ABSTRACT
[Abstract]Chapter 3 discusses the intellectual antecedents as well as the wider societal and corporate influences that have contributed to the expansion of the teachers’ traditional role of caring for their students’ cognitive and moral development to becoming their ‘therapists’. The origins of this therapeutic ‘turn’ in education are explored through the lens of cultural sociology to explain how therapy and self-help evolved into dominant, western cultural narratives that subsequently spread into education. According to Eva Illouz, mental well-being is not the fixed outcome of autonomous individuals choosing certain desirable mental states, nor a product of societal conditions but rather emerges in a continuous interweaving of the two. However, the application of pre-determined classifications of mental ill-health and ‘undesirable’ emotions such as sadness has given rise to therapeutic treatment involving one-size-fits-all applications of standard techniques for managing ‘symptoms’. This therapy culture contains the fundamental contradiction of promoting the ideal of self-sufficiency whilst creating a dependency on therapeutic interventions. In schools, this contradiction is further complicated by the dominant culture of performativity and its impact on student well-being.
