Dr Lucy Brown

B.A. (Sheffield), M.A. (Sheffield), Ph.D. (Sheffield)

Department of History

Teaching Associate in Modern British History

Level 2 Tutor

lucy.brown@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 2605

Full contact details

Dr Lucy Brown
Department of History
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
Profile

I completed my BA, MA and PhD in the History department at Sheffield.

My main research interests are in the social and cultural history of twentieth-century Britain, in particular the social and cultural changes of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

I am interested in the history of popular psychology, ideas about emotional expression, emotional relationships and emotional health, and the development of a ‘confessional’ and ‘therapeutic’ culture in modern Britain.

My research has focused on changing ideas about marriage and personal relationships in the 1960s and 1970s as a case study to explore a broader shift in British culture during this period towards transparency, honesty and authenticity.

I also have interests in the history of the welfare state in Britain as well as the history of mental health.

Research interests

My research explores the influence of psychological concepts on popular understandings of healthy emotional life, emotional relationships and emotional expression in Britain from the 1950s to the 1970s. I am particularly interested in the history of attitudes to honesty, openness and self-disclosure. My PhD thesis entitled ‘Encountering Each Other: Love and Emotional Relationships between Men and Women in Britain, 1950s-1970s’ examined the overhauling of British models of marriage and personal relationships in the 1960s and 1970s towards an emphasis on transparency, generated by the popularisation of new psychological theories encouraging honest, authentic and spontaneous emotional expression. These included John Bowlby’s theory of ‘attachment’ and humanistic psychology’s theory of ‘encountering’.

Research group
Current Students

Second Supervisor

All current students

Find out more about PhD study in History

Teaching activities

Undergraduate:

  • HST119 - The Transformation of Britain, 1800 to the Present
  • HST202 - Historians and History
  • HST288 - Media and Popular Culture in Twentieth-Century Britain
  • HST2037 - The Welfare State in Britain, 1900-2015
  • HST3095/6 - Permissive Britain? Social and Cultural Change, 1956-74

Postgraduate: 

  • HST6052 - Stories of Activism, 1960 to the Present