Has Therapy Intruded into Education?

For over fifty years, scholars have argued that a therapeutic ethos has begun to change how people think about themselves and others. There is also a growing concern that the therapeutic ethos has influenced educational theory and practice, perhaps to their detriment. This review article discusses three books, The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education (by Kathryn Ecclestone and Dennis Hayes), Aristotle, Emotions, and Education (by Kristján Kristjánsson), and The Therapy of Education (by Paul Smeyers, Richard Smith and Paul Standish), that point to the problematic assumptions and outcomes of therapeutic educational practices. The authors of the three books, however, disagree about whether a focus on emotions or therapy in education is necessarily an unwelcome intrusion into education.