A TIME FOR CARING
By
More than 400 pages of repetitive, heavy-handed bloat, from a Hollywood therapist whose previous books (Stop! You're Driving Me Crazy, etc.) have been both tighter and sharper. ""Caring"" is lauded as the natural antidote to ""Me Decade""--and so we plod through exercise after exercise designed to make us more observant, set self-improvement goals, make contracts to reach those goals, and so on. The mighty triumvirate of care includes self-care (a neat balance between ""hedonism and denial""); consuming care (you can overconsume or underconsume); and plain caregiving (you can also undercare or overcare). Caring alternatives are explored within the framework of family, friends, community, self, and sex: in a nutshell, try for openness and intimacy. A couple of tidbits here and there are mildly diverting: the place of ritual (Christmas, weddings) in revitalizing our caring powers; the effectiveness of sharing one's ""inner dialogue"" with others, or inviting them to share with you. But by and large this is like the ""Caring"" circles drawn for each group throughout: without beginning and definitely without end.