Precarity, Trauma, Addiction, and Love in Philosophical Counseling: Counseling the Late Anthropocene

The expectations and living conditions of our society are uniquely unrealistic and destabilizing, producing a “techno-precarious performance self” that markets itself as a product, gets addicted to almost anything, and drives itself to exhaustion. Language around trauma, anxiety, and burnout is pervasive in our current climate, where it seems like we need superhuman powers just to make it through the day. This book argues that the expectations and living conditions of our society are uniquely destabilizing, producing a “techno-precarious performance self” that markets itself as a product, gets addicted to almost anything, and drives itself to exhaustion. Navigating our way out of this zero-sum game, Ross Channing Reed maintains, will require nothing less than an exploration of our beliefs, values, goals, and the very meanings we attach to life itself. The dismantling of “techno-precarious performance society,” a society rooted in systemic precarity and philosophical nihilism, is absolutely necessary to effectively address our epidemic of trauma and addiction.