American melancholy
Subtitle: constructions of depression in the twentieth century
By: Laura D. Hirshbein.
Series: Critical issues in health and medicine
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New Brunswick, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 194
ISBN-13: 9780813545844
Subjects: Depression, Mental -- History -- 20th century; Depression, Mental -- United States -- History -- 20th century; Depressive Disorder -- history -- United States; History, 20th Century -- United States; Psychiatry -- history -- United States
Description: "Depression was not classified as a disease until the 1980 publication of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-III (DSM-III). How, then, is it that such an illness, thought to affect between 14 and 17 million Americans, was not specifically defined until the late twentieth century?" "Laura D. Hirshbein traces the growth of depression as an object of medical study and as a consumer commodity and illustrates how and why depression came to be such a huge medical, social, and cultural phenomenon. This is the first book to address gender issues in the construction of depression, explore key questions of how its diagnosis was developed, how it has been used, and how we should question its application in American society."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Prelude to depression; title: Redefining treatment, patients, and disease in the ever-expanding diagnosis of depression; title: American moods and the consumer solution; title: Gender, depression, diagnosis, and power; title: Feelings and relationships : the popular embrace of depression as a women's disease.