Divided subjectivities: Biographical narratives of users of mental health services for depression
Keywords:
Biographical narratives, Depression, Mental health, Self-control, Doubling of the selfAbstract
The article describes and analyzes biographical narratives of people who suffer from depression and participate in therapeutic spaces. Specifically, it investigates the divisions of subjectivity or unfolding of the self as ways to make sense of the experiences of suffering and coping with depression. It presents results of an empirical investigation that uses the biographical method and analyzes interviews with users of mental health services in the City of Santa Fe, Argentina.
The article identifies two forms of division of subjectivity in biographical accounts, on the one hand, experiences of depression and, on the other, coping strategies. The first allude, on the one hand, to a deep split between the mind and the body and, on the other, to the presence of internal agents that hinder actions. Regarding the ways of coping with depression, one tactic is to integrate other inmates by listening and recognizing them, and the other is trying to resist by disobeying their demands. The article argues that these divisions of subjectivity help to make sense of discomfort and remove guilt by identifying internal agents that are foreign to the person. But, they also promote an individualistic understanding of depression that dissociates it from social contexts and relationships and reduces it to a break within the subject, who is responsible for their recovery.
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