The Aesthetics and Politics of Psychotherapy: Literary, Cultural, and Media Perspectives on ‘Healing the Soul’

Abstract This article discusses the growing significance of psychotherapy for literature, culture, media, and their analysis in the context of the proclaimed ‘Age of Therapeutization.’ It looks at definitions of (contemporary) psychotherapy and retraces the historical origins of the term as well as the field’s development throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It then argues for an engagement with psychotherapy on the part of literary, cultural, and media scholars that also takes account of non-psychoanalytical concepts and methods. Finally, the article explains the heuristic value of distinguishing between the aesthetics and the politics of psychotherapy and it outlines the contours of a methodology for studying how psychotherapeutic approaches map onto the content and/or form of literary, cultural, and media texts.