The Culture of Therapy 1.Overview of Foucault’s approach 2.Foucault’s historical investigation 3.Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Key Concepts 1.Overview The diagnostic system Pathologizing people Classifying people Dividing practices Normalizing power The medicalization of social life

2. Foucault’s historical investigation Power-knowledge Biopower Sovereign power Disciplinary power Governmental power The ‘great confinement’

Spaces of exclusion Normalization vs. coercion The psycho-medical model From madness to mental illness to disorder The culture of recovery Techniques of the self

3. Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff Individualism and neo-liberalism Resistance and collective action

Psy discourse continues to expand its diagnostic system, so that a wide range of behaviors have been pathologized. Pathologizing people has itself become normalized.

These are classifying practices. Distinctions are made between the normal and the abnormal. They therefore also involve dividing practices.

Normalizing power Compares Differentiates Establishes a hierarchy Homogenizes Excludes

The medicalization of social life Much of social life has or could be pathologized (treated as a mental or physical illness)

Foucault’s historical investigation Foucault investigated the development of ‘spaces of exclusion’ through ‘the great confinement’ The development of spaces of exclusion (for the poor, the criminal, the mad, the idle, the unemployed, etc.) was a dividing practice

The making of ‘mental illness’ Individuals were diagnosed as mentally ill. These individuals became part of populations classified according to a diagnostic system. New technologies were developed for treating individuals and populations. This is an example of biopower.

Classifying and dividing practices are also disciplinary practices. They are aimed at individuals, specific populations, and the entire social order.

The culture of therapy and the government of the self The therapist’s office, the talk show, the autobiography, etc., have become the modern confessional. The culture of therapy and recovery have a very public character. They employ techniques of the self They employ our capacity to act; to experience ourselves as free, decision making subjects.

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff Self help literature promises to make improved mental health/wellness available to almost everyone. This literature can indeed help us to become better people.

Concerns: A focus on the individual, with little or no attention to social conditions Does not address social inequalities Has expanded at the same time as the growth neo-liberalism (free markets, a limited state, competitive individualism) A shift away from collective social action

Do not make the revolution within at the expense of the revolution without (by ignoring the need for broader social change) Explore how meaning is made