A Cultural Approach to the Pathologization of Modern Life
Numerous studies state that, each year, around a quarter of the population living in Western countries will suffer from at least one diagnosable mental disorder. Where do we locate the origin of the alarming increase in diagnoses related to mental health? Is this a result of the advances in psychiatry and its progress, or is it rather due to the conditions of contemporary life, which construct new social pathologies? Brinkmann presents a fascinating analysis of our culture, characterized by the obsession with applying clinical language to our relationships with ourselves and others, forgetting that the manifestations of suffering do not always fit within that framework. Thus, existential, moral, or political concerns are reduced to rigid psychiatric disorders, at the risk of losing sight of the historical and social forces that drive and affect our lives.

Against the pathologization of everyday life, this book advocates for the understanding of anguish and suffering from philosophical analysis, religious, moral and political language which, far from narrowing the diagnosis, represent other discursive resources to understand the ailments of living.