The medicalisation of misery: A critical realist analysis of the concept of depression

Abstract

This paper will explore some difficulties with the concept of depression from the perspective of critical realism. We have three aims. First, we will describe the variable, and sometimes incommensurable, ways in which the diagnosis of depression has been defined and discussed in professional mental health texts. Secondly, we will examine this confusion in relation to historical and cross-cultural work on emotions and distress. Thirdly, we will provide two case studies from social science which reveal the limitations of conventional approaches to depression - the research of George Brown and Lyn Abramson and their co-workers.