Paper short abstract:

This paper critiques macroscopic tendencies in socio-cultural anthropology. Aversion to individuals overlooks the subjectivity of human existence and people's unique educational biographies. Talking therapy illustrates thinking and learning across human lives. Therapy, it is argued, is anthropology.

Paper long abstract:

While etymologically, anthropology is a study of human beings, aversion to 'psychologism' has resulted in an ongoing reluctance to study human beings themselves. Through its socio-cultural adjectives, anthropology tends to study the social and cultural world and the conditions and systems in which humans live. These social and cultural analyses help to illuminate much in the field of education. However, there can also be a sociocultural determinism that reduces human beings to social relations, cultural practices, communities, and categories. While existential anthropology recognises the diversity that distinguishes one human being from another, such nuance is lacking in 'intrinsically sociological' mainstream anthropology (Piette, 2019, p. 79). This presentation critiques these macroscopic tendencies of socio-cultural anthropology that are echoed in the anthropology of education. It is argued that engagement with the subjective sides of life is key to taking lifelong learning seriously. Human beings undergo various forms of learning from birth until death, with twists and turns, from sudden changes to subtle realisations. The anthropology of education has insufficiently addressed these educational undercurrents of people’s unique biographies. This presentation suggests that counselling and psychotherapy grant privileged access to the lived experiences of human beings. Among other insights, this intimate context illustrates the thinking and growth that occur across people’s lives. In both accessing and influencing this continued learning, therapy serves as a kind of applied anthropology. The presentation draws from the author’s ongoing therapy training and examples from secondary sources that demonstrate lifelong learning as an aspect of the human condition.

Paper short abstract:

Our study examines the evolving roles and expectations associated with the Pater Familias archetype. Through interviews and psychotherapy room discussions, we examine how paternal influence affects the individual and society and emphasize the importance of nuanced discussions in psychotherapy.

Paper long abstract:

This research delves into the evolving role of fathers in Romanian society and examines the cultural expectations associated with the traditional "Pater Familias" archetype. Through a comprehensive study of 20th-century literary and scientific sources and in-depth interviews conducted in Bucharest, we investigate how fathers perceive and perform their roles and analyze the cultural and psychological dimensions that shape their behavior.

The study aims to investigate whether the cultural transmission of the paternal role, as influenced by societal norms, continues to correspond to contemporary realities. By conducting field interviews and psychotherapeutic anamnesis discussions about fathers, supplemented by relevant anthropological and psychological literature on family relationships, in general (Todorov, 2009; Segalen, 1986) and on fatherhood in particular (Jung, 1991; Samuels, 2016; Zoja, 2003) we aim to uncover the lessons individuals learned from their fathers and how those lessons shaped their life path.

Our results highlight the importance of promoting discussions about fatherhood in the field of psychotherapy. By analyzing narratives shared by patients about their fathers, we aim to shed light on the psychological significance of paternal influence and the impact of deviating from cultural expectations and whether fathers’ inability or unwillingness to conform to these standards leads to individual suffering or, on the contrary, individual development, family discord, and societal impact.

This study contributes to the ongoing dialogue about gender roles and family dynamics and emphasizes the need for a nuanced understanding of fatherhood that incorporates both cultural expectations and individual experiences.

Paper short abstract:

Reflectivity, defined as the capacity for introspection, and the examination of one's thoughts and emotions, is a fundamental aspect of the therapeutic process. This talk delves into ways in which reflectivity manifests and evolves from infancy to late adulthood and in psychotherapy.

Paper long abstract:

The talk looks at the concept of reflectivity in psychotherapy. Reflectivity, defined as the capacity for introspection, self-awareness, and the examination of one's thoughts and emotions, is a fundamental aspect of the therapeutic process. This study delves into the nuanced ways in which reflectivity manifests and evolves from infancy to late adulthood, highlighting its pivotal role in promoting psychological well-being and fostering positive therapeutic outcomes.

I look at the intersection of reflective processes with key developmental milestones, cognitive maturation, and socio-emotional dynamics unique to each life stage. The talk explores how therapy seeks to enhance reflectivity across the lifespan. From play-based interventions for children to narrative approaches for adolescents, and mindfulness practices for adults and older individuals. I try to conceptualize a deeper understanding of how reflective capacities may be cultivated and harnessed throughout the therapeutic practice and the way they may contribute to developmental goals articulated by Erik Erikson Psychosocial stages.

Paper short abstract:

Ethnographic study of Chinese psychotherapy training reveals the ways in which ‘culture’ is intersubjectively created as a shifting abstract object to which various kinds of subjects try to form and reshape themselves in relationship with.

Paper long abstract:

As the panel abstract observes, anthropology still often constructs its object of study as a kind of abstract context (culture, society, discourse, ontology) within which people develop values, selves and activities. Even more so, it is the case that other fields that have adapted ‘culture’ as a heuristic or governmental tool in recent decades have tended to adopt a model of ‘culture’ that objectifies it in a deterministic manner. Psychotherapy is one such field where ‘cultural competence’ is increasingly taught to trainees in this manner. Yet psychotherapy also provides a ground for the observation of the counterpart of this presentation, namely the grounds for the emergence of a conceptualisation of culture as a ‘thing’ or an ‘entity’. In this paper, I use ongoing ethnographic research of Chinese psychotherapy training to explore the grounds for this emergence of ‘culture’ as a kind of ‘object’ to which various kinds of subjects shape themselves in relation with. I argue that the different positions within shifting networks of social relationships (e.g. client-therapist, therapist-supervisor, trainee- training institute, client/therapist-Chinese nation) leads to rapidly shifting and sometimes mutually incommensurate constructions of ‘culture as object’. In particular, I explore the differences in how Chinese trainees and mainly Euro-American trainers differentiate between ‘cultural’ and other factors in the therapy is indicative of the ways in which psychotherapy provides a fertile ground for the observation of an essential human process; the intersubjective construction of abstract objects through which we reshape ourselves as human subjects.

Paper short abstract:

As a treatment modality, the residential therapeutic community is predicated on learning about oneself and others. Turning patients’ attention both outward and inward, toward social interaction and their role in/responses to it, recovery rests in cultivating a form of psychological ethnography.

Paper long abstract:

As a modality of treatment, the residential therapeutic community is predicated on two basic assumptions: first, that a collective, rather than dyadic, context is most conducive to recovery from mental illness; and second, that such recovery requires active, guided learning about oneself and others. This learning is directed at social, rather than individual, dynamics: within the community, both one-to-one therapy and group discussions involve learning about one’s condition as it pertains to everyday behaviour and thought in relations with others. In turn, living within the residential community provides a ready laboratory for trying out new interactional strategies, often using individually tailored ‘behavioural experiments’ set as part of the participant’s weekly therapeutic ‘homework’ and undertaken with the support of other residents. In the national NHS Anxiety Disorders Residential Unit, located in London, the therapeutic community approach is taken a step further by explicitly encouraging curiosity about oneself and others, guiding participants in an attunement to the community’s social world to foster reflexivity, empathy, and compassion—an attunement that is surprisingly resonant with ethnographic engagement. That is, by turning patients’ attention both inward and outward, advocating a gentle curiosity about others and awareness of one’s own role in and responses to the immediate social environment, the therapeutic community model requires the learning afforded by an implicit psychological ethnography as key to recovery.

Paper short abstract:

This presentation aims to reflect on the benefits of anthropological counselling in fertility journeys. Based on the AFIN-ART Anthropological Support Service's experience, we explore the therapeutic potential of anthropology and the negotiation it entails with the limits of this social science.

Paper long abstract:

The paths in assisted reproductive care can be particularly long, tedious, and filled with disruptive events and elements in the lives of individuals who need medical assistance to fulfill their reproductive desires. Often, these journeys lead - or force - individuals to question and reconsider choices made in the past, their future, and the meaning they attribute to elements that seemed immutable to them: What is family? What does it mean to be a mother, father, or siblings? What role is given to genetics, and why? Have I failed to meet expectations placed upon me -according to my gender, age, etc.-?

This presentation aims to show how anthropologically framed counselling can help to improve people’s well-being (Gerstein et al 2007; Varenne, 2003) in their reproductive journeys, based on the experience of the award-winning AFIN-ART Anthropological Support Service. Since its creation in 2016, this service has shown how anthropology can be particularly useful in helping people to recognize that the individual understanding and values attributed to reproductive issues are not universal but depend on the social and cultural meanings. Considering the social and cultural meaning of reproduction, the process of "kinning" (Howell, 2005), the relationship with biology, culture, personal values and lifestyles, as well as being able to question what seems to be indisputable, helps people to find alternative narratives to understand, give meaning to, and cope with the contradictions they face in their journey, showing the therapeutical potential of applied anthropology for them, but also for anthropologists themselves.

Paper short abstract:

A dialogue between an interdisciplinary, interracial and international couple – one therapist, one anthropologist – as they explore how socio-political knowledge informs Jasmine’s therapeutic work, and emotional self-work influences Rich’s ethnographic methods and anthropological writing.

Paper long abstract:

How does living with a therapist inform the anthropologist? How does living with an anthropologist inform the therapist?

In this paper, we construct a dialogue based on our experience living as an interdisciplinary, interracial and international couple. Jasmine – who has a background in political science, theatre, and education – currently works in the role of dramatherapist. Rich – who has also has a background in theatre – currently inhabits the academic role of ‘anthropologist’. Rich’s research on the subjectivity of education entrepreneurs is heavily informed by psychological readings of the self, and Jasmine’s everyday therapeutic work is structured by her queer, anti-racist politics. At home, they confront each others’ disciplines and imagine opportunities for social justice in a more interdisciplinary world.

This paper showcases the kinds of conversations Rich and Jasmine have as a couple, as colleagues, as thinkers and activists who see sociologically-informed self-reflection as central to understanding human communities. It gives examples of how Rich weaves exploration of ‘inner-life’ into his ethnographic research, and how Jasmine designs therapeutic interventions guided by the various anti colonial feminist writings and practices confronting structural oppression. By presenting everyday domestic conversations as autoethnographic vignettes, this paper presents a new method for exploring how the realms of anthropology and therapy can inform and support each other.

Paper short abstract:

This paper offers some ethnographic and historical reflections on the relationship between anthropology and psychotherapy and, in turn, the ‘relationship’ at the heart of both disciplines.

Paper long abstract:

This paper offers some ethnographic and historical reflections on the relationship between anthropology and psychotherapy and, in turn, the ‘relationship’ at the heart of both disciplines. Psychotherapy is often characterised as a profoundly ‘relational’ profession. Psychotherapeutic practices, despite their variety and differences, all tend to underline the significance of a therapeutic relationship. This relationship is not everywhere the same, of course, and interesting rethinkings of therapeutic relations mark the historiography of psychotherapy. Likewise, anthropology brings us into contact with relationships of all kinds – indeed, anthropologists use relations to study relations (Strathern 2020). Both the anthropologist and the psychotherapist understand human beings to be intrinsically relational. The resonances between the two disciplines are evident to those who know both (Luhrmann 2019). However, whereas the anthropologist examines how relations are constituted differently and have different effects around the world, the psychotherapist is principally trying to change people’s relation to relations: they help human beings to understand themselves so that they can change. In this paper, I reflect on the convergence of anthropology and psychotherapy, and why it might be their divergence that matters most.