Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-kw2vx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-05T16:33:18.686Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Wellbeing and Welfare: A Psychosocial Analysis of Being Well and Doing Well Enough

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 April 2011

DAVID TAYLOR
DAVID TAYLOR*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Health and Social Science, University of Brighton, Mayfield House, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9PH email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Wellbeing is increasingly supplanting welfare as a central political goal for social and public policy. In academic social policy, some writers have suggested that a focus on wellbeing allows us to consider a ‘fully rounded humanity’ whereas welfare focuses on economic utility. This article avoids this polarisation and proposes a generative and relational view of wellbeing and welfare as mutually constitutive. It adopts a trans-disciplinary critical psychosocial perspective to reveal highly normative views of wellbeing and agency employed in these political and academic discourses. It proposes a view of agency for wellbeing which is contextual, includes non-rational action and is oriented to being well enough with others. Instead of a concern with outcome measures such as happiness, it proposes a view of wellbeing as a process which varies according to context. Drawing on the notion of ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ needs, the specific content of wellbeing is seen as generated through ‘close’ and ‘distant’ relationships. This approach challenges contemporary policy responses to wellbeing which are individualised and market-led and suggests that a question for social policy is: which relationships and contexts are generative of individual wellbeing and welfare?

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , October 2011 , pp. 777 - 794
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bauman, Z. (2003), Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Bevan, P. (2007), ‘Researching wellbeing across disciplines: some key intellectual problems and ways forward’, in Gough, I. and McGregor, A. (eds.), Wellbeing in Developing Countries: From Theory to Research, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), see http://www.bacp.co.uk/iapt/ (last accessed 16 June 2010).Google Scholar
Cameron, D. (2010), Speech to the UK Treasury, see http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cameron-defends-wellbeing-measure-2143595.html (last accessed 24 November, 2010).Google Scholar
Carpenter, M. (2009), ‘The capabilities approach and critical social policy: lessons from the majority world?’, Critical Social Policy 100, London: Sage, pp. 351–73.Google Scholar
Cooper, A. and Lousada, J. (2005), Borderline Welfare: Feeling and the Fear of Feeling in Modern Welfare, London: Karnac.Google Scholar
Dean, H. (2005), Social Policy, Oxford: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Dean, H. (2009)a, ‘Review of three books on wellbeing’, Social Policy and Administration, 43: 3, 311–16.Google Scholar
Dean, H. (2009)b, ‘Critiquing capabilities: the distractions of a beguiling concept’, Critical Social Policy, 99: 261–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dean, H. (2010), Understanding Human Need, Bristol: Policy Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deci, E. and Ryan, M. (2006), ‘Hedonia, eudaimonia, and well-being: an introduction’, Journal of Happiness Studies, 9: 1, 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doyal, L. and Gough, I. (1984), ‘A theory of human needs’, Critical Social Policy, 4: 6–38.Google Scholar
Doyal, L. and Gough, I. (1991), A Theory of Human Need, London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Edwards, C. and Imrie, R. (2008), ‘Disability and the implications of the wellbeing agenda: some reflections from the United Kingdom’, Journal of Social Policy, 37: 3, 337–55.Google Scholar
Fromm, E. (2008), To Have or To Be?, London: Continuum Books.Google Scholar
Frosh, S. (2003), ‘Psychosocial studies and psychology: is a critical approach emerging?’, Human Relations, 56: 1547–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furedi, F. (2003), Therapy Culture, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gough, I., McGregor, A. and Camfield, L. (2007), ‘Theorising welfare in international development’, in Gough, I. and McGregor, A. (eds.), Wellbeing in Developing Countries: From Theory to Research, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
HM Government (2000), Local Government Act 2000 c 22, London, HMSO.Google Scholar
HM Treasury (2008), Developments in the Economics of Well-Being, Treasury Economic Working Paper No. 4, November 2008, Surrey: Office of Public Sector Information.Google Scholar
Hoggett, P. (2001), ‘Agency, rationality and social policy’, Journal of Social Policy, 30: 1, 37–6.Google Scholar
Jordan, B. (2008), Welfare and Wellbeing: Social Value in Public Policy, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
McGregor, A. (2007), ‘Researching wellbeing: from concepts to methodology’, in Gough, I. and McGregor, A. (eds.), Wellbeing in Developing Countries: From Theory to Research, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
New Economics Foundation, see http://www.nationalaccountsofwellbeing.org, last accessed 10 November 2010.Google Scholar
Ryan, R. and Sapp, A. (2007), ‘Basic psychological needs: a self-determination theory perspective on the promotion of wellness across development and cultures’, in Gough, I. and McGregor, A. (eds.), Wellbeing in Developing Countries: From Theory to Research, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Searle, B. (2008), Well-being: In Search of a Good Life? Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Siegrist, J. (2003), ‘Subjective wellbeing: new conceptual and methodological developments in health-related social sciences’, paper presented to ESF SCSS exploratory workshop, Income, Interactions and Subjective Wellbeing, Paris, 25–26 September 2003.Google Scholar
Sointu, E. (2005), ‘The rise of an ideal: tracing changing discourses of wellbeing’, The Sociological Review, 53: 2, 255–74.Google Scholar
Sointu, E. (2006), ‘The search for wellbeing in alternative and complementary health practices’, Sociology of Health and Illness, 2: 3, 330–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stenner, P. (2010), ‘Psychosocial studies without foundations: a transdisciplinary approach’, keynote address, 3rd Psychosocial Network Conference, University of East London.Google Scholar
Stenner, P. and Taylor, D. (2008), ‘Psychosocial welfare: reflections on an emerging field’, Critical Social Policy, 28: 4, 415–37.Google Scholar
Stiglitz, J., Sen, A. and Fitoussi, J. (2011), Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr, last accessed 8 February 2011.Google Scholar
UNDP, see http://hdr.undp.org/en/humandev/, last accessed 8 February 2011.Google Scholar
Van Hoorn, A. (2007), ‘A short introduction to subjective wellbeing’, paper presented to the ‘Is Happiness Measurable and What do those Measures Mean for Policy?’, Conference, Rome, June 2007.Google Scholar
Williams, F. (1999), ‘Good-enough principles for welfare’, Journal of Social Policy, 28: 667–87.Google Scholar
Wood, G. and Newton, J. (2005), ‘From welfare to wellbeing regimes: engaging new agendas’, paper presented to the ‘New Frontiers of Social Policy’ Conference, Arusha, 12–15 December 2005.Google Scholar