Constructing a Non-depressed Self: Women’s Accounts of Recovery from Depression

Abstract

This study involved a discourse analytic investigation of 15 women’s accounts of their experiences of recovery from depression. Participants’ descriptions of depression revolved around their lives as women, consumed by domestic practices and governed by the needs of others. In contrast, recovery was constructed within a narrative of personal transformation in which participants relinquished their good woman practices and attended to their own needs. However, participants appeared to face a discursive double bind whereby letting go of domestic and caring work and beginning to care for themselves were both central to their wellness and threatening to their identities as women. The analysis explores the ways in which participants negotiated and resisted dominant discourses of femininity in their accounts of recovery from depression.

A Feminist Phenomenological Description of Depression in Low-income South African Women

“…10! LaFrance, 2009;LaFrance & Stoppard, 2006;Lafrance & McKenzie-Mohr, 2013;Liebert, 2010;Stoppard, 2000;Ussher, 2010).…”

Listening Past the Lies that Make Us Sick: A Voice-Centered Analysis of Strength and Depression among Black Women

“…Making such connections and resisting continued dissociation requires that women question received wisdom in its cultural constructions of "good" womanhood, which are often predicated on subordinating their needs as daughters, wives, mothers, community members, employees, and citizens through an ethic of other-centeredness (LaFrance and Stoppard 2007). As a result, women pursuing recovery refuse to continue concealing their realities in order to protect an ideology of femininity.…”

“…Continuing to live on two disconnected levels, having thoughts, particularly those prescribed by the ideologies of their social context, that are at odds with their embodied experiences, these women retain an inner/outer split. Doing so, they undertake an intensified suppression of their needs to promote a façade of competence and contentment-a strategy which upholds and protects cultural ideals of femininity at a cost to their own needs and overall long-term wellness (LaFrance and Stoppard 2007;Mauthner 2002, pp. 13-14).…”

Yoga for Chronic Depressive Symptoms in Pregnancy: A Commentary and Call to Action

“…There is an urgent need for adjunctive/alternative treatments for chronic depressive symptoms in pregnancy, particularly those which target prevention of relapse/ recurrence [36,37,42].Considerable literature supports PA as a therapeutic modality for depressive and related symptoms [43,44].Results from a Cochrane review and other meta-analyses suggest that PA has effects on depressive symptom management comparable to antidepressant medications and cognitive behavioral therapy [45,46]. However, individuals with depressive symptoms have reduced self-regulation and self-efficacy related to PA and report great difficulty following-through with PA behaviors [47,48].…”

“…Thus, many women remain under-or un-treated due to the actual and perceived risks involved in pharmacological therapy during pregnancy [5]. Even with UC, a majority of individuals do not achieve partial or full symptom remission [33][34][35][36][37]. For example, one meta-analysis suggests only a 12-16% response rate to antidepressants in individuals with moderate to severe depressive symptoms with a slight improvement with the addition of other therapeutic modalities, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy [38].…”