Abstract
One Nation Under Stress examines the concept of stress as framed in the classic social work perspective that considers the social and political environment more influential than the psychological and is coupled with a heavy dose of postmodern feminist insight. Dana Becker questions the reductionistic understanding of the concept of stress as merely a subjective experience. She considers stress-coping mechanisms to be oppressive and argues for the assumption of social and political responsibility for mitigating cultural and environmental causes of stress.
Becker’s central premise asserts that when any social problem becomes the personal responsibility of the individual due to cultural and political forces, power disparities, class/race inequalities, and forms of discrimination become normalized supporting the institutional and cultural status quo. She is particularly sensitive to how stress as a subjective experience disadvantages women. The heart of the book are four chapters that illustrate this in health care, in gender role disparities, with working mothers, and with the invention of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In each case, the onus is on the individual to adapt to the stressful environment and cultural expectations utilizing personal resources (e.g., time, child care, and fitness programs) that are only available to those in higher socioeconomic categories.
Becker’s discussion of gender role disparities is an attempt to argue that stress has become gendered by linking so-called female emotionality, susceptibility to depression, and a natural tendency for caregiving to the social hormone oxytocin. The balance problem is a problem for working mothers. Devaluing of caregiving is denoted by inflexible work schedules, lower pay, and postbirth questions about returning to work. Women juggle work and family. Women choose between employment and family. Women must strive for work–life balance. Rarely if ever are these phrases used in reference to fathers.
The application of Becker’s analytical approach to PTSD may be less palatable to many readers. She charts the 30-year development of this category of diagnosis, pointing out the inconsistency between the dual conceptualizations of PTSD as an abnormal mental illness and PTSD as a normal reaction to trauma. She cites several research studies that challenge the popular understanding of PTSD, its prevalence among war veterans, and the connection to a traumatic experience. In the end, she understands PTSD to have traveled the same route as stress in becoming fully subjective, perspectival, and personal. Becker asserts that the negative consequences associated with stressors are not personal, but they are social. Accordingly, the responsibility for alleviating these consequences is not only or even mainly the responsibility of the individual. The common good calls for a social response, the restructuring of social life to reduce the causal inequities in which stressors are embedded.
This is a remarkably lucid and insightful book worthy of widespread dissemination among social workers and other helping professionals because it contains a perspective with potential to bridge the tired segregation of micro and macro practice. Accordingly, this book would be useful to social work professionals, social work students, and social work educators. The 828 endnotes associated with only 185 pages distill a substantial amount of serious research for easy consumption. Academics may decry Becker’s tendency to use quotations as evidence, but this approach does improve the readability of her arguments. Social work and other helping professions should be enriched by the embrace of an understanding of practice that joins the micro and the macro as Becker has done here.