The Culture of Psychiatrization. From depression to neurodiversity. 3700-AL-KPDN-QSP
The course is an introduction to the social and cultural perspectives on mental health and unhealth, focusing particularly on the ever more widespread phenomena of depression and the notion of neurodiversity (e.g. autism spectrum, ADHD). Starting with the basic question of what mental unhealth is in its historically specific forms, how it is experienced, categorized, treated, and socially produced, we will explore how concepts and practices surrounding “mental unhealth” reflect cultural imaginaries, relate to economic conditions, and regulate social behavior. The class offers a comprehensive review of the rich literature in anthropology and sociocultural analysis more broadly leading up to today’s discussions regarding depression and neurodiversity, their proliferation, causes, meanings, conditions of possibility, and effects. By the end of the class, you should have a good understanding of the complexity of these diagnostic categories as bio-psycho-social phenomena and of their cultural embeddedness. Class sessions will be conducted in seminar format with emphasis on class discussion and student presentations. You will be expected to prepare a small final research project of your own. Most or all readings will be in English
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Term 2024Z:
Over the last years and decades, what we understand as “psychiatric disorders” have proliferated to the point where the traditional distinction between “normal” and “abnormal” can rightly be questioned. A key part of this change has been depression – a category referencing what could be called the most noticeably medicalized field of human experience. This course seeks to account for the transformations of mental unhealth, manifest in the rise of depression, from a socio-cultural perspective, considering our categories of well-being and normalcy, understandings of health, and practices of healing, including psychiatry itself, as historically changing phenomena. We will read both classic and most recent literature on these topics in anthropology, sociology and philosophy and try to critically assess our present in light of its findings. |
Type of course
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
At the end of the course you will
- Have an understanding of the variety of factors contributing to our categorizations of mental health and unhealth and the tools interdisciplinary and socio-cultural research offers for their analysis - K_W01, 02, 03, 04
- create your own research project on a topic related to class theme and give a presentation of your research in front of an audience and in written form K_U03, 04, 06, 07
- understand the historical and cultural conditions and the diversity of the categories of mental health and its role in society, K_K07, 08, 10
Assessment criteria
Grading policy:
Your final grade is made up of several components in the following proportions:
Participation (coming prepared, participating in class discussion) – 40%
Final project – 40%
Class presentation – 20%
Course completion in based on meeting all course requirements (participation, presentation, and final paper)
Bibliography
***Tentative*** overview of planned course literature:
[changes will reflect a greater emphasis on neuroatypicality]
1. Introduction – what's wrong with us?
- Rose, Nicolas. 2006. “Disorders without borders. The expanding scope of psychiatric practice” BioSocieties
- Davies, James. 2021. Sedated. How Modern Capitalism Created our Mental Health Crisis. (excerpts)
2. Psychiatric histories
- Shorter, Edward. 2009. Before Prozac. excerpts
3. Antipsychiatric histories
- Szasz, Thomas. The Myth of Mental Illness, excerpts
- Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization / Discpipline and Punish, excerpts
- [Kazimierz Jankowski, Od psychiatrii biologicznej...]
- Cohen, Bruce. 2018. „Introduction” in: Routledge International Handbook of Critical Mental Health
4. What “is” depression – an interdisciplinary perspective
- Lewis, Bradley. 2012. Depression. Integrating Science, Culture, and Humanities.
- Sokół, Grzegorz. 2023. Working Through What Is. Ch.3. / 2021 “Prawdziwa depresja I paternalism kliniczny.” LUD
- DSM-5, ICD-10 diagnostic definitions
- Metzl / Chodoff, open essays on Medicalization
5. Depression and cross-cultural psychiatry
- Kleinman & Good. 1985. Culture and Depression, chs by Schieffelin (New Guinea), Obeyesekere (Sri Lanka), Good & Good (Iran).
6. A Western history: from Acadia to Melancholia to Prozac
- Jackson, Stanley. 1985. “Acedia the Sin…” in Culture and Depression
- Radden, Jennifer, ed. 2000. The Nature of Melancholia. From Aristotle to Kristeva (excerpts)
- Lawlor, 2012, From Melancholia to Prozac, excerpts / Jansson, From Melancholia to Depression
7. Psychologies
- Freud, Sigmund. “Mourning and Melancholia”, “Loss” in: The Standard Edition;
- Beck, Aaron.
- Klein, Melanie. “The Depressive Position” (in Radden)
- Rose, Nicolas. 1998. Inventing Our Selves. Psychology, Power and Personhood (excerpts).
8. Diagnosing gender
- Metzl, Jonathan. 2003. Prozac on the Couch. Prescribing Gender in the Era of Wonder Drugs (exceprts)
- Showalter, Elaine. 1985. The Female Malady. Women, madness, and English culture, 1830–1980
- Galasinski, Dariusz. 2008. Men’s Discourses of Depression.
9. Normalcy and pathology.
- Horwitz and Wakefield, 2007. The Loss of Sadness
- Rose, Nicolas. 2010. “Normality and pathology in a biomedical age”
- Benedict, Ruth. “Anthropology and the Abnormal”
Recommended:
- Canguilhem, The Normal and the Pathological; (Margree, 2003 “Normal and Abnormal”)
10. Depression and Disability
- Davis, Lennard. 2015. “Depression and Disability” in The End of Normal.
11. A global epidemic
- Watters, Ethan. 2010. Crazy Like Us.
- Kitanaka, Junko. 2012. Depression in Japan.
- Zhang, Li. 2020. Anxious China
- Lakoff, Andy. “Anxieties of Globalization. Antidepressant Sales and Economic Crisis in Argentina.”
12. Serotonin!
- Debating the serotonin theory – Healy, David. The Antidepressant Era or Let Them Eat Prozac;
- Moncrieff, 2009, “The myth of the chemical cure”; 2022, “The serotonin theory of depression”
13. Pharmaceutical cultures
- Jenkins et al., The Pharmaceutical Person, selected chs
- Petryna et al., Global Pharmaceuticals, selected chs.
- Martin, Emily. “Pharmakon”
- Dumit, Drugs for Life
14. Socialism and postsocialism
- Skultans, “The appropriation of suffering”
- Matza, Tomas. 2018. Shock Therapy. Psychology, Precarity and Well-Being in Postsocialist Russia.
- Sokół, Working Through What Is, ch 1
15. Depression and capitalism
- Rose, 2018. Our Psychiatric Future ch 3;
- Fisher, Mark. 2009, Capitalist Realism (excerpts)
- Cohen, Bruce. 2016. Psychiatric Hegemony
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: