Nostalgic Postmodernism

Here's a book on postmodernism that is written in plain English. Whereas many books on postmodernism are so obscure that the Flesch index of readability goes off the chart (see Fredric Jameson's books, for example), Shawver's book is of average readability. That's excellent for a book on postmodernism. Her reviewers, too, seem inevitably to comment on the book's clear style. In this readable book, Shawver tells us the story of how therapy became postmodern. When therapy was "modern," she tells us, therapists did therapy within the guidelines of specific schools. The postmodern therapist, however, works like a fine chef, highly trained, but invariably changing the recipe and spicing the food with her own salsa. Nostalgic postmodernism is just an early guilt-ridden phase in this postmodernism, but the postmodern therapist soon morphs out of nostalgia and recognizes and appreciates her postmodern shift. This story of the postmodernization of the therapists is cast, in this book, in the context of the history of therapy, and, to some extent, in the context of the author's own experience of her own postmodernization.