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Mindfulness and the ‘psychological imagination’

Daniel Nehring Orcid Logo, Ashley Frawley Orcid Logo

Sociology of Health and Illness, Volume: 42, Issue: 5, Pages: 1184 - 1201

Swansea University Authors: Daniel Nehring Orcid Logo, Ashley Frawley Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1111/1467-9566.13093

Abstract

We analyse the rise of ‘mindfulness’ in English language media discourses and contextualise it in terms of its expression of a persistent underlying ‘psychological imagination’ in contemporary thinking about social problems. An inversion of C. Wright Mills’ much-cited sociological imagination, the p...

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Published in: Sociology of Health and Illness
ISSN: 0141-9889 1467-9566
Published: Wiley 2020
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa62427
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first_indexed 2023-02-20T15:47:12Z
last_indexed 2023-02-21T04:19:02Z
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spelling 2023-02-20T15:49:06.6976730 v2 62427 2023-01-24 Mindfulness and the ‘psychological imagination’ ae8d2c719dc7935fbf07d354a2b30dee 0000-0002-5346-6301 Daniel Nehring Daniel Nehring true false 9279d7a34ced689e04eb6bdc56e74a64 0000-0002-4691-4612 Ashley Frawley Ashley Frawley true false 2023-01-24 CSSP We analyse the rise of ‘mindfulness’ in English language media discourses and contextualise it in terms of its expression of a persistent underlying ‘psychological imagination’ in contemporary thinking about social problems. An inversion of C. Wright Mills’ much-cited sociological imagination, the psychological imagination draws on medical-scientific authority to treat social problems as private concerns rooted in individual biology, mentality and behaviour. We analyse the roles which academic claims-making, commercial interests and mass mediatisation have played in the rise of mindfulness from the late 1970s onwards. We first map the translation of mindfulness from Buddhist philosophy into Western psychotherapy and popular psychology before considering its emergence and expression in the public sphere of news media claims-making. We argue that where the sociological imagination ‘promised’ above all the treatment of private troubles as public issues and insights into the ‘human variety’ produced by myriad ways of living, the psychological imagination promises the isolation of public issues as private concerns rooted in individual biology, mentality and behaviour. The psychological imagination permeates the expression of mindfulness as a solution to social ills and symbolises the comparative decline of assumptions implicit in Mills’ 20th century rousing call to social scientists. Journal Article Sociology of Health and Illness 42 5 1184 1201 Wiley 0141-9889 1467-9566 mindfulness; sociological imagination; social problems; news media; social construction 7 6 2020 2020-06-07 10.1111/1467-9566.13093 COLLEGE NANME Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy COLLEGE CODE CSSP Swansea University 2023-02-20T15:49:06.6976730 2023-01-24T14:21:30.7271176 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Social Sciences - Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy Daniel Nehring 0000-0002-5346-6301 1 Ashley Frawley 0000-0002-4691-4612 2 62427__26630__f5d6454354bf4355a90ba1cb2258f99c.pdf 62427.pdf 2023-02-20T15:47:25.1281676 Output 661092 application/pdf Version of Record true This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License true eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
title Mindfulness and the ‘psychological imagination’
spellingShingle Mindfulness and the ‘psychological imagination’
Daniel Nehring
Ashley Frawley
title_short Mindfulness and the ‘psychological imagination’
title_full Mindfulness and the ‘psychological imagination’
title_fullStr Mindfulness and the ‘psychological imagination’
title_full_unstemmed Mindfulness and the ‘psychological imagination’
title_sort Mindfulness and the ‘psychological imagination’
author_id_str_mv ae8d2c719dc7935fbf07d354a2b30dee
9279d7a34ced689e04eb6bdc56e74a64
author_id_fullname_str_mv ae8d2c719dc7935fbf07d354a2b30dee_***_Daniel Nehring
9279d7a34ced689e04eb6bdc56e74a64_***_Ashley Frawley
author Daniel Nehring
Ashley Frawley
author2 Daniel Nehring
Ashley Frawley
format Journal article
container_title Sociology of Health and Illness
container_volume 42
container_issue 5
container_start_page 1184
publishDate 2020
institution Swansea University
issn 0141-9889
1467-9566
doi_str_mv 10.1111/1467-9566.13093
publisher Wiley
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Social Sciences - Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Social Sciences - Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy
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description We analyse the rise of ‘mindfulness’ in English language media discourses and contextualise it in terms of its expression of a persistent underlying ‘psychological imagination’ in contemporary thinking about social problems. An inversion of C. Wright Mills’ much-cited sociological imagination, the psychological imagination draws on medical-scientific authority to treat social problems as private concerns rooted in individual biology, mentality and behaviour. We analyse the roles which academic claims-making, commercial interests and mass mediatisation have played in the rise of mindfulness from the late 1970s onwards. We first map the translation of mindfulness from Buddhist philosophy into Western psychotherapy and popular psychology before considering its emergence and expression in the public sphere of news media claims-making. We argue that where the sociological imagination ‘promised’ above all the treatment of private troubles as public issues and insights into the ‘human variety’ produced by myriad ways of living, the psychological imagination promises the isolation of public issues as private concerns rooted in individual biology, mentality and behaviour. The psychological imagination permeates the expression of mindfulness as a solution to social ills and symbolises the comparative decline of assumptions implicit in Mills’ 20th century rousing call to social scientists.
published_date 2020-06-07T04:22:02Z
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