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Book ID: CBB003010985

Chemically Imbalanced: Everyday Suffering, Medication, and Our Troubled Quest for Self-Mastery (2020)

Davis, Joseph E. (Author)

University of Chicago Press

ISBN: 9780226686684

Publication Date: 2020
Physical Details: 256
Language: English

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Medicine and society Well-being Chemistry Neurology Therapeutic practice; therapy; treatment Counseling Emotions; passions Therapeutic practice; therapy; treatment Brain Mind and body

Everyday suffering—those conditions or feelings brought on by trying circumstances that arise in everyone’s lives—is something that humans have grappled with for millennia. But the last decades have seen a drastic change in the way we approach it. In the past, a person going through a time of difficulty might keep a journal or see a therapist, but now the psychological has been replaced by the biological: instead of treating the heart, soul, and mind, we take a pill to treat the brain. Chemically Imbalanced is a field report on how ordinary people dealing with common problems explain their suffering, how they’re increasingly turning to the thin and mechanistic language of the “body/brain,” and what these encounters might tell us. Drawing on interviews with people dealing with struggles such as underperformance in school or work, grief after the end of a relationship, or disappointment with how their life is unfolding, Joseph E. Davis reveals the profound revolution in consciousness that is underway. We now see suffering as an imbalance in the brain that needs to be fixed, usually through chemical means. This has rippled into our social and cultural conversations, and it has affected how we, as a society, imagine ourselves and envision what constitutes a good life. Davis warns that what we envision as a neurological revolution, in which suffering is a mechanistic problem, has troubling and entrapping consequences. And he makes the case that by turning away from an interpretive, meaning-making view of ourselves, we thwart our chances to enrich our souls and learn important truths about ourselves and the social conditions under which we live.

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Reviewed By

Review David Herzberg (2021) Review of "Chemically Imbalanced: Everyday Suffering, Medication, and Our Troubled Quest for Self-Mastery". Bulletin of the History of Medicine (pp. 432-434). unapi

Review Susanne Schmidt (2022) Review of "Chemically Imbalanced: Everyday Suffering, Medication, and Our Troubled Quest for Self-Mastery". Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (pp. 87-89). unapi

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB003010985/

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