Sensory and Emotional Experiences: Practices of Mind-Body Medicine in the 20th Century

In our contemporary world where complaints about mind-body-related health issues such as burnout, fatigue syndrome, and stress are ever increasing, the idea that we all consist of minds and bodies is omnipresent. Although this idea has existed since antiquity and beyond, we argue that the period from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century exhibits decisive shifts in the ways sensory and emotional experiences in the context of mind-body medicine were conceptualized. In our workshop, we examine such concepts looking at scientific and therapeutic practices which allow us to analyze both the scientific concepts and the actual application of mind-body knowledge. We ask how the emotions became a researchable and therapeutic entity, how emotional and gendered bodies were practically constructed, and how Western conceptions of mind-body medicine met and were merged with Eastern conceptions of the emotional body.