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Brexit anxiety: a case study in the medicalization of dissent

This paper illustrates how concepts of mental disorder have been deployed to medicalize negative emotions and, thereby, weaken the political agency of some individuals. First, I theorise the link between political agency and emotions, arguing that effective political action entails the transformatio...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Degerman, Dan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Routledge 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6795550/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31619941
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2018.1438334
Descripción
Sumario:This paper illustrates how concepts of mental disorder have been deployed to medicalize negative emotions and, thereby, weaken the political agency of some individuals. First, I theorise the link between political agency and emotions, arguing that effective political action entails the transformation of emotions into public issues. Using the British referendum on membership in the EU as a case study, I then examine how medically loaded terms and rhetoric were used to describe suffering after the vote. Finally, I argue that this generated conditions that interrupted or even reversed the transformation of subjective experiences into politically meaningful issues.