The Emotional Self

A Sociocultural Exploration

`This addition to a growing number of texts which approach emotions and emotionality from a social constructionist perspective is well written, scholarly, accessible and interesting....

There is both breadth and depth to this work.' - Feminism and Psychology

This broad-ranging and accessible book brings together social and cultural theory with original empirical research into the nature of the emotional self in contemporary western societies.

The emphasis of the analysis is on the emotional self as a dynamic project that is continually shaped and reshaped via discourse, embodied sensations, memory, personal biography and interactions with others and objects. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Deborah Lupton draws on a number of sociocultural approaches that adopt a post-structuralist perspective. She strongly emphasizes language and discourse as they construct and express concepts of the self and the emotions, whilst also acknowledging the sensual, embodied and unconscious dimensions of emotional experience.