Eeva Sointu
Biographic Data
| ID | 247405 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Eeva Sointu |
| GIVEN NAMES | Eeva |
| FAMILY NAME | Sointu |
| SIGNATURE | SOINTU E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Smith College |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7495-2096 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 249 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Trump therapy
The election of Donald Trump as US President in 2016 has been felt by many as a political trauma. In response, this trauma has been worked through using therapeutic talk and practice. In this article, we examine the media representations of these responses across a wide range of news sources in order to understand the way that attitudes and values regarding the politicisation of therapy are captured, reinforced and shaped. It is shown that therap…
Challenges and a Super Power
Even though much research underscores the significance of social inequalities in illness, the health consequences of inequity tend to occupy a marginal position in medical education. Drawing on qualitative interviews with third and fourth year medical students, this paper explores how future doctors understand and would improve health in the United States. While participants with background in public health and policy understand that social inequ…
Good' patient/'bad' patient
This article develops sociological understanding of the reproduction of inequality in medicine. The material is drawn from a longitudinal study of student experiences of clinical learning that entailed 72 qualitative in-depth interviews with 27 medical students from five medical schools in the USA. To highlight the subtle, yet powerful, ways in which inequality gets entrenched, this article analyses ideas of the 'good' and the 'bad' patient. Bad …
Discourse, Affect and Affliction
While much recent theorizing into affect has challenged the primacy of discourse in understanding social life, this paper is premised on the intertwining of affective experience with discursive meaning. Furthermore, appreciating the entwining of affect and discourse facilitates broader understanding into the illness experience, medical decision-making and experiences of healing. Today, the biomedical discourse carries particular affective weight …
Complementary and alternative medicines, embodied subjectivity and experiences of healing
Despite a paucity of scientific evidence, complementary and alternative medicines have been found to give rise to feelings of control, empowerment, and agency. These healing experiences call for the development of analytical frameworks beyond biomedical ideas of scientific effect. This article is premised on a phenomenological understanding of embodied subjectivity as paving way for more nuanced understanding into experiences of healing. As such,…
The Holistic Body and Mind
In the wellbeing domain, ill health is frequently understood as a matter transcending the biomedical emphasis on physiological symptoms. Forms of alternative medicine are, furthermore, argued to be different from conventional medicine because of the attention paid to the whole person: body, mind and spirit. The endeavour to address more than the biomedical body rests on conceptualizing individuals, in illness and in health, holistically; people a…
Prescription
Many complementary and alternative health practices enjoy limited scientific legitimacy. For many others, the evidence base barely exists in its infancy. The number of users, however, continues to grow with clients often reporting relief from their troubles. Some of this healing is likely to emerge through physiological effectiveness that may yet need to be confirmed by scientific study. Experiences of healing may also occur in relation to the po…
The Spirit in Mind, Body and Spirit
The discourse of wellbeing emphasizes not only the mind and the body. The spirit also features in the holistic health domain and in the stories of some wellbeing seekers. 1 Even though most holistic health practices make reference to the mind, the body and the spirit, the practical importance of spirituality varies between practices, but also between individual clients and practitioners. While a sense of something higher permeates practices like …
Gendering the Search for Wellbeing
The appeal of the holistic health sphere pertains to congruence between the discourse of wellbeing and prevalent conceptualizations of the self. As the previous chapter outlined, the discourse of wellbeing makes sense because it reproduces important ideals relating to understandings of normal and desirable selfhood: individual uniqueness, agency, self-responsibility, reflexivity and self-fulfilment. Here I look further into the ways in which comp…
Landscapes of Complementary and Alternative Health
Complementary and alternative health practices have, in terms of the numbers of people involved, gradually moved from the margins to the mainstream of contemporary cultures of health (Ruggie 2004). This flourishing of non-biomedical approaches to health, specifically since the 1970s, hides a complex past that remains important for making sense of the holistic health field today. A lack of state support, together with scientific marginality, mark …
Wellbeing, Selfhood and Subjectivity
Complementary and alternative medicines have been conceptualized as solutions to medical complaints, as forms of health maintenance, as well as ‘treats’ for the mind and the body (Thomas et al. 2001a; Bishop et al. 2008). The stories of clients and practitioners, however, reveal an even more complex picture about complementary and alternative health practices and about the kind of health these practices are used to produce. Rather than physiologi…
Healing Body-Subjects
The production of healing has been an important theme throughout the preceding chapters. In Chapter 5, experiences of healing were seen to emerge through processes of recognition that reproduce dominant ideas of selfhood, but also confer worth, enable agency and facilitate meaning-making. In this chapter, I return to thinking about healing and analyse experiences of healing, which readily escape biomedical frameworks for efficacy, through an appr…
Negotiating Therapeutic Legitimacy
Complementary and alternative medicines exist in a paradoxical position of concurrent institutional marginality and cultural congruence. The cultural congruence of the holistic health field, as I have argued throughout the preceding chapters, pertains to the ways in which the discourse of wellbeing reproduces prominent values around selfhood and subjectivity. Ideas of health and illness, the self and the body captured in the discourse of wellbein…
Conclusions
Why holistic health practices entice people transcends what is usually considered under the purview of health or medicine; much more than biomedical health is at stake in the rise of the alternative health sphere. It is the values and subject positions reproduced in the discourse of wellbeing — and in many complementary and alternative health practices — that one must also consider in order to understand the appeal and the significance of the hol…
Theorizing Complementary and Alternative Medicines
Rather than physiological health only, complementary and alternative medicines aim at the production of wellbeing. This book explores how the increasing proliferation of holistic health methods are in
Detraditionalisation, gender and alternative and complementary medicines
This article is premised on the importance of locating the appeal and meaning of alternative and complementary medicines in the context of gendered identities. I argue that the discourse of wellbeing - captured in many alternative and complementary health practices - is congruent with culturally prevalent ideals of self-fulfilling, authentic, unique and self-responsible subjectivity. The discourse of wellbeing places the self at the centre, thus …
Spirituality, Gender, and Expressive Selfhood
This article discusses contemporary spiritualities, focusing in particular on the recent growth of practices attending to 'mind, body, and sprit' and centered on the goal of 'holistic well-being.' We argue that the growing popularity of such 'holistic spirituality' since the 1980s can be greatly illuminated by reference to Charles Taylor's account of the expressive mode of modern selfhood. Taylor's account is limited, however, by its inability to…
Healing Bodies, Feeling Bodies
Recognition and the Creation of Wellbeing
Whilst much research into alternative and complementary medicine use indicates that these practices enable experiences of control, agency and empowerment, few theoretically informed answers have been given to why and how consultations with alternative and complementary health practitioners facilitate experiences that are felt to be 'healing'.This article utilizes theories of recognition in order to reflect on the healing experiences of women seek…
The search for wellbeing in alternative and complementary health practices
This article is premised on a need to understand and analyse how those turning to alternative and complementary medicines conceptualise the role of these practices; to ask what kind of 'health' is produced through alternative and complementary medicines and how might the help provided by these practices relate to questions of identity, self and subjectivity? Even though alternative and complementary medicines can be utilised in the face of seriou…
The Rise of an Ideal
Wellbeing is a quality in demand in today's society. Wellbeing is virtue that is much desired, much promoted, and much debated. Yet, as an ideal, wellbeing is not a concept set in stone. Rather, conceptualisations and experiences of wellbeing are produced in and through wider social perceptions and practices. This article outlines and analyses contemporary conceptualisations of wellbeing and suggests that ideas of wellbeing capture and reproduce …
Spirituality, Gender, and Expressive Selfhood
This article discusses contemporary spiritualities, focusing in particular on the recent growth of practices attending to 'mind, body, and sprit' and centered on the goal of 'holistic well-being.' We argue that the growing popularity of such 'holistic spirituality' since the 1980s can be greatly illuminated by reference to Charles Taylor's account of the expressive mode of modern selfhood. Taylor's account is limited, however, by its inability to…
The Rise of an Ideal
Wellbeing is a quality in demand in today's society. Wellbeing is virtue that is much desired, much promoted, and much debated. Yet, as an ideal, wellbeing is not a concept set in stone. Rather, conceptualisations and experiences of wellbeing are produced in and through wider social perceptions and practices. This article outlines and analyses contemporary conceptualisations of wellbeing and suggests that ideas of wellbeing capture and reproduce …
The search for wellbeing in alternative and complementary health practices
This article is premised on a need to understand and analyse how those turning to alternative and complementary medicines conceptualise the role of these practices; to ask what kind of 'health' is produced through alternative and complementary medicines and how might the help provided by these practices relate to questions of identity, self and subjectivity? Even though alternative and complementary medicines can be utilised in the face of seriou…
Good' patient/'bad' patient
This article develops sociological understanding of the reproduction of inequality in medicine. The material is drawn from a longitudinal study of student experiences of clinical learning that entailed 72 qualitative in-depth interviews with 27 medical students from five medical schools in the USA. To highlight the subtle, yet powerful, ways in which inequality gets entrenched, this article analyses ideas of the 'good' and the 'bad' patient. Bad …
Recognition and the Creation of Wellbeing
Whilst much research into alternative and complementary medicine use indicates that these practices enable experiences of control, agency and empowerment, few theoretically informed answers have been given to why and how consultations with alternative and complementary health practitioners facilitate experiences that are felt to be 'healing'.This article utilizes theories of recognition in order to reflect on the healing experiences of women seek…
Detraditionalisation, gender and alternative and complementary medicines
This article is premised on the importance of locating the appeal and meaning of alternative and complementary medicines in the context of gendered identities. I argue that the discourse of wellbeing - captured in many alternative and complementary health practices - is congruent with culturally prevalent ideals of self-fulfilling, authentic, unique and self-responsible subjectivity. The discourse of wellbeing places the self at the centre, thus …
Theorizing Complementary and Alternative Medicines
Rather than physiological health only, complementary and alternative medicines aim at the production of wellbeing. This book explores how the increasing proliferation of holistic health methods are in
Healing Bodies, Feeling Bodies
Discourse, Affect and Affliction
While much recent theorizing into affect has challenged the primacy of discourse in understanding social life, this paper is premised on the intertwining of affective experience with discursive meaning. Furthermore, appreciating the entwining of affect and discourse facilitates broader understanding into the illness experience, medical decision-making and experiences of healing. Today, the biomedical discourse carries particular affective weight …
Complementary and alternative medicines, embodied subjectivity and experiences of healing
Despite a paucity of scientific evidence, complementary and alternative medicines have been found to give rise to feelings of control, empowerment, and agency. These healing experiences call for the development of analytical frameworks beyond biomedical ideas of scientific effect. This article is premised on a phenomenological understanding of embodied subjectivity as paving way for more nuanced understanding into experiences of healing. As such,…
Trump therapy
The election of Donald Trump as US President in 2016 has been felt by many as a political trauma. In response, this trauma has been worked through using therapeutic talk and practice. In this article, we examine the media representations of these responses across a wide range of news sources in order to understand the way that attitudes and values regarding the politicisation of therapy are captured, reinforced and shaped. It is shown that therap…
Challenges and a Super Power
Even though much research underscores the significance of social inequalities in illness, the health consequences of inequity tend to occupy a marginal position in medical education. Drawing on qualitative interviews with third and fourth year medical students, this paper explores how future doctors understand and would improve health in the United States. While participants with background in public health and policy understand that social inequ…
The Rise of an Ideal
Wellbeing is a quality in demand in today's society. Wellbeing is virtue that is much desired, much promoted, and much debated. Yet, as an ideal, wellbeing is not a concept set in stone. Rather, conceptualisations and experiences of wellbeing are produced in and through wider social perceptions and practices. This article outlines and analyses contemporary conceptualisations of wellbeing and suggests that ideas of wellbeing capture and reproduce …
Healing Bodies, Feeling Bodies
Recognition and the Creation of Wellbeing
Whilst much research into alternative and complementary medicine use indicates that these practices enable experiences of control, agency and empowerment, few theoretically informed answers have been given to why and how consultations with alternative and complementary health practitioners facilitate experiences that are felt to be 'healing'.This article utilizes theories of recognition in order to reflect on the healing experiences of women seek…
The search for wellbeing in alternative and complementary health practices
This article is premised on a need to understand and analyse how those turning to alternative and complementary medicines conceptualise the role of these practices; to ask what kind of 'health' is produced through alternative and complementary medicines and how might the help provided by these practices relate to questions of identity, self and subjectivity? Even though alternative and complementary medicines can be utilised in the face of seriou…
Spirituality, Gender, and Expressive Selfhood
This article discusses contemporary spiritualities, focusing in particular on the recent growth of practices attending to 'mind, body, and sprit' and centered on the goal of 'holistic well-being.' We argue that the growing popularity of such 'holistic spirituality' since the 1980s can be greatly illuminated by reference to Charles Taylor's account of the expressive mode of modern selfhood. Taylor's account is limited, however, by its inability to…
Detraditionalisation, gender and alternative and complementary medicines
This article is premised on the importance of locating the appeal and meaning of alternative and complementary medicines in the context of gendered identities. I argue that the discourse of wellbeing - captured in many alternative and complementary health practices - is congruent with culturally prevalent ideals of self-fulfilling, authentic, unique and self-responsible subjectivity. The discourse of wellbeing places the self at the centre, thus …
The Holistic Body and Mind
In the wellbeing domain, ill health is frequently understood as a matter transcending the biomedical emphasis on physiological symptoms. Forms of alternative medicine are, furthermore, argued to be different from conventional medicine because of the attention paid to the whole person: body, mind and spirit. The endeavour to address more than the biomedical body rests on conceptualizing individuals, in illness and in health, holistically; people a…
Prescription
Many complementary and alternative health practices enjoy limited scientific legitimacy. For many others, the evidence base barely exists in its infancy. The number of users, however, continues to grow with clients often reporting relief from their troubles. Some of this healing is likely to emerge through physiological effectiveness that may yet need to be confirmed by scientific study. Experiences of healing may also occur in relation to the po…
The Spirit in Mind, Body and Spirit
The discourse of wellbeing emphasizes not only the mind and the body. The spirit also features in the holistic health domain and in the stories of some wellbeing seekers. 1 Even though most holistic health practices make reference to the mind, the body and the spirit, the practical importance of spirituality varies between practices, but also between individual clients and practitioners. While a sense of something higher permeates practices like …
Gendering the Search for Wellbeing
The appeal of the holistic health sphere pertains to congruence between the discourse of wellbeing and prevalent conceptualizations of the self. As the previous chapter outlined, the discourse of wellbeing makes sense because it reproduces important ideals relating to understandings of normal and desirable selfhood: individual uniqueness, agency, self-responsibility, reflexivity and self-fulfilment. Here I look further into the ways in which comp…
Landscapes of Complementary and Alternative Health
Complementary and alternative health practices have, in terms of the numbers of people involved, gradually moved from the margins to the mainstream of contemporary cultures of health (Ruggie 2004). This flourishing of non-biomedical approaches to health, specifically since the 1970s, hides a complex past that remains important for making sense of the holistic health field today. A lack of state support, together with scientific marginality, mark …
Wellbeing, Selfhood and Subjectivity
Complementary and alternative medicines have been conceptualized as solutions to medical complaints, as forms of health maintenance, as well as ‘treats’ for the mind and the body (Thomas et al. 2001a; Bishop et al. 2008). The stories of clients and practitioners, however, reveal an even more complex picture about complementary and alternative health practices and about the kind of health these practices are used to produce. Rather than physiologi…
Healing Body-Subjects
The production of healing has been an important theme throughout the preceding chapters. In Chapter 5, experiences of healing were seen to emerge through processes of recognition that reproduce dominant ideas of selfhood, but also confer worth, enable agency and facilitate meaning-making. In this chapter, I return to thinking about healing and analyse experiences of healing, which readily escape biomedical frameworks for efficacy, through an appr…
Negotiating Therapeutic Legitimacy
Complementary and alternative medicines exist in a paradoxical position of concurrent institutional marginality and cultural congruence. The cultural congruence of the holistic health field, as I have argued throughout the preceding chapters, pertains to the ways in which the discourse of wellbeing reproduces prominent values around selfhood and subjectivity. Ideas of health and illness, the self and the body captured in the discourse of wellbein…
Conclusions
Why holistic health practices entice people transcends what is usually considered under the purview of health or medicine; much more than biomedical health is at stake in the rise of the alternative health sphere. It is the values and subject positions reproduced in the discourse of wellbeing — and in many complementary and alternative health practices — that one must also consider in order to understand the appeal and the significance of the hol…
Theorizing Complementary and Alternative Medicines
Rather than physiological health only, complementary and alternative medicines aim at the production of wellbeing. This book explores how the increasing proliferation of holistic health methods are in
Complementary and alternative medicines, embodied subjectivity and experiences of healing
Despite a paucity of scientific evidence, complementary and alternative medicines have been found to give rise to feelings of control, empowerment, and agency. These healing experiences call for the development of analytical frameworks beyond biomedical ideas of scientific effect. This article is premised on a phenomenological understanding of embodied subjectivity as paving way for more nuanced understanding into experiences of healing. As such,…
Discourse, Affect and Affliction
While much recent theorizing into affect has challenged the primacy of discourse in understanding social life, this paper is premised on the intertwining of affective experience with discursive meaning. Furthermore, appreciating the entwining of affect and discourse facilitates broader understanding into the illness experience, medical decision-making and experiences of healing. Today, the biomedical discourse carries particular affective weight …
Good' patient/'bad' patient
This article develops sociological understanding of the reproduction of inequality in medicine. The material is drawn from a longitudinal study of student experiences of clinical learning that entailed 72 qualitative in-depth interviews with 27 medical students from five medical schools in the USA. To highlight the subtle, yet powerful, ways in which inequality gets entrenched, this article analyses ideas of the 'good' and the 'bad' patient. Bad …
Trump therapy
The election of Donald Trump as US President in 2016 has been felt by many as a political trauma. In response, this trauma has been worked through using therapeutic talk and practice. In this article, we examine the media representations of these responses across a wide range of news sources in order to understand the way that attitudes and values regarding the politicisation of therapy are captured, reinforced and shaped. It is shown that therap…
Challenges and a Super Power
Even though much research underscores the significance of social inequalities in illness, the health consequences of inequity tend to occupy a marginal position in medical education. Drawing on qualitative interviews with third and fourth year medical students, this paper explores how future doctors understand and would improve health in the United States. While participants with background in public health and policy understand that social inequ…
Psychology (20 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Epistemology (17 works) · Social Psychology (15 works) · Political science (13 works) · Aesthetics (10 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Social science (10 works) · Complementary and Alternative Medicine Studies (8 works) · Law (7 works)