Shock Therapy: Psychology, Precarity, and Well-Being in Postsocialist Russia

The collapse of the Soviet Union brought sudden, massive change to millions of its citizens and also instigated a dramatic increase in options for therapy and psychiatric help.  Anthropologist Tomas Matza’s Shock Therapy (Duke University Press) is the culmination of nearly a decade of interviewing pyschotherapists, psychologists, and those they served in post-Soviet St. Petersburg, illuminating social, political, and economic challenges to their care.