After the Success with the New Generation of Antidepressants: Experiences, Practices, Discourses and Changes in the Self

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to explore the complex changes brought about by the SSRI revolution from an intersectional and multi-sited perspective. The project particularly focuses on understandings of the self and on experiences, practices, biomedical knowledge production and discourses related to depression and medication. The project applies an explorative and interdisciplinary approach. It involves researchers in science and technology studies (STS), gender studies, developmental biology and cultural studies and thus bridges the epistemological gap between the natural sciences and the social sciences/humanities. The project is multi-sited and focuses on four themes: (1) the everyday experiences of patients/users of SSRI; (2) the clinical practices and professional experiences of primary care physicians that meet and treat these patients; (3) the developments and changes in the production of biomedical knowledge on brains and SSRIs as well as its dissemination into clinical practice; and (4) the discursive construc¬tion of the self, depression and SSRI-usage in policy and public debate. Throughout the project the following questions will be central: (a) how are depression and depressive-like symptoms understood and experienced and what treatments and strategies are seen as appropriate?; (b) how are the effects and efficacy of SSRIs experienced, conceptualised and measured?; (c) how is the self understood, and what is the relation between self and body?; and (d) how are these processes affected by and affecting how different masculinities and femininities are bodily experienced, lived as identities and discursively shaped?

Keywords

Health, Intersectionality, Welfare, Depression, Antidepressants

Publications

Bredström, Anna (2015). Sociokulturellt sammanhang som etnisk skiljelinje i psykiatrisk diagnostik: kulturbegreppet i DSM-5. Socialmedicinsk Tidskrift, 92 (1): 47?55.