Project description
Thinking about emotions in mental health
Since the 1970s, psychiatry has viewed alexithymia, a difficulty in putting emotions into words, as a universal risk factor for mental health issues. However, this view ignores the rich cultural and linguistic diversity in how people experience and express emotions. Many patients, especially from minority cultures, risk misunderstanding and mistreatment because psychiatric models assume a one-size-fits-all emotional language. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the CULTEMO project challenges these narrow norms by exploring emotions as deeply shaped by culture, history, and relationships. Using insights from psychology, philosophy, and medical humanities, CULTEMO aims to reshape clinical practice with humility and sensitivity. By doing so, it hopes to improve care for those whose emotional worlds do not fit conventional scripts, and to educate both professionals and the public about the complex nature of human feelings.
Objective
CULTEMO’s aim is to examine a set of implicit norms about human emotional life that took shape in the mid-twentieth century and which continue to dominate scientific frameworks and clinical practices to the detriment of patients and progress in the science of emotion.
Since the 1970s, researchers and psychiatrists have used the concept of alexithymia to assert that individuals who lack words (lexis) to communicate emotions (thymos) have a potential risk factor for several affective disorders. But not all cultures and languages share the same understanding of human emotional life, or even have equivalent linguistic terms for emotions and feelings, leaving some patients vulnerable to mistreatment in encounters with the psychiatric system. By projecting its perspective as the universal, natural norm for all human beings, the alexithymia construct marginalizes and even pathologizes the diverse ways that individuals make sense of their bodily sentience and the world around them.
With alexithymia as a lens, CULTEMO will apply recent evidence and methods from the affective sciences, cross-cultural psychology, social ontology, and the medical humanities to reveal the faulty assumptions of a view of emotions as natural and universal. CULTEMO’s working hypothesis is that an understanding of emotions as situated, relational, and historical can help clinicians practice epistemic humility in encounters with patients who do not operate with the same kinds of emotion scripts or norms as themselves, minorities especially. Building on these historical, philosophical, and scientific insights, CULTEMO will produce educational material for the general public and clinical practice.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences computer and information sciences knowledge engineering ontology
- humanities history and archaeology history
- social sciences psychology
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01
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1165 KOBENHAVN
Denmark
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