ABSTRACT
The rise of therapeutic education reflects a political and social orthodoxy about how to deal with what is variously seen as ‘emotional vulnerability’, ‘low self-esteem’, and a ‘fragile sense of self or identity’. This orthodoxy both creates and exaggerates popular concerns and, in turn, it legitimises and reinforces rapidly growing political and professional interest in the emotional well-being of whole communities and groups of pupils and students at all levels of the education system. We have argued that therapeutic education prepares workers for the therapeutic workplace.
