Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
8 Phenomenologylistensto
Prozac
Analyzing the SSRI revolution
Fredrik Svenaeus
Introduction
The prescription of antidepressive pharmaceutics has increased rapidly in
Western countries during the 1990s. In Sweden, for example, the rate has
increased by 600 per cent. In 2004 the prevalence was about 6 per cent,
which means that more than half a million Swedes (out of a total population
of nine million) were on antidepressive medication.
1
Given the incidence of depression and other mental disorders, which
are indications of recommended pharmaceutical treatment, it is estimated
that at least 20 per cent of the Swedish population will be prescribed an
antidepressant at some time in their life.
2
This is quite an astonishing development, which has given rise to
much debate, and it calls for different kinds of empirical and conceptual
investigations. How are we to understand this dramatic increase? What are
the causes and reasons behind it? Are we medicalizing painful experiences
and conditions of everyday life? Or have we rather become more able in
detecting and treating diseases of the brain?
In this chapter I will aim at providing a phenomenology of the feelings
characteristic of depression and anxiety disorders, addressing not the
biological underpinnings, but the lived experience and meaning-structures
inherent in these feelings. If one wants to understand how anxiety, boredom
and grief can develop into pathologies, one needs to address the role they play
in everyday human life and culture as
constitutive
phenomena. It is highly
unlikely that we will be able to understand the differences between normal
and pathological feelings, solely by studying brain chemistry, even though
we might become even more able in changing the biology of our brains in a
way that make us feel and live better. Psychiatry needs a phenomenological
approach to supplement and guide psychopharmacology, as well as to
understand its own place and function in contemporary culture and society.
This phenomenological approach should in addition to broadening the
focus of the psychiatric gaze, also make possible a critical stance towards its
methods and goals (Crossley 2003).
