Working Through What Is. Depression and the Predicament of Reality in Poland

Abstract

This monograph of contemporary Polish depression sheds light on the social, political, and semantic processes that have shaped its meanings, ex- periences, understandings, and treatments. Examining depression’s history in Poland after 1989, the author not only considers the social conditions of clinical practice, but also explores a broader phenomenon of the cultural dynamic of realification (urealnienie) – the socially produced sense of realness of the world around us. The book thus touches upon various aspects of cultural theory while keeping an ethnographic, empirical character.