Emotions and Knowledge in Expert Work: A Comparison of Two Psychotherapies

The place of therapy: between lab and field in the psychoanalytic office

“…In the room, patients submit their pasts, feelings and thoughts to observation. Therapists themselves become emotionally calibrated instruments of reflection and intervention (Craciun 2018). Such skills are fostered by the laboratory-like standardisation and insulation of clinical work from everyday life.…”

“…To Elena, being in the room amounted to more than physical co-presence. It was, rather, an embodied mode of affective communication in which she forged a human connection with her patient (see also , Craciun 2018). Similarly, Bonnie, a social worker who had been practicing psychoanalytic therapy for more than three decades, told me that the 'classical technique' would have an analyst be 'very neutral'.…”

Casualties of debate: A critique of the sociology of emotion

“…I do not see these approaches as the holy grail of emotions research within the social sciences or humanities, and I take issue with several threads that run throughout these literatures, particularly the ways in which dichotomy is reproduced in the very process of its deconstruction (i.e., “affect” vs. “emotion”) and the theorizing of “affect” as unconscious, pre‐reflexive, and unacknowledged (Ariffin et al, ; Chodorow, ; Munt, ; Tolia‐Kelly, ; Ulus, ). Given the epistemological scope of such approaches, I find it fairly startling that the use of “affect” instead of “emotion” is not unlike positivists' preference for the term (Craciun, ; Jasper, ; Lively & Heise, ; Rogers & Robinson, ; Stets, ).…”

“…cognition (Ariffin, Coicaud, & Popovski, ; Barbalet, ; Berezin, ; Burkart & Weggen, ; Davis, ; Iagulli, ; Jasper, ; Kunkel, ; Loseke & Kusenbach, ; Lutz, ), private/individual/internal/inner or public/collective/external/outer (Ariffin et al, ; Berezin, ; Harkin, ; Lively, ; Pilkington, ; Stets, ), mind or body (Chandler, ; Ross, ; Shilling, ; Smith‐Lovin & Thoits, ; Wettergren, ), ideational/discursive or materialist (Knopp, ; Lyon, ; Ross, ), micro or macro (Bericat, ; Berezin, ; Jasper, ; Stets, ), structure or culture/agency (Bericat, ; Fox, ; Jasper, ; Lively & Weed, ), and expressive or experiential (Ariffin et al, ; Illouz, Gilon, & Shachak, ; Lively, ; Rogers & Robinson, ). And the list goes on. It is actually fairly difficult to find contemporary sociological writing on emotion that is not grounded in one or more dichotomies that go without a hint of interrogation (Craciun, ; Erickson & Cottingham, ; Harkness & Hitlin, ; Lively & Heise, ; Olson et al, ; Rogers & Robinson, ; Simon & Nath, ). There are, however, many others who seem compelled to diligently acknowledge dualisms as problematic (perhaps to placate critical audiences in their introductions), before flinging them about with great irony and carelessness.…”

“…And the list goes on. It is actually fairly difficult to find contemporary sociological writing on emotion that is not grounded in one or more dichotomies that go without a hint of interrogation (Craciun, 2018;Erickson & Cottingham, 2016;Harkness & Hitlin, 2016;Lively & Heise, 2004;Olson et al, 2017;Rogers & Robinson, 2016;Simon & Nath, 2004). There are, however, many others who seem compelled to diligently acknowledge dualisms as problematic (perhaps to placate critical audiences in their introductions), before flinging them about with great irony and carelessness.…”