Talking about sexual and reproductive health: counselling encounters in postwar Europe

Communication and counselling are at the heart of the vast web of institutions and practices that comprise sexual and reproductive health. Learning test results, making decisions about treatment and birth control, working through difficult emotions, grappling with personal and cultural expectations—these are experiences that powerfully impact individuals, families, communities and (as some would have it) nations. They are also often mediated through counselling with professionals and peers. Over several decades, sexual and reproductive counselling encounters have been studied and theorised, and their practitioners have developed rich vocabularies of practice.1 Those practices have been shaped by the ‘liberalisation’ of sexuality, psychological and emotional ‘turns’, ethical and legal debates about reproductive autonomy and disability rights, expectations relating to race and gender, a growing requirement for patients to manage risks, and new definitions of responsible citizens. The papers of this special issue analyse the twentieth-century histories of sexual and reproductive health counselling,...
Source: Medical Humanities - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Editorial Source Type: research