The next work-in-progress seminar hosted by the Centre for the History of the Emotions will take place on Monday 25th April at 11am. Note the change in day and time!

“Creating a Life Worth Living”: Emotional Regulation and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy in Sweden, c. 1995-2009

Åsa Jansson

Abstract:

This paper investigates the uptake of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) into Swedish psychiatry and psychology at the turn of the twenty-first century, with particular focus on the work of Åsa Nilsonne and Anna Kåver. Taking its cue from DBTs creator, US psychologist Marsha Linehan, Swedish research into and application of DBT predominantly focussed on the “regulation” of inappropriate, disproportionate and irrational emotions in (predominantly young) women. In 1995, a Swedish pilot study on DBT was launched as a joint initiative between Stockholm’s primary care trust and the Institute for Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Institute (KI). The purpose of the study was threefold: to chart the prevalence of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) among women who had repeatedly attempted suicide; to compare the efficacy of DBT, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and standard psychiatric treatment for this patient group; and to investigate the presence of clinical “subgroups” among suicidal women. The KI study marked the beginning of DBT treatment in Sweden, as well as the start of a fruitful professional relationship between two of the key investigators, Nilsonne and Kåver. The duo published the first comprehensive Swedish-language clinical manual on DBT in 2002 and went on to write extensively on behavioural therapy techniques, both for a professional and a popular audience.

Linehan created DBT as a targeted treatment for (primarily female) patients diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, one of the most controversial and stigmatized psychiatric labels of the post-WWII period. The development of a DBT regime in Sweden was equally closely wedded to BPD. However, while the BPD label has been the target of much criticism both within and outside of psychiatry due to its perceived gender bias, such critique has been remarkably subdued in the Swedish context. On the contrary, multiple clinical trials of DBT carried out after the initial KI study commenced have deliberately recruited exclusively female subjects, predominantly with BPD or associated behavioural patterns. Moreover, the key techniques of DBT have subsequently been disseminated for a popular audience through self-help literature ostensibly targeting young women struggling with strong and uncontrollable emotions. In the most recent such book, Nilsonne merged documented psychological and behavioural effects of DBT with neuroscientific research, producing a model of “emotional regulation” geared toward long-term “restructuring” of the brain.

In sum, this paper will investigate the ambivalent relationship between psychopathology,  neuroscience, and gendered ideas about “dysregulated” emotions, asking what was at work – and at stake – when DBT was imported into Swedish psychiatry and subsequently marketed as a self-help strategy for women unable to successfully regulate their emotions.

“Cat-piano” from La Nature (1883). Courtesy of the The Bibliothèque centrale du Conservatoire national des arts et métiers

Andrea Korenjak (Austrian Academy of Sciences), Marie Louise Herzfeld-Schild (University of Cologne), Helen Stark (Queen Mary University of London) and the Centre for the History of the Emotions (Queen Mary University of London) warmly invite you to ‘Music, Medicine and Emotions’ at QMUL Mile End campus on 27 May 2016. This symposium aims to bring together researchers working at the intersection of music, medicine and emotional wellbeing and features papers from Thomas Dixon, Morag Grant, Penelope Gouk, Marie Louise Herzfeld-Schild, Peregrine Horden, James Kennaway, Andrea Korenjak, Una McIlvenna, Wiebke Thormahlen and David Trippett. It will conclude with a wine reception and musical workshop (details and full programme below).

Register on the QMUL E-Shop – £25 waged and £15 unwaged/students/concessions Registration closes 22nd May 2016.

The Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions, launched in November 2008, is the first research centre in the UK dedicated to the history of the emotions. One of its key objectives is to provide a focus for interactions between social and cultural historians of the emotions on the one hand, and historians of science and medicine on the other. It also seeks to contribute both to policy debates and to popular understandings of all aspects of the history of emotions.

The Mile End campus of Queen Mary is located in East London, less than five minutes walk from Mile End tube station which is on the Central, Hammersmith and City and District lines. When you arrive at Queen Mary, from Mile End enter through the East Gate (the road is Westfield Way), turn left, walk past the cemetery and Arts Two is on the left hand side. On this campus map Arts Two is building 35 and coloured purple.

This event is a cooperation between the Centre for the History of the Emotions and the project ‘Music, Medicine, and Psychiatry in Vienna (c. 1780-1850)’, Institute for the History of Art and Musicology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, sponsored by the Austrian Science Fund [P 27287]

Music, Medicine and Emotions Programme

Practical Information

Date: 27 May

Venue: Room 2.17, Arts Two Building, QMUL (Mile End)

Time: 11.00-18.00

Programme

[Timings are provisional and may change]

 11.00-11.15

Thomas Dixon, Queen Mary University of London. ‘Music and the history of emotions: Introductory comments’

11.15-12.45 Panel 1

Andrea Korenjak, Austrian Academy of Sciences. ‘Music for the Restless Soul in 19th-century Viennese Psychiatry’.

Wiebke Thormählen, Royal College of Music. ‘Framing Emotional Responses to Music: Music Making and Social Well-being in Early Nineteenth-Century England’.

Morag Grant, (independent researcher, Berlin). ‘Of harm and harmony: Music and the representation of torture’.

12.45-13.30

Lunch (provided). Foyer of Arts Two Building

13.30-15.00 Panel 2

James Kennaway, Newcastle University. ‘Anna O.’s Cough: Psychoanalysis and the Decline of the Neuro-Stimulation Model of Music’

David Trippett, University of Cambridge. ‘Phrenologists at the keyboard: materialist thought and musical practice ca. 1840’

Peregrine Horden, Royal Holloway University of London. ‘Context, Emotion and Discontinuity in the History of Islamic Music Therapy’

15.00-15.15

Coffee

15.15-16.45 Panel 3

Penelope Gouk, University of Manchester. ‘Moving the Passions through Music: Some 18th-century British Medical Perspectives’

Una McIlvenna. University of Kent. ‘Songs, Shame, and the Executioner of Justice in Early Modern Europe’

Marie Louise Herzfeld-Schild. ‘“The Powerful Usefulness of Music”: Music, Medicine and Theology in Veritophili Deutliche Beweis=Gründe (1717)’

17.00-18.00

Reception to include singing performance of early-modern ballads with Vivien Ellis.

History of the Caress: Tactility, Teashops, and the Organization of Desire

Simeon Koole, University of Oxford

What is the relation between desire, touch, and the massification of tea-drinking in early twentieth-century London? This paper provides a history of desire by examining the changing institutional, economic, and material conditions in which it materialized and through which it shaped and was shaped by the sense of touch. Focusing on the consistory court trial in 1932 of Harold Davidson, Rector of Stiffkey, for ‘immoral conduct’ with teashop waitresses, it examines how customer desire entwined with the shifting labour relations and working conditions of Aerated Bread Company and Lyons waitresses.

While Harold was grabbing the arms of waitresses and taking them to act on film sets, he also remonstrated with their employers and was assaulted for his unwelcome interest in their conditions of work. Rather than reinforcing the trope of the predatory male customer, Harold’s case offers an opening into a broader history of how customer desire—the quality of ‘being touched’—was made determinate only by specific capitalist conditions shaping the life and labour of teashop waitresses, conditions themselves manifested by particular instances of physical touch as he intervened to support waitresses’ employment rights. This paper therefore examines the mutual interaction between physical and affective touch, showing how thinking intimately about capitalism—through an individual’s bodily intervention in labour relations—helps us to also rethink the history of intimacy.

Lunch is available from 12.45, and the seminar begins at 1pm.  QMUL is a 5-minute walk from Mile End tube station and Arts Two is building 35 on this campus map.

On 12 November 2015 the Carnival of Lost Emotions will be at the Being Human Festival, Senate House, London. Come along to the Being Human reception & launch party – to see the Carnival of Lost Emotions alongside Aida Wilde: Print is Power pop-up screen printing workshops, hackable music, Senate House Revealed ‘armchair tours’ and more! Find out more at the Being Human webpages.

Tickets are now available for STOICON 2015, the third annual conference from the Stoicism Today team. This year we have an amazing lineup of speakers, some great practical workshops, and some new philosophies too, with talks on Aristotelian happiness, Orthodox Christian meditation, and Platonic ecstasy. This is a chance to learn more about the wisdom of ancient philosophy, while also meeting philosophy-enthusiasts from around the world.

The Schedule

9.30 –  9.40 – Welcome

9.40 – 10.00 Massimo Pigliucci : How I became a Stoic after a midlife crisis

Well-known skeptic philosopher Massimo Pigliucci will talk about his decision to become a Stoic earlier this year. Why did he ‘convert’, how does Stoicism relate to his atheism, and what does it practically mean to be a Stoic?

10.00 – 10.20 William Irvine:  Stoic life-tests and how to pass them

William Irvine, author of The Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy, will talk about how Stoicism can help all of us cope with the daily tests that life throws our way.

10.20 – 10.30 – Q&A

10.30 – 11.00 Bettany Hughes: The geniuses of the ancient world

Bettany Hughes, author of The Hemlock Cup and presenter of a recent BBC series on ancient philosophy, will discuss the similarities between Greek and Eastern philosophies, and the differences.

Break 11.00 – 11.30

11.30 – 11.45 Donald Robertson: Stoicism and CBT

Donald Robertson, therapist and author of The Philosophy of CBT, will look at how Stoicism inspired Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and what CBT left out. Could a more explicitly Stoic form of CBT be applied in clinical settings?

11.45 – 12.15 Vincent Deary: What are the problems with modern Stoicism

Vincent Deary, therapist and author of How We Are, will suggest some of the ways the revival of Stoicism could be unhelpful, particularly in an over-emphasis on resilience and self-reliance.

12.15 – 1 Discussion

Lunch in the Octagon Hall 1 – 2 (including poster session, book-shop etc)

Workshops  2-3, then 3.15 – 4.15

***Attendees will get the chance to attend two of the below****

Professor Chris Gill: Marcus Aurelius and Stoic virtue

Chris Gill will examine the idea of virtue in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, and the core Stoic idea that virtue is sufficient for happiness. Can this be true today?

Dr John Sellars: The Stoic worldview: physics, religion, science

In this workshop we shall discuss what the Stoics say about Nature, the relationship between their physics and ethics, the extent to which Stoicism might be compatible with religious belief or contemporary science, and whether we can separate their practical life guidance from the wider claims they make about the nature of what exists.

Elen Buzare: Body, Soul and Spirit in Stoic and Christian meditation

Writer Elen Buzare will explore Stoic meditation and compare it to the ‘hesychast’ meditation tradition in Orthodox Christianity

Tim LeBon: How to become virtuous – Lessons from Compassionate Mind Training

In this practical workshop, therapist Tim LeBon will explore how ancient philosophy and modern third wave psychology (especially Compassionate Focussed Therapy) can combine to help us become for virtuous in our daily lives

Professor Sherman Clark: ‘How now Horatio’ – Stoicism and friendship

Stoicism, while it can seem bleak, can not merely help conquer distress but can also highlight the possibility of a deep—and deeply human—form of joy, through friendship.

Gabriele Galluzo: Aristotle and happiness

Professor Galluzo will look at Aristotelian philosophy, its conception of eudaimonia or happiness, and how this philosophy of the good life differs from Stoicism, putting more of an emphasis on the necessity of relationships, money and political freedom for happiness. Is Aristotle’s model of the good life more realistic than the Stoics?

Donald Robertson: Stoic visualization techniques

In this workshop, we will explore and try out Stoic visualization techniques, including the ‘View From Above’, and how they helped people transform their perspective and alter their emotional state. Does it still work today?

Jules Evans: Platonic ecstasy in a material world

Jules will examine the idea of going beyond reason to achieve ecstasy – union with the divine – in the philosophy of Plato and Neo-Platonists like Plotinus, and how this idea is at the heart of Christian mysticism, from Augustine to Thomas Traherne and beyond. How hard is it for non-monks to achieve this sort of ecstasy?And how credible is Plato’s dualistic theory of matter and soul today?

Final key-note:  Emily Wilson on Seneca 4.30 – 5

Emily Wilson, author of Seneca: A Life, will explore the paradoxical and controversial figure of Seneca – Stoic ascetic, and one of the richest men in Nero’s court. Was he really a ‘proper Stoic’, or was it just talk?

Drinks In the Octagon Hall of Queen Mary, University of London 5.30 – 7

Stoic Week the online course will also be running that week. For details of that click on the link below: 

http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/stoicismtoday/2015/09/12/announcing-stoic-week-2015/

Between 8-9pm on the 29th October 2015 the Reading Room at Wellcome Collection was given over to all things emotional in an event curated by Tiffany Watt Smith.

Highlights included:

– Puppeteer Steve Tiplady running short workshops on the emotional lives of household rubbish
– Artist Sheila Ghelani inviting attendees to explore the ties which bind us
– Dr Elsa Richardson introducing attendees to some of the emotional secrets of the Wellcome library and archives in the Library Viewing Room

And there were Victorian experiments, explorations of emotions like homesickness, loneliness and desire, maps of the world’s emotions and much much more.

The event followed on from a discussion in the Lecture Theatre about human emotions.