Sick Normalities? Shifting Discussions of Pathology

Presentation of a research project as part of the "Jeudis de la Maison Suger", a residents' research seminar.

Fabian Freyenhagen is a philosopher by training, but works in the wild borderlands between disciplines. Based at the University of Essex, where he is also a member of its Human Rights Centre, his current research and collaborative endeavours focus on distress and its social context. An expert on the early Frankfurt School, he is most recently drawing inspiration (also) from Michel Foucault. He directs a new and emerging research initiative, Centre for Investigating Contemporary Social.

Presentation of the project

"There is much talk of a mental health crisis, with rising numbers of people diagnosed with a psychiatric condition and a prescription epidemic of psychotropic medication, above all antidepressants. At the same time, ascription of pathology to those in distress has increasingly come in for robust criticisms – regarding the validity of the diagnostic categories; the efficacy and specificity of the psychotropic medication used as main treatment; and the iatrogenic harm produced. Perhaps it’s time to shift talk of pathology to the social level. What does it tell us about the social body that ascribing to people a psychiatric condition has become statistical normality? Is normal sickness a sign that our social normality is sick? Might shifting talk of pathology to the social level help in addressing the social context of distress and countering that this context is obscured by the medicalisation of distress?."

Speaker

• Fabian Freyenhagen is professor of philosopher and member of its Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex.