Exploring precarity and wellbeing through embodied eco-psychotherapies and posthuman subjectivity

Abstract This article presents the case for a rethinking of wellbeing in precarious times. Covid-19 made visible ways in which precarity has become central to daily living and to existence itself. From employment to the environment—and multiple forms of life in between—insecurity takes its toll on health and wellbeing. However, a collective sense of precarity’s effects can be overlooked due to the predominantly individualising nature of wellbeing discourses. Common interventions do little to challenge the individualised narratives, yet there is a deficit of research into alternative, more relational approaches. This research draws from qualitative interviews with twelve embodiment/eco-psychotherapy practitioners to contextualise wellbeing within a precarity assemblage. The empirical data are theorised through a critical posthuman lens, and the concept of posthuman subjectivity is applied. Reading this concept through the alternative practitioners’ insights stipulates for a relational reframing of wellbeing suitable for the subjectivities emerging through contemporary precarity.