{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,29]],"date-time":"2026-10-29T15:10:39Z","timestamp":1793286639392,"version":"4.5.0"},"reference-count":49,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,10]],"date-time":"2023-04-10T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1681084800000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100000155","name":"Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["430-2020-00123"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["430-2020-00123"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100000155","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Cultural Sociology"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2024,12]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>While therapy culture has long been a part of the repertoires through which people think about and practice their romantic relationships, it has been less prominent in how they envision friendship. However, based on our interviews on experiences of friendlessness in an Atlantic Canadian city, we show that therapeutic styles increasingly shape how people orient to friendship, even as friends rarely seek formal therapy to manage their conflicts. This article focuses on how modern therapy culture, with its emphasis on individual wellbeing, self-knowledge, and \u2018healthy\u2019 rather than \u2018toxic\u2019 relationships, presents people with conflicting cultural imperatives for how to practice their friendships. On the one hand, therapy culture encourages people to seek out friends to whom they can disclose their most intimate feelings and experiences \u2013 friends who will offer support, understanding, and validation. On the other hand, therapy culture equally cautions that one must maintain \u2018boundaries\u2019 to protect oneself from friends\u2019 personal revelations or \u2018traumas.\u2019 We ask what these dual imperatives mean for modern friendship and how people experience the tension between them. We argue that one reason modern friendship can be difficult is that divulging one\u2019s intimate feelings or experiences to a friend can be interpreted as either building intimacy or burdening others with one\u2019s problems, or crucially, both at the same time. Our findings lead us to ask how therapy culture might increasingly turn friendship into a reflexive object or something else to \u2018optimize\u2019 rather than providing an escape from relationships that demand \u2018work.\u2019<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/17499755231157440","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,10]],"date-time":"2023-04-10T05:57:55Z","timestamp":1681106275000},"page":"507-527","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":18,"title":["Friendship, Intimacy, and the Contradictions of Therapy Culture"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"18","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5927-0078","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Laura","family":"Eramian","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Dalhousie University, Canada"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Peter","family":"Mallory","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"St Francis Xavier University, Canada"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Morgan","family":"Herbert","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Dalhousie University, Canada"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,4,10]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-17499755231157440","volume-title":"Friendship: Developing a Sociological Perspective","author":"Allan G","year":"1989"},{"key":"bibr2-17499755231157440","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.4135\/9780857024350.n7"},{"key":"bibr3-17499755231157440","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7208\/chicago\/9780226250274.001.0001"},{"key":"bibr4-17499755231157440","volume-title":"Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life","author":"Bellah RN","year":"2008"},{"key":"bibr5-17499755231157440","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/1749975511401270"},{"key":"bibr6-17499755231157440","volume-title":"Competing Devotions: Career 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