Beyond Therapeutic Culture In Latin America

By focusing on quantitative and qualitative research in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, this book expands on the notion of "therapeutic culture." Usually considered a global phenomenon disseminated from North to South, and associated to "modern" forms of "psychologized" subjectivity, "therapeutic culture" has become a key notion to understanding contemporary culture. However, this path-breaking research, grounded in a bottom-up perspective that follows specific therapeutic narratives, shows that the concept of the "therapeutic" should be extended to encompass a diversity of practices, both "secular" and "religious," "modern" and "traditional," that are deemed as therapeutic by the actors involved, although they are overlooked as such by most of the current literature. Pentecostal and Afro-Brazilian religions as well as New Age practices coexist and interact with "conventional" therapeutic techniques such as Psychoanalysis, conforming complex and hybrid therapeutic networks associated to different (also hybrid) forms of subjectivity. Although the book draws upon two cases from the "Global South," its theoretical conclusions are applicable to the analysis of the realm of the therapeutic at large. The book is aimed at university students (both graduate and undergraduate) and at the general public interested in the notion of the therapeutic and, specifically, in Latin American culture.

A Borderlands View of Latinos, Latin Americans, and Decolonization: Rethinking Mental Health is a work of connection and integration encompassing decolonization, third-world feminism, borderlands theory, and liberation-based family therapy approaches to examine issues of identity, trauma, migration, and resilience.

In the decades following the Second World War, North America and Western Europe experienced widespread secularization and dechristianization; many scholars have pinpointed the 1960s as a pivotally important period in this decline. The Sixties and Beyond examines the scope and significance of dechristianization in the western world between 1945 and 2000. A thematically wide-ranging and interdisciplinary collection, The Sixties and Beyond uses a framework that compares the social and cultural experiences of North America and Western Europe during this period. The internationally based contributors examine the dynamic place of Christianity in both private lives and public discourses and practices by assessing issues such as gender relations, family life, religious education, the changing relationship of church and state, and the internal dynamics of religious organizations. The Sixties and Beyond is an excellent contribution to the burgeoning scholarship on the 1960s as well as to the history of Christianity in the western world.

This is a forward-looking clinical reference of definitive authority on today's headline controversies surrounding in vitro fertilization (IVF) and reproductive genetics. Written by leading experts from medicine, education, psychology, ethics, counseling, and other disciplines studying fertility and genetics, the book contains nearly 70 chapters in seven sections. The introductory section deals with biology, business, morality and society in IVF and reproductive genetics; other sections focus on IVF outcomes, personal ethics and business, biology of the egg, sperm and embryo, implantation, IVF and society, and such 21st century topics as space travel and human reproduction, the disappearing male,and the future of motherhood. Includes bibliographic references and index.

Beyond White Mindfulness: Critical Perspectives on Racism, Well-being, and Liberation brings together interdisciplinary perspectives on mind-body interventions, group-based identities, and social justice. Marshalling both empirical data and theoretical approaches, the book examines a broad range of questions related to mindfulness, meditation, and diverse communities. While there is growing public interest in mind-body health, holistic wellness, and contemplative practice, critical research examining on these topics featuring minority perspectives and experiences is relatively rare. This book draws on cutting edge insights from psychology, sociology, gender, and, critical race theory to fill this void. Major themes include culture, identity, and awareness; intersectional approaches to the study of mindfulness and minority stress; cultural competence in developing and teaching mindfulness-based health interventions, and the complex relationships between mindfulness, inequality, and social justice. The first book of its kind to bring together scholarly and personal reflections on mindfulness for diverse populations, Beyond White Mindfulness offers social science students and practitioners in this area a new perspective on mindfulness and suggestions for future scholarship.

The Routledge International Handbook of Global Therapeutic Cultures explores central lines of enquiry and seminal scholarship on therapeutic cultures, popular psychology, and the happiness industry. Bringing together studies of therapeutic cultures from sociology, anthropology, psychology, education, politics, law, history, social work, cultural studies, development studies, and American Indian studies, it adopts a consciously global focus, combining studies of the psychologisation of social life from across the world. Thematically organised, it offers historical accounts of the growing prominence of therapeutic discourses and practices in everyday life, before moving to consider the construction of self-identity in the context of the diffusion of therapeutic discourses in connection with the global spread of capitalism. With attention to the ways in which emotional language has brought new problematisations of the dichotomy between the normal and the pathological, as well as significant transformations of key institutions, such as work, family, education, and religion, it examines emergent trends in therapeutic culture and explores the manner in which the advent of new therapeutic technologies, the political interest in happiness, and the radical privatisation and financialisation of social life converge to remake self-identities and modes of everyday experience. Finally, the volume features the work of scholars who have foregrounded the historical and contemporary implication of psychotherapeutic practices in processes of globalisation and colonial and postcolonial modes of social organisation. Presenting agenda-setting research to encourage interdisciplinary and international dialogue and foster the development of a distinctive new field of social research, The Routledge International Handbook of Global Therapeutic Cultures will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in the advance of therapeutic discourses and practices in an increasingly psychologised society.

'Did Melanie Klein ever think that 50 years after her death her ideas would be spreading world-wide in such a fruitful and productive way? In one sense she would be surprised, but in another, I think she might have regarded it as just to be expected. She had a very high regard for her own work, and enormous confidence that she was on to something new. At the same time she was fatefully resigned to being misunderstood and rejected - just as Freud had been, of course. But now, here is the evidence of her success: two thousand plus references, and climbing. Klein's ideas are truly international now, and perhaps wherever Freud is there Klein shall be, to adapt a well-known phrase. Of course this is in the context of other schools which also spread slipperily across the globe, thanks now to the web. But the author's bibliography is a proper published document, and is of immense potential use for clinicians, students, and researchers.

This book brings together a group of feminist activists, psychologists, and peace workers from countries on every continent who describe how they apply global/transnational feminism in their activist peace and justice projects in the cultures and countries in which they live and work. The contributors, who are from different locations in the “global village”, reflect on their engagement in Global South/North border crossings and partnerships, taking into consideration such variables as the gender, economic/class, ethnic, racial, political and imperializing/colonizing tensions inherent in the work. Authors discuss the feminist principles that guide their work, describe a project or set of projects illustrating how they apply feminist theory and practice, and reflect on the complexitites, tensions and conundrums inherent in negotiating cross-national feminist partnerships in research, practice, and activism. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women & Therapy.