The Talking Cure in Everyday Life: Gender, Generations and Friendship

Abstract

This article examines the insinuation of therapeutic culture into everyday life from the vantage point of a qualitative cross-generational study of economically marginalized young women and their mothers. Against dominant assessments of therapeutic culture — as representing cultural decline, social regulation or transformation — we draw on interview narratives to analyse its practical and situated effects. We argue that desires for disclosure and open communication are not trivial or narcissistic and instead interpret them as productive emotional strategies for managing difficult circumstances, and for engendering a sense of competence and possibility.Thus a concern with`talkingthings through' is neither ineffectual nor adequately understood as a manifestation of an ahistorical feminine alignment with emotions and interior life. While we do not dismiss regulatory aspects of therapeutic culture, our analysis offers an alternative and empirically based account of the ways cultural imperatives are enacted across generations.

The Paradoxes of Socio-Emotional Programmes in School : Young people’s perspectives and public health discourses

“…McLeod and Wright (2009) pointed that critical studies of therapeutic culture are too far removed from people's lived everyday lives. They suggested a shift in focus towards the practical and situated effects of the therapeutic turn.…”

“…While the evidence-focused research suggests that young people are exposed to evident risks and are in need of socio-emotional programmes at school, the educational and sociological research suggests that contemporary schools' use of therapeutic interventions is characterized by an exaggerated obsession with therapy and mental (ill) health (Irisdotter Aldenmyr, 2014b). The present study is inspired by McLeod and Wright (2009), Wright (2011, Irisdotter Aldenmyr (2014b) and Watson et al (2012), who have discussed the need to gain a broader understanding of these interventions by shifting the focus towards participants' perspectives on these interventions and what they entail in their everyday lives. In the next section, I will review the specific studies on DISA and SET that have explored what the programmes entail in daily life at school.…”

Student Wellbeing and the Therapeutic Turn in Education

“…This offers a challenge for an empirically oriented discipline like psychology, insofar as critiques of therapeutic education may be too readily dismissed as abstract theorising, with a lack of 'data' to support the theoretical claims being made. Empirical studies of the effects of therapeutic culture do suggest that the ways it shapes everyday practice are complex and multifaceted (Brownlie, 2011;McLeod & Wright, 2009;Wright, 2011a). While more empirical studies would be helpful, there is, nevertheless, much to be learned from critical theoretical perspectives that question what is assumed, taken for granted or unexamined.…”

Untitled

“…Este cuidado y control también se ejercen también sobre la esfera íntima (Illouz, 2007). La familia, los afectos y todas las dimensiones cotidianas son objeto de análisis y tratamiento terapéutico, con su consecuente mercantilización (Hochschild, 2008;McLeod y Wright, 2009). …”