Bellah's Therapeutic Analysis

After leaving home, people often begin to search for romantic acquaintances to compensate for the emotional lack of family bonds. For Bellah, the ideas of love and feelings are framed into the therapeutic analysis of the self and society. In Christianity, individuals find love through admiration for God and the obligation to honor and place God before individual self and feelings. Likewise, these kinds of relationships often serve for the good of the others. Therefore, traditional marriages are based on the idea of god’s societal ideal, where feelings and emotions come subsequently. As a result, traditional marriages reinforce societal and gender roles, which lead to patriarchal influence. Therefore, the self and society greatly suffers from sexist injustices because women as active members of democratic society vastly contribute to the public good.
Therefore, we experience the therapeutic attitude through communication. As Bellah (2008) suggests, one can achieve the state of permanent commitment when one has proper clarity, honesty, and openness’s about one’s feelings. Correspondingly, one must be transparent within the self because “that is the only source of genuine relationships with others” (Bellah 2008: 98). Therefore, the value of therapeutic attitude allows for individual growth and development that further permits the creation of romantic relationships and extended connections. Within the therapeutic attitude, the obligation or criteria for one relationship does not exist, and communication along with shared history serve as sources that bond people together and allow self to sustain, grows, and thrive. Therefore, self-development is necessary not only for the self but the society and further friendships in the