Politics and notions of the self in depression narratives: Revisiting Martinez-Hernaez's typology

This article examines philosophically 2 lay narratives that, according to anthropologist of health Martinez-Hernaez (2018), are common among patients who, having been diagnosed with depression, take antidepressants: socionarratives, a type of narrative that locates the source of suffering in the socioeconomic and political context, and neuronarratives, those narratives that present the affliction as a result of neurochemical disorders. The goal is twofold: (a) to expand Martinez-Hernaez's typology by proposing a third type of depression narrative, self-narrative (exemplified by the account of a certain patient's depression as described by Dispenza, 2014), and (b) to turn to some anthropologists and philosophers of the continental tradition-ranging from Foucault to Ricoeur and Rogozinski-to delve further into some of the elements that inform each of these 3 narrative types. First, the Etiologies and Temporalities of Depression section details how they present the etiology of the depression differently. Second, the Politics of Depression section describes their diverging sociopolitical implications-in particular, how some hold the patient responsible for the affliction, whereas others exonerate him and how some question the socioeconomic context, whereas others seem to ally with biocapitalism in their emphasis on the imperatives of efficiency and availability. Third, the section titled The "I"s, Selves, and Egos of Depression explains that some of these narrative types regard the self as sovereign in and of itself, whereas others emphasize its fundamental intersubjectivity.