Chemically Imbalanced

Everyday Suffering, Medication, and Our Troubled Quest for Self-Mastery

Joseph E. Davis

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780226686684, 9780226686547
• eBook ISBN: 9780226686714
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Everyday suffering—those conditions or feelings brought on by trying circumstances that arise in everyone's lives—is something that humans have grappled with for millennia. But the last decades have seen a drastic change in the way we approach it. In the past, a person going through a time of difficulty might keep a journal or see a therapist, but now the psychological has been replaced by the biological: instead of treating the heart, soul, and mind, we take a pill to treat the brain.

Chemically Imbalanced is a field report on how ordinary people dealing with common problems explain their suffering, how they're increasingly turning to the thin and mechanistic language of the "body/brain," and what these encounters might tell us. Drawing on interviews with people dealing with struggles such as underperformance in school or work, grief after the end of a relationship, or disappointment with how their life is unfolding, Joseph E. Davis reveals the profound revolution in consciousness that is underway. We now see suffering as an imbalance in the brain that needs to be fixed, usually through chemical means. This has rippled into our social and cultural conversations, and it has affected how we, as a society, imagine ourselves and envision what constitutes a good life. Davis warns that what we envision as a neurological revolution, in which suffering is a mechanistic problem, has troubling and entrapping consequences. And he makes the case that by turning away from an interpretive, meaning-making view of ourselves, we thwart our chances to enrich our souls and learn important truths about ourselves and the social conditions under which we live.

Index

abnormality, 7, 11, 15, 37, 48, 67, 103, 122, 159, 213n2

accounts, explanatory, 4, 7, 9, 11, 22, 25–28, 31, 37, 45, 148, 153, 159, 177, 195n33, 196n2; neurobiological, xi, 3, 43, 65, 99, 162, 206n7. See also medicalizing perspective; narrative (story); psychologizing perspective; theodicy

achievement norms, 139–41, 148

Action for Mental Health (report), 48, 49, 210n14

Adderall, 1–2, 15, 120, 156, 157, 217n18

advertising, pharmaceutical, 5–6, 81, 84–85. See also direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA)

Alcoholics Anonymous, 19, 20, 22

alienation, 171

American Institute for Psychoanalysis, 48

American Medical Association, 208n27

American Psychiatric Association, 2, 4, 61, 80. See also Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)

American Psychoanalytic Association, 48

anthropodicy, 173. See also theodicy

antianxiety (anxiolytic) drugs, 51, 154, 193n3, 203n83. See also minor tranquilizers

antidepressants, 36, 42–43, 52, 53, 124, 154–55; placebo response in clinical trials, 155. See also Prozac; serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRI); serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI)

antipsychotics, 50, 55, 56, 57, 154, 189, 193n3. See also chlorpromazine

antistigma campaigns, 103–5, 201n7, 213n44

anxiety, 43–44, 45, 46, 150–52, 200n19; among healthy people, 51; in DSM-II, 60; in DSM-III, 60; medical management of, 45; neurochemical account of, 43; and personality, 45; as psychic response to settings and demands, 49. See also generalized anxiety disorder (GAD); social anxiety disorder (SAD)

Anxiety Disorders Association of America, 80

appropriation of disorder categories, 74–...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• introduction
• one / The Neurobiological Imaginary
• two / The Biologization of Everyday Suffering
• three / Appropriating Disorder
• four / Resisting Differentness
• five / Seeking Viable Selfhood
• six / After Psychology
• conclusion / A Crisis of the Spirit
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index