Friday April 23, 2021
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Online Zoom Meeting
Dear Colleagues:
When is sorrow sickness?
Jonathan Sadowsky begins The Empire of Depression: A New History with this question, which is at the heart of controversies over both the medical diagnosis of depression and its treatment. An estimated 300 million people have been diagnosed as depressed. But 150 years ago “depression” referred to a mood, not an illness. Skeptics claim that diagnosis reflects an urge to overmedicalize problems of life – for reasons ranging from wanting to make people feel better about themselves (it’s not my fault) to people trying to make a good living (psychoanalysts and drug companies). Life is hard, in so many ways, as Professor Sadowsky reminds us.
And yet most people do not, in response, experience the “pain that isolates,” the “pain that devours hope, and leaches pleasure, ambition, and simple ease,” that has the power “to drain life of value, to turn what was golden into mud.” Shakespeare put the words into Hamlet’s mouth: “How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, seem to me all the uses of this world.” If the term “depression” is relatively new, the phenomenon has been observed in many cultures throughout human history – most evidently as “melancholia,” from Galen through Avicenna to Martin Luther to Freud. The modern concept of depression, Sadowsky writes, has blurry borders like where colors meet each other in a Mark Rothko painting. But that does not make the colors – or Rothko’s illness and suicide – less real.
I’ve taken these examples from the book. It is a fascinating exploration of core themes in the history of depression as a concept and phenomenon. How should we think about depression, and that fuzzy border between sorrow and sickness? How are we to understand the sufferers’ pain? Are concepts of depression based mainly in western culture, and less applicable beyond? Is the clear increase in diagnosis due to increased actual prevalence, “diagnosis creep” due to altered criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), new drugs making treatment seem more plausible so diagnosis more useful (and, for some, profitable), or other factors? To what extent is the phenomenon called “depression” gendered, or related to race, ethnicity, or class? To what extent is it “physical” rather than “in the mind,” and does that distinction have much value? It certainly has financial implications, and Professor Sadowsky discusses the controversy over pharmaceutical vs. various forms of psychological treatments. He emphasizes that many forms of treatments seem to help some people, yet also have significant risks – whether we are talking about psychoanalysis, drugs, or electro-convulsive therapy. How should we address depression going forward considering these variations?
Signing In
This semester’s discussions will begin at 12:30 p.m., the usual time. The meeting will be set up as from Noon to 2:00 p.m., so people are not all signing in at the same time and to allow for the discussion to run a bit long. Each week we will send out this newsletter with information about the topic. It will also include a link to register (for free) for the discussion. Every Monday the same information will be posted on our website: fridaylunch.case.edu.
If you register, you will automatically receive from the Zoom system the link to join the meeting. This week’s link for registration is:
https://cwru.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIuf–sqjIvEtULpwB8yfGJmaYnYqkD6IUL
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Please e-mail padg@case.edu if you have questions about how the Zoom version of the Friday Lunch will work or any other suggestions. Or call at 216 368-2426 and we’ll try to get back to you. We are very pleased to be partnering this semester with the Siegal Lifelong Learning Program to share information about the discussions.
Best wishes for safety and security for you and yours,
Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies
About Our Guest
Professor Jonathan Sadowsky holds the Theodore J. Castele Chair in the Department of History. His main research interest is the history of medicine, especially psychiatry, in Africa and the United States. In addition to his new The Empire of Depression, he has authored Electroconvulsive Therapy in America: The Anatomy of a Medical Controversy (New York: Routledge, 2017) and Imperial Bedlam: Institutions of Madness and Colonialism in Southwest Nigeria (Berkeley:University of California Press, 1999). He teaches courses in African history, history of medicine and the body, and historical method and cultural studies.
Professor Sadowsky serves as Associate Director of the Masters Program in Medicine, Society and Culture in the Department of Bioethics, and was Chair of the Department of History from 2006 to 2015. He earned his Ph.D. in History from The Johns Hopkins University and his M.A. in Modern British History from Stanford University.
Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:
April 30: The Republican Party and Demographic Change. With Girma Parris, Ph.D., Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science.
May 7: Defending Disability Insurance. With Kathy Ruffing, former Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. |
