I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional: The Recovery Movement and Other Self-Help

"If a Nobel Prize were awarded for clarity and sanity in a world gone mad, Wendy Kaminer would be on her way to Stockholm." – Newsday Anyone who's ever wondered why talking about addiction has become so fashionable, shuddered on hearing an "adult child" compare his upbringing with the Holocaust, or felt that admitting one's powerlessness is a frightening prospect for a participatory democracy will be delighted by this bracingly outspoken and intelligent work of social criticism. Whether she is infiltrating twelve-step meetings and codependency workshops or evaluating the claims of gurus from Shirley MacLaine to M. Scott Peck, Wendy Kaminer deftly diagnoses a national movement (and multi-million-dollar industry) with a strong tendency toward authoritarianism, a cult of victimhood, and a nasty streak of covert religiosity. Controversial, original, and brilliantly reasoned, I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional changes the way we think about self-help – and helps us to think for ourselves. "Explores…the ominous effect of all this institutionalized whining on our culture and politics…an incisive and provocative argument." – Washington Post "Extremely witty…Ms. Kaminer has a real gift for honing her anger to an epigrammatic edge….We can make good use of [her] skepticism." – The New York Times Book Review