The scenes and spaces of anxiety: Embodied expressions of distress in public and private fora

Mcgrath, Laura; Reavey, Paula and Brown, Steven D. (2008). The scenes and spaces of anxiety: Embodied expressions of distress in public and private fora. Emotion, Space and Society, 1(1) pp. 56–64.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2008.08.003

Abstract

Psychological treatments of mental health issues have acquired a justifiable notoriety for their tendency to engage in generalisation and reductionism. By contrast, the emergent geographies of exclusion make visible the fine-grain material and spatial contours of the lives of individuals who experience mental health difficulties and distress. However, this can come at the cost of a relative neglect of the psychological. In this paper we propose a set of concepts for facilitating the study of intersecting planes of experience, which demonstrates the interdependency of the spatial, the psychological and the technological. Drawing on empirical work with participants who live with persistent anxiety, we demonstrate how online support networks mediate – that is transduct, intersect and transform – how experiences of anxiety are lived out. Attention to endogenous ‘tactics’ or ‘modes of normativity’ provides an interesting agenda for the emergent engagement of social psychology with social/cultural geography.

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