In Significant Emotions, Ashley Frawley critiques the trend of pathologising distress caused by socio-economic problems (like cost-of-living pressures and insecure, low-paid employment) as “mental health issues”. Frawley argues convincingly for a shift that would stop placing the responsibility to find coping mechanisms on the individual, and start demanding that those in power address these systemic problems rooted in neoliberal policy making, writes Magdalene D’Silva.
This year, Britain’s Prince Harry visited Nigeria to (arguably) depoliticise and medicalise the war fatigue and poverty faced by Nigerians, including soldiers, by calling their suffering a “mental health crisis”. Prince Harry’s visit reportedly caused some Nigerians to feel betrayed by their own government.
Why do elites champion psychiatric hegemonic tropes like ‘mental health’ which some say is ‘dangerous’ and medically pathologises the sane, political-economic despair of entire nations of people?
Why do elites champion psychiatric hegemonic tropes like “mental health” which some say is ‘dangerous’ and medically pathologises the sane, political-economic despair of entire nations of people? Max Weber presciently answered this question when he said, “An order will be called … law if it is externally guaranteed by the probability that physical or psychological coercion will be applied by a staff of people … to bring about compliance …”.
Now, a book by Canadian born sociologist Ashley Frawley PhD, Significant Emotions: Rhetoric and Social Problems In A Vulnerable Age, extends Weber’s foresight to our era of psycho-compulsion for unemployed-poor citizens, by arguing, “emotion management represents … liberal visions of minimal government … to create ideal self-governing neoliberal subjects who will accept and adapt to uncertainty and not call upon expensive state, employer or other supports”(43).
Chapter One explains how western nations turned to “positive emotions” in the 1990s (also known as ‘positive psychology’), led by American psychologist Martin Seligman (and others like Jonathan Haidt). Frawley shows how the positive emotion fad mirrors the 19th century American “new thought movement”. Chapters Two and Three explore historical, cultural and political shifts in liberalism and human beings’ subjectivity since the Enlightenment era, and an underlying “ethnopsychology” (21-22) where historical changes rippled through “the discursive constructions of emotion” (23).
Frawley follows other scholars who say the uneven realisation of Enlightenment ideals and promises for all people (at the time of writing we face a cost of living crisis and huge economic inequality in the UK, the US and Australia, while politicians want citizens to breed more taxpayers by having more babies), has caused widespread disillusionment in an unbridgeable chasm between what we were promised – and what we now face. Instead of pointing to problems in Enlightenment ideals and the (neoliberal) system which resulted from them, we’re told the defect must be in ourselves (23-24). Frawley’s observation perhaps elucidates Margaret Thatcher’s agenda that, “economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul…”. Chapter Four describes how each emotion fad cycle is promoted as a public agenda affecting nearly everyone, by creating new victims (64) while being portrayed as “novel” (65).
Part Two also has four chapters which demonstrate Frawley’s arguments using UK case studies’ data on the “mindfulness” fad (Chapters Five and Six) and the current “mental health and well-being/wellness” fad promoted in schools, universities, the media and industry (Chapters Seven to Nine). These chapters spotlight an alleged “student mental health crisis” in British schools and universities (also claimed as widespread in American and Australian universities) which Frawley says is a myth based on distorted data.
Significant Emotions argues plausibly that the alleged ‘mental health crisis’ in education likely conceals a ‘community of fate’ – a collective (insurance litigation risk management) exercise coordinated by university managers across the higher education industry.
Significant Emotions argues plausibly that the alleged “mental health crisis” in education likely conceals a “community of fate” – a collective (insurance litigation risk management) exercise coordinated by university managers across the higher education industry (Chapter Seven and 166-168). The book’s last chapters demonstrate how fluid language and concept creep in media discourse and the mental health and wellbeing movement, are “adopted” and “expanded” but no longer “exhausting”. More and more difficult life circumstances are recast as a “mental health” problem, which expands victim groups and the mental health mission where “mental health” now means “mental ill health” (173-181).
It’s worth noting that while Frawley recognises attempts by some mental health advocates to avoid overmedicalisation (by their referring to social and environmental factors), she says calling social problems a “mental health” issue, reduces them to their “mental health effects” (183). Frawley’s analysis shows how therapeutic emotion fad cycles are devised by “whole-sale” claims-makers whom she calls the “conceptual entrepreneurs” (57-58) of the “therapeutic industries” (67-68). These conceptual entrepreneurs (psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, life coaches and others) “promote particular emotions as solutions to individual and social problems” (57), and as “magic bullets and social vaccines” (63-64) before promoting their solutions – their own “specific programmes for personal and financial gain” (58). They proliferate via websites, consultancies, (social media) and fill bookshelves (67-68).
Though therapeutic conceptual entrepreneurs claim they’re practising a hard biomedical science, when scientific evidence doesn’t back them up they persist with claims to being an ancient wisdom and a common-sense cultural intuition (59-60). They also rely on anecdotes (60) and tend to be led by guru figures who “relate quasi-magical experiences of conversion … who benefit … financially from promoting new interventions with a personal twist. They promise ‘deceptively simple’ solutions to a wide range of complex problems and inform audiences about new victims and new forms of suffering” (3).
The emotion fads Frawley covers include: the “new thought movement” (17-18), the “mental hygiene movement” (17-19), the “self-esteem movement” (55-72), the “happiness (positive-psychology) movement” (59-72), the “mindfulness movement” (Chapters Five and Six) and the current fad of “mental health and well-being” (Chapters Seven to Nine).
Readers may be familiar already with specific emotion fads like: “vulnerability” (22, 185), “happiness”, “flourishing,” “authenticity” (61-72) and “resilience” (115-116) which seems to be undergoing re-branding as “anti-fragility” or ‘”radical-acceptance”. Each therapeutic emotion fad is expanded, exhausted and then recycled again (and again), years or decades later under a new brand label (65). Frawley says these repeating emotion fad cycles are narratives of a “society stuck between what is and what ought to be” (3) as our collective inability (or refusal) to solve serious social, political-economic problems has led to the cause being passed from society (“there is no such thing as society,” apparently) – to individuals.
So, rather than protesting neoliberalism’s wealth pump from the poor to the few elite rich, we’re supposed to follow influential psychologists like Jordan Peterson who describes himself as ‘a clinical psychologist’ and professor emeritus ‘functioning in the broad public space as both … still practicing in that more diffuse … manner…’ by encouraging us to fix ourselves, (not the system).
So, rather than protesting neoliberalism’s wealth pump from the poor to the few elite rich, we’re supposed to follow influential psychologists like Jordan Peterson who describes himself as “a clinical psychologist” and professor emeritus “functioning in the broad public space as both … still practicing in that more diffuse … manner…” by encouraging us to fix ourselves, (not the system). Emotion fads (embraced by left-wing and right-wing movements) distract us from the fact real problems cannot be solved under current socio-political-economic systems (189).
Therapeutic discourses and emotion fads are thus not trying to create individually self-governing, resilient, free-willing, rationally choosing neoliberal human beings because elites consider such people, to be a threat. Indeed, emotion fads want us to doubt our autonomy, and then outsource (to therapeutic conceptual entrepreneurs, like psychologists), our capacity to make decisions and manage our own lives. Frawley says the (real) goal is “heteronomy” so we are “… conditioned by external forces that encourage the “correct” outlook on life and deter the making of ‘wrong’ choices…” (46). Therapeutic emotion fads don’t ‘heal’ us – they diminish us (43) by recasting us as “victims” (90).
Notably, Frawley’s book doesn’t define ‘emotion,’ possibly because the western psychology industry’s claim that all humans share universal emotions has effectively been dismantled. The controversial research of another Canadian born researcher, neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett Phd, found that human brains socially learn to “construct emotions” from our past experiences, from the written and spoken language(s) of our environments, and from socio-cultural context conditioning.
Neuroscience may support Frawley’s view that we can end emotion fad cycles by “[s]purning the neoliberal consensus” that tries to convince us our problems are in the individual, not systemic (190). Frawley thus recommends public discourse which challenges the therapisation of social problems. Yet, therapy culture critics seem to lack consensus and clarity. Frawley’s book, for example, though cogent, uses technical academic jargon which some readers may not understand.
Significant Emotions shows why we must stop concealing social causes of neoliberal anxiety and its damage, in the psychologising and medicalising of our sane distress (from war, cost-of-living pressures, abuse, homelessness and insecure low-paid employment) as a ‘mental health issue.’
Nevertheless, Significant Emotions shows why we must stop concealing social causes of neoliberal anxiety and its damage, in the psychologising and medicalising of our sane distress (from war, cost-of-living pressures, abuse, homelessness and insecure low-paid employment) as a “mental health issue.” Notably, psychologists are writing mea culpas, or criticising their industry’s pandering to elites while not seeing the harms caused by neoliberal capitalism. Emerging “therapy is a scam” to “quitting therapy’” social media videos, may also signal growing citizen frustration. Significant Emotions might therefore, be the tipping point for all who are weary of ‘”therapy speak” or being “sedated”, so we stop fixing ourselves and instead fix the socio-political-economic systems ruling our world.
- This review first appeared at LSE Review of Books.
- Image credit: PeopleImages.com – Yuri A on Shutterstock
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- Note: This article gives the views of the reviewer, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics.
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