Embodied Minds (L6310S)
Embodied Minds: Culture, Politics, and Psychotherapy
Module L6310S
Module details for 2026/27.
30 credits
FHEQ Level 6
Module Outline
This course will trace the differences and divergences between anthropology and psychotherapy as modes of human encounter and understanding, and as developing disciplines over the past century or so. It will explore the different contexts in which anthropology and psychotherapy are done and how they have influenced one another. We will investigate how psychotherapeutic theories and practices have changed and been challenged as they travel from one context to another. We will take an anthropological approach to the rise and popularity of psychotherapy in the West and elsewhere asking what the key cultural and political precedents and conditions are for psychotherapy’s increasing globalisation. We will ask too how our own deep assumptions about the relations between mind, body, and environment shape our understandings and interactions with others. Thus we will explore the limitations and potentials of a therapeutically-inspired anthropology.
Module learning outcomes
Explore how the experience and understanding of one’s own mind is embedded in and shaped by distinct political, economic, and sociocultural systems
Critically examine psychotherapeutic and anthropological theory in relation to one another, recognising the limitations and potentials of both.
Use ethnographic methodologies and sensitivities to investigate the increasingly global production, circulation, and reception of psychotherapeutic theories and practices as nonetheless culturally and politically situated.
Write a reflexive essay that critically enquires into how culture and politics have affected your own understanding and experience of mind in relation to, and in comparison with, the understandings and experiences of others.
| Type | Timing | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Essay (5000 words) | Semester 2 Assessment Week 1 Mon 16:00 | 100.00% |
Timing
Submission deadlines may vary for different types of assignment/groups of students.
Weighting
Coursework components (if listed) total 100% of the overall coursework weighting value.
| Term | Method | Duration | Week pattern |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spring Semester | Workshop | 3 hours | 011111111110 |
How to read the week pattern
The numbers indicate the weeks of the term and how many events take place each week.
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