Emotion regulation as affective neoliberal governmentality.

Emotion regulation is central in many therapy models, including couple and family therapy models. This article draws on poststructuralist governmentality studies and processual affect theory to offer insight into how the therapeutic concept of emotion regulation may reflect and support neoliberal af...

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Published in:Family Process Vol. 64; no. 1; pp. 1 - 19
Main Authors: Smoliak, Olga, Rice, Carla, Rudder, Deanna, Tseliou, Eleftheria, LaMarre, Andrea, LeCouteur, Amanda, Gaete, Joaquin, Davies, Adam, Henshaw, Sarah
Format: Journal Article
Published: Wiley-Blackwell Mar2025
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      dt: Mar2025
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      pub: Wiley-Blackwell
      place: Malden, Massachusetts
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        atl: Emotion regulation as affective neoliberal governmentality.
      aug:
        au:
          Smoliak, Olga
          Rice, Carla
          Rudder, Deanna
          Tseliou, Eleftheria
          LaMarre, Andrea
          LeCouteur, Amanda
          Gaete, Joaquin
          Davies, Adam
          Henshaw, Sarah
        affil: Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition, University of Guelph, Guelph Ontario,, Canada
      sug:
        subj:
          Emotional Regulation
          Politics
          Government
          Reflection
          Support, Psychosocial
          Shared Governance
          Couples Counseling
          Family Therapy
          Program Implementation
          Happiness
          Psychological Well-Being
          Unemployment
          Job Security
          Social Isolation
          Incarceration
      ab: Emotion regulation is central in many therapy models, including couple and family therapy models. This article draws on poststructuralist governmentality studies and processual affect theory to offer insight into how the therapeutic concept of emotion regulation may reflect and support neoliberal affective forms of self‐governance. We suggest that couple and family therapy—through using professional discourses and affect‐oriented techniques or interventions—may be another site wherein neoliberal governmentality is implemented and extended in contemporary westernized neoliberalized societies. In facilitating emotion regulation, we argue that there is a risk that therapists may implicitly promote a neoliberal worldview that encourages clients to mobilize neoliberal techniques to become self‐improving, entrepreneurial subjects, responsible for their happiness and well‐being. Conditions of precarity associated with individualist, neoliberal capitalist ideologies and policies (e.g., unemployment, job insecurity, forced migration, wealth inequalities, mass incarceration, social isolation) generate emotional burdens for people to manage that professional techniques or interventions may normalize as clients' self‐management tasks. We theorize emotion regulation as an affective governmentality tactic of power and suggest that couple and family therapy can offer points of resistance to individualization and responsibilization and opportunities for creating or affirming alternative subjectivities and affectivities.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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