Literature Review Blog #5

Becker, Dana. One Nation under Stress: The Trouble with Stress as an Idea. New York: Oxford

UP, 2013. Print.

Summary

This book details the concept of stress as an idea. Stress has become an individual issue: it has become a problem that individuals must work to solve themselves. Becker's book pushes readers to view stress as a product of larger social problems, and should be addressed in a larger scale. The author speaks to many aspects of society that enforce this privatized stress and the social problems that are behind it.

Author

"Dana Becker, PhD, is a professor of social work at Bryn Mawr College and author of One Nation Under Stress: The Trouble with Stress as an Idea. Her previous books include Through the Looking Glass: Women and Borderline Personality Disorder and The Myth of Empowerment: Women and the Therapeutic Culture in America." -Time.com

Key Term

stressism- the concept that states that regular stress from life is an individual problem, rather than a larger social problem

Quotes

“the current belief that the tensions of contemporary life are primarily individual lifestyle problems to be solved through managing stress, as opposed to the belief that these tensions are linked to social forces and need to be resolved primarily through social and political means” (Becker, 24).

"the idea of equality as identical treatment for everyone depends on a sameness of social condition and a sameness of opportunity that simply don't exist" (Becker, 747).

Value

This book provides an essential idea to my argument. It shows that student debt stress is not each individual's problem but rather a societal problem that must be addressed.