Medicalisation in a Therapy Culture

Social and emotional pedagogies: critiquing the new orthodoxy of emotion in classroom behaviour management

“…As part of a cultural preoccupation with therapy, a new significance is being attributed to feelings and introspective analysis as a means of understanding and addressing longstanding social issues and problems (Ecclestone and Hays 2008;Illouz 2008;Furedi 2004). This contemporary preoccupation is played out across a range of sites, with therapeutic discourse pervading cultural understandings and representations.…”

“…Terms such as emotional literacy, emotional intelligence and emotional skills (and accompanying concepts like 'self-esteem') are notoriously slippery and illdefined. Numerous critics have highlighted their constant elision, weak evidence base and oversimplistic logic (see Ecclestone and Hays 2008;Craig 2008Craig , 2009Claxton 2005;Matthews, Zeidner, and Roberts 2004;Furedi 2004). Little in the way of hard evidence is available to support the long list of benefits attributed to 'emotional skills', including improvements in attainment, behaviour, attendance, well-being and confidence.…”

“…While many commentators have produced trenchant critiques of the implicit individualism structuring the cultural foregrounding of affect (Burman 2009;Ecclestone and Hays 2008;Furedi 2004;Moskowitz 2001;Cushman 1995), current government approaches to social policy are infused with this emotional style. More specifically, policy-makers' attentions have shifted away from structures and processes, towards a focus on personal skills and self-efficacy.…”

“…As the term 'emotional literacy' implies, students should be able to read and speak their emotions fluently in a classroom context rather than actually succumb to them. In the process of 'getting in touch with' and reflecting on emotions, the feelings themselves must be distanced, held in check and be open to modification (Furedi 2004). Somewhat paradoxically, then, the actual display of emotions in the context of the classroom marks out the emotionally illiterate.…”

Revisiting Medicalization: A Critique of the Assumptions of What Counts As Medical Knowledge

“…If the distinction between empirical context and theoretical scope of medicalization are not properly acknowledged, as sociologists we risk reproducing a misleading and culturally biased argument: that medicalization refers only to Western biomedical knowledge (see for instance Furedi, 2008 on medicalization in therapy culture). The reason I consider it misleading and culturally biased is because it is grounded on a profession-based view of medicine.…”