Therapy without therapists : an ethnographic study of e-mental health in Australia
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Recent years have seen profound changes to popular understanding of mental health. New discourses emphasize the need to seek support for one's interior struggles, casting "mental health" as a discrete thing which "everyone has." Concurrent with this less pathological conception of the psyche has been a shift towards computerized therapy programs which blur the line between lifestyle adjustment and medical intervention. I conceive of these new digitally mediated programs, which obscure or altogether replace the human therapist, as "therapy without therapists." This ethnography considers the deployment of these e-mental health programs across a variety of contexts in Australia, where they enjoy public funding as part of a broad government campaign to promote mental wellness at the population level. I show that behind these e-mental health programs are real human beings subject to material social conditions and to the powerful forces which reside in the psyche. This dissertation argues for a new approach to the changing politics of mental health, one which is attentive to both realities.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2023; ©2023 |
| Publication date | 2023; 2023 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Neiman, Aaron Matthew |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Fullwiley, Duana |
| Thesis advisor | Fullwiley, Duana |
| Thesis advisor | Garcia, Angela, 1971- |
| Thesis advisor | Schüll, Natasha Dow, 1971- |
| Thesis advisor | Thiranagama, Sharika |
| Degree committee member | Garcia, Angela, 1971- |
| Degree committee member | Schüll, Natasha Dow, 1971- |
| Degree committee member | Thiranagama, Sharika |
| Associated with | Stanford University, School of Humanities and Sciences |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Anthropology |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Aaron Neiman. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Anthropology. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2023. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/jq033vs0375 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2023 by Aaron Matthew Neiman
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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