Coping With Failure: The Therapeutic Uses of Rhetoric

by David Payne

Investigates the importance of failure to our ways of talking about and resolving problems through human communication. Payne (speech, U. of South Tampa) argues that the motivational logic of failure is a circular one in which we are socialized to accept and respond to feelings and situations as "failures," and we are disposed by the rhetoric in our culture to seek out and employ "therapeutic" strategies of communication. Acidic paper. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

161 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1989