‘Distress, Neuroscience and History: Living in the Blitz’, by Hera Cook

Wednesday 12th December, 2012

1pm, Arts 2

This paper, by Hera Cook of the University of Birmingham, examines one of the first group therapy sessions held in England, which took place following a period of heavy bombing during WWII. The paper asks what neuroscientific research might contribute to the analysis of this event. Some of the women involved were experiencing acute distress and the rest of the group
expressed empathy and attempted to help. It considers whether concepts such as emotional contagion or mirror neurons add to historical understanding and ask what role scientific definitions of emotion play in the interpretation.