Burston has made an important contribution to broadening and deepening the field of academic psychology. In ''Cyborgs, Zombies and Planetary Death: Alienation in the 21st Century,'' he brings an impressive knowledge of European social theory to the field of psychology. He uses this background to illuminate important features of contemporary capitalist society, and how these bear on psychological issues. The reader is treated to a masterful overview of important social theorists such as Heidegger, Lacan, Fromm, Lukacs, Goldmann, and others. Burston utilizes their theories to make incisive observations about contemporary capitalism. Especially important is his critique of modern markets as alienated, depersonalized, instrumental, materialistic, transient, ''liquid'' (in Baumann's terms) social relations.Burston pinpoints the neglected question of whether alienation is socially constructed and changeable, or whether it is intrinsic to civilization and the human condition. He points out that Marx articulated the former position, and Heidegger and Lacan adopted the latter, more pessimistic position. Lacan went so far as to build alienation into language! Burston urges us to evaluate these claims, and wonders whether a grand synthesis of these positions is even possible. After all, alienation cannot be historically constructed-changeable and also intrinsic to human nature. Burston seems to favor Marx's position, and urges us to apply this notion of alienation to contemporary social problems. This advice directs us to look deeply into the causes of alienation and propose alternatives to them. I take up this challenge by exploring Erich Fromm's work on alienation. In the process, I critique contemporary approaches in the mental health field that fail to address the problem of alienation and its implications for social and psychological critique and enrichment.Following Marx, Fromm recognized that alienation, is first and foremost, a social, structural phenomenon-people are alienated from work and the products of their own activity because these have been expropriated from the worker-producers by the capitalist owners of the means of production, who generally control the levers of government. This state of affairs creates a malaise of mystification, commodification, and stultification. Fromm termed these ''The Pathology of Normalcy'' (Fromm, 2010), meaning that social life in contemporary society is often debilitating, stressful, and dehumanizing. Modes of behavior that are deemed normal or adaptive in this context are not actually healthy or fulfilling, but undermine human happiness and well-being in numerous ways.Ratner calls the psychological fall-out of alienation ''the psychology of oppression'' (Ratner, 2011(Ratner, , 2014a(Ratner, in press, 2014b. Psychology of oppression and pathological normalcy are Correspondence should be addressed to Carl Ratner,