Facing and exposing to emotions: scientific knowledge, emotional models and gender in cognitive-behavioral therapies in Argentina.

Abstract

Based on a research study on cognitive behavioral psychotherapies, this article analyzes the emotional model of these therapies and its relationship with the exposure technique. Then, I explore the implicit gender dimension in scientific knowledge that legitimizes this technique. These psychotherapies are focused and short-term treatments that gained more relevance in Argentina in recent years as a result of socioeconomic transformations and the strengthening of the neoliberal regime in the late 1990s. Highly competitive and exclusive working scenarios defined this context and intervene in the emergence of different sufferings that need a quick resolution. For this study, a qualitative methodology was used, and the technique was the analysis drawn from 25 semi-structured interviews with cognitive behavioral psychologists and psychiatrists from Buenos Aires, Argentina.