The weariness of the self : diagnosing the history of depression in the contemporary age / Alain Ehrenberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ehrenberg, Alain.

Standardized Title:

Fatigue d'être soi. English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Depression, Mental--History.

Depression, Mental.

Depression, Mental--Social aspects.

Social psychiatry.

Social psychology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (376 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Diagnosing the history of depression in the contemporary age

Place of Publication:

Montreal ; Ithaca : McGill-Queen's University Press, c2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Depression, once a subfield of neurosis, has become the most diagnosed mental disorder in the world. Why and how has depression become such a topical illness and what does it tell us about changing ideas of the individual and society? Alain Ehrenberg investigates the history of depression and depressive symptoms across twentieth-century psychiatry, showing that identifying depression is far more difficult than a simple diagnostic distinction between normal and pathological sadness - the one constant in the history of depression is its changing definition. Drawing on the accumulated knowledge of a lifetime devoted to the study of the individual in modern democratic society, Ehrenberg shows that the phenomenon of modern depression is not a construction of the pharmaceutical industry but a pathology arising from inadequacy in a social context where success is attributed to, and expected of, the autonomous individual. In so doing, he provides both a novel and convincing description of the illness that clarifies the intertwining relationship between its diagnostic history and changes in social norms and values. The first book to offer both a global sociological view of contemporary depression and a detailed description of psychiatric reasoning and its transformation - from the invention of electroshock therapy to mass consumption of Prozac - The Weariness of the Self offers a compelling exploration of depression as social fact.

Contents:

Foreword / Allan Young

Introduction. Sovereignty of the Self or the Return of Nervousness

Pt. 1. Sick Self

1. Birth of the Psychic Self

2. Electroconvulsive Therapy: Technique, Mood, and Depression

3. Socialization of an Indefinable Pathology

Pt. 2. Twilight of Neurosis

4. Psychological Front: Guilt without an Instruction Manual

5. Medical Front: New Avenues for the Depressive Mood

Pt. 3. Inadequate Individual

6. Depressive Breakdown

7. Uncertain Subject of Depression, or End-of-the-Century Individuality

Conclusion: The Weight of the Possible.

Notes:

Translation of: La fatigue d'être soi.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [297]-331) and index.

ISBN:

9786612867606

9780773578708

0773578706

9781282867604

1282867601

9780773577152

0773577157

OCLC:

759101530

Publisher Number:

2027/heb33475 hdl