable 'problems', instead of unavoidable and given. There is a disempowerment of individuals who are thus rendered dependent on 'experts'; correlatedly, there is a diminution of individual agency (responsibility) concerning the consequences of life choices and decisions, and the handling of life's contingencies. These implications are at odds with the theses on contemporary modernity advanced by Giddens, Beck and Bauman. Enhanced empirical research into the diminution of individual agency has both scholarly and practical significance.