International Conference organised by project A02, September 24th - 26th 2018 at Freie Universität Berlin.

This conference explores an understanding of mental health care settings as complex affective arrangements. As such, they are sites of situated and recurring affectivity shaped by as well as shaping the interrelations and dynamics between actors, materialities, and discourses. Acknowledging these arrangements as evident in and beyond mental health care settings enables a new perspective on actors’ affects as inherently relational phenomena and emphasizes a relational and interaction-based lens on mental illness. Applying an interdisciplinary perspective will yield new impulses for therapeutic interventions by exploring, analyzing and deliberately modulating components of a given arrangement. Our conference will entwine phenomenological approaches from philosophy, cultural psychiatry and psychotherapy, as well as psychological anthropology, to shed light on the benefits of adopting these theoretical concepts in mental health care practices.

For more information, program and registration, please visit the conference page.