ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes that affective atmospheres are important for understanding therapeutic cultures, especially in collective events that concentrate on relationship and sexual issues. It engages with the issue of affective atmospheres in therapeutic cultures by drawing upon a detailed study of relationship and sex counselling in Finland. The chapter encounters disruptive moments because of a firm reliance on gendered stereotypes, such as the idea that men are sexually active and women sexually passive, or a persistent renewal of heteronormative values, such as the equation of intimate relationships with heterosexual marriage. It focuses on relationship and sex counselling practices in Finland. The chapter attempts to move away from human-centred notions of the therapeutic which manifest themselves, for instance, in a reliance on the concept of the self. It aims to use the lens of affective atmospheres to map how situational and material therapeutic practices operate in/through both human and non-human bodies.
