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“An illness of isolation, a disease of disconnection”: Depression and the erosion of we-experiences

Depression is an affective disorder involving a significant change in an individual’s emotional and affective experiences. While the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM) mentions that social impairment may occur in depression, first-person reports of depression...

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Autor principal: Osler, Lucy
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9389105/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35992435
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.928186
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author Osler, Lucy
author_facet Osler, Lucy
author_sort Osler, Lucy
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description Depression is an affective disorder involving a significant change in an individual’s emotional and affective experiences. While the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM) mentions that social impairment may occur in depression, first-person reports of depression consistently name isolation from others as a key feature of depression. I present a phenomenological analysis of how certain interpersonal relations are experienced in depression. In particular, I consider whether depressed individuals are able to enter into “we-experiences” with other people. We-experiences are experiences had with two or more people as a we (rather than having an experience as an I), experiences that allow one to enter into robustly shared experiences with others. I claim that the ability to enter into we-experiences (both actual and habitual) is eroded in depression due to an overwhelming feeling of being different to and misunderstood by others. As such, I suggest that depression should be conceived of as fixing an individual in their first-person singular perspective, thus inhibiting their ability to experience in the first-person plural and to feel a sense of connectedness or togetherness with others as part of a we. By attending to on-going impacts of a diminished ability to enter into we-experiences, we can provide a situated and more nuanced account of the changes of interpersonal relations in depression that captures the progressive (rather than static) nature of the disorder. In turn, this analysis furthers our understanding of the emergence, frustration, and erosion of actual and habitual we-experiences.
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spelling pubmed-93891052022-08-20 “An illness of isolation, a disease of disconnection”: Depression and the erosion of we-experiences Osler, Lucy Front Psychol Psychology Depression is an affective disorder involving a significant change in an individual’s emotional and affective experiences. While the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM) mentions that social impairment may occur in depression, first-person reports of depression consistently name isolation from others as a key feature of depression. I present a phenomenological analysis of how certain interpersonal relations are experienced in depression. In particular, I consider whether depressed individuals are able to enter into “we-experiences” with other people. We-experiences are experiences had with two or more people as a we (rather than having an experience as an I), experiences that allow one to enter into robustly shared experiences with others. I claim that the ability to enter into we-experiences (both actual and habitual) is eroded in depression due to an overwhelming feeling of being different to and misunderstood by others. As such, I suggest that depression should be conceived of as fixing an individual in their first-person singular perspective, thus inhibiting their ability to experience in the first-person plural and to feel a sense of connectedness or togetherness with others as part of a we. By attending to on-going impacts of a diminished ability to enter into we-experiences, we can provide a situated and more nuanced account of the changes of interpersonal relations in depression that captures the progressive (rather than static) nature of the disorder. In turn, this analysis furthers our understanding of the emergence, frustration, and erosion of actual and habitual we-experiences. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-08-05 /pmc/articles/PMC9389105/ /pubmed/35992435 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.928186 Text en Copyright © 2022 Osler. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Osler, Lucy
“An illness of isolation, a disease of disconnection”: Depression and the erosion of we-experiences
title “An illness of isolation, a disease of disconnection”: Depression and the erosion of we-experiences
title_full “An illness of isolation, a disease of disconnection”: Depression and the erosion of we-experiences
title_fullStr “An illness of isolation, a disease of disconnection”: Depression and the erosion of we-experiences
title_full_unstemmed “An illness of isolation, a disease of disconnection”: Depression and the erosion of we-experiences
title_short “An illness of isolation, a disease of disconnection”: Depression and the erosion of we-experiences
title_sort “an illness of isolation, a disease of disconnection”: depression and the erosion of we-experiences
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9389105/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35992435
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.928186
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