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The Weariness of the Self : Diagnosing the History of Depression in the Contemporary Age by Ehrenberg, Alain(Author) is a nonfiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is The Weariness of the Self : Diagnosing the History of Depression in the Contemporary Age about?

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 depr

Who reads The Weariness of the Self : Diagnosing the History of Depression in the Contemporary Age?

Author

Ehrenberg, Alain(Author)

Publisher

McGill-Queen's University Press

Published

2010

Language

EN

ISBN

9781282867604

Category

nonfiction

Subjects

Medical, History, Psychology

Rating

3.95 / 5 (17 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14