Negotiating the neurochemical self: anti-depressant consumption in women's recovery from depression

Abstract

Anti-depressant treatment can be viewed as an exercise of biopower that is articulated through policies and practices aimed at the reduction of depression, population healthcare costs and effects on labour force productivity. Drawing upon a feminist governmentality perspective, this article examines the discourses that shaped women's experiences of anti-depressant medication in an Australian qualitative study on recovery from depression. The majority of women had been prescribed anti-depressants to treat a chemical imbalance in the brain, manage symptoms and restore normal functioning. One-third of participants identified anti-depressants as helpful in their recovery, while two-thirds were either highly ambivalent about, or critical of, medication as a solution to depression. Thirty-one women who identified the ;positive' benefits of anti-depressants actively constituted themselves as biomedical consumers seeking to redress a chemical imbalance. The problem of depression, the emergence of molecular science and the push for pharmacological solutions are contributing to the discursive formation of new subject positions - such as the neurochemically deficient self. Three themes were identified in relation to medication use, namely restoring normality, signifying recovery success and control/uncertainty. Anti-depressant medication offered women a normalized pathway to successful recovery that stood in stark contrast to the biologically deficient and morally failing self. These women's stories importantly reveal the gender relations and paradoxes arising from biopolitical technologies that shape selfhood for women in advanced liberal societies.

The Politics of Mental Illness and Involvement—<i>A Discourse Analysis of Danish Anti-Stigma and Social Inclusion Campaigns</i>

“…However, these notions of weakness and their constitutive effects are embedded in, and constituted by, much broader hegemonic articulations of normality in neo-liberal societies that, taken together, symbolically set the premises for what involvement can be considered to encompass. Moreover, similar studies of discourses of websites and policies have shed light on, how the understanding of mental illness as a matter of weakness is embedded in a dominant discourse about cost-effectiveness, responsibilization and self-reliance in psychiatric systems across contemporary, neo-liberal, Western societies (Carney, 2008;Fullagar, 2009;Ramon, 2008;Teghtsoonian, 2009). However, such study has to our knowledge not been conducted in a Scandinavian context.…”

“…To a large extent, the rationale about mental illness as a matter of weakness rests on the consent with an ideological notion of effectiveness that constitutes how professionals, users and relatives consider and practice treatment and involvement in contemporary Danish psychiatry. Our abidance to the hegemony of the presented discourse is concerned with weakness signaling and effectuating the opposite of a notion of subjectivity deeply rooted in the moral and ideology of neo-liberalist virtues and work ethics of individualism in Western industrialized countries (Fullagar, 2009;Teghtsoonian, 2009). These impinge on the individual's responsibility for, and capacity to be actively engaged with managing one's freedom and self-reliance and being a cost-effective citizen (Fullagar, 2009;Barry, 1996).…”

“…Our abidance to the hegemony of the presented discourse is concerned with weakness signaling and effectuating the opposite of a notion of subjectivity deeply rooted in the moral and ideology of neo-liberalist virtues and work ethics of individualism in Western industrialized countries (Fullagar, 2009;Teghtsoonian, 2009). These impinge on the individual's responsibility for, and capacity to be actively engaged with managing one's freedom and self-reliance and being a cost-effective citizen (Fullagar, 2009;Barry, 1996). In this sense, the internal coherence of signs in the campaigns' discourse means that the deviant subject is presented as essentially incapable of performing responsibly, self-reliably and effectively as a citizen, because the discourse characterizes it ineffective and weak.…”

Conflict in Men’s Experiences With Antidepressants

“…There is a limited amount of research which has explored women's use of antidepressants and the meanings associated with this which suggests that women's relationship with antidepressants is highly ambivalent (Fullagar, 2009;Lafrance, 2007). Antidepressants appear to bring relief, comfort, and legitimation of distress but they also threaten women's sense of agency, cause unwanted side effects, and distract attention from the gendered environment which helps produce depression (Fullagar, 2009;Fullagar & O'Brien, 2012;Lafrance, 2007). Little is known, however, about how men experience antidepressant use.…”

“…The research has pointed to antidepressants producing benefits for users, allowing them to function in their everyday lives (Fullagar, 2009). However, the chemical effects of antidepressants are also known to cause unpleasant side effects (Read, Cartwright & Gibson, 2014a;Pestello & Davis-Berman, 2008;Price, Cole, & Goodwin, 2009).…”