# Reading The Triumph of the Therapeutic

This note marks the beginning of a slow rereading of *The Triumph of the Therapeutic*.

The book is often invoked as if its title were already the argument. I want to avoid that shortcut. The better task is to follow how Rieff builds the claim: which contrasts matter, which examples carry the burden, and where the book's language is sharper or stranger than later summaries suggest.

The next step is bibliographic and textual: settle the edition, record page references, and begin with a small number of passages that define the problem.