×
Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date.
For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now.

Chemically Imbalanced: Everyday Suffering, Medication, and Our Troubled Quest for Self-Mastery
256
by Joseph E. DavisJoseph E. Davis
NOOK Book(eBook)
Available on Compatible NOOK Devices and the free NOOK Apps.
WANT A NOOK?
Explore Now
LEND ME®
See Details
25.99
In Stock
Overview
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a person going through a time of difficulty might keep a journal or see a therapist, but now the psychological has been replaced by the biological: instead of treating the heart, soul, and mind, we take a pill to treat the brain.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.
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.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780226686714 |
---|---|
Publisher: | University of Chicago Press |
Publication date: | 03/10/2020 |
Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
Format: | NOOK Book |
Pages: | 256 |
File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Joseph E. Davis is research professor of sociology and moderator of the picturing the human colloquy of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. He is the author of Accounts of Innocence: Sexual Abuse, Trauma, and the Self, also from the University of Chicago Press, and coeditor, most recently, of To Fix or to Heal: Patient Care, Public Health, and the Limits of Biomedicine and The Evening of Life: The Challenges of Aging and Dying Well.
Table of Contents
PrefaceIntroduction
One / The Neurobiological Imaginary
Two / The Biologization of Everyday Suffering
Three / Appropriating Disorder
Four / Resisting Differentness
Five / Seeking Viable Selfhood
Six / After Psychology
Conclusion / A Crisis of the Spirit
Acknowledgments
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Customer Reviews
Related Searches
Explore More Items
Improvisation rattles some listeners. Maybe they’re even suspicious of it. John Coltrane’s saxophonic flights of ...
Improvisation rattles some listeners. Maybe they’re even suspicious of it. John Coltrane’s saxophonic flights of
fancy, Jimi Hendrix’s feedback drenched guitar solos, Ravi Shankar’s sitar extrapolations—all these sounds seem like so much noodling or jamming, indulgent self-expression. ...
What do ordinary citizens really think about issues of gender equality and gender roles? Combining ...
What do ordinary citizens really think about issues of gender equality and gender roles? Combining
data from both telephone surveys and in-depth focus groups, Ambition and Accommodation provides the most detailed portrait to date of how Americans, in particular American ...
On July 9, 1975, Dutch-born artist Bas Jan Ader set sail from Chatham, Massachusetts, on ...
On July 9, 1975, Dutch-born artist Bas Jan Ader set sail from Chatham, Massachusetts, on
a thirteen-foot sailboat. He was bound for Falmouth, England, on the second leg of a three-part piece titled In Search of the Miraculous. The damaged ...
From its founding in the late 1800s through the 1950s, Brownsville, a section of eastern ...
From its founding in the late 1800s through the 1950s, Brownsville, a section of eastern
Brooklyn, was a white, predominantly Jewish, working-class neighborhood. The famous New York district nurtured the aspirations of thousands of upwardly mobile Americans while the infamous ...
The task of deliberating public policy falls preeminently to Congress. But decisions on matters ranging ...
The task of deliberating public policy falls preeminently to Congress. But decisions on matters ranging
from budget deficits to the war with Iraq, among others, raise serious doubts about its performance. In Deliberative Choices, Gary Mucciaroni and Paul J. Quirk ...
The Existential Self in Society explores the ways in which we experience and shape our ...
The Existential Self in Society explores the ways in which we experience and shape our
individuality in a rapidly changing social world. Kotarba and Fontana have gathered eleven original essays that form an exciting contribution and an ideal introduction to ...
From the stages of Broadway and London to university campuses, Paris, and the bourgeoning theaters ...
From the stages of Broadway and London to university campuses, Paris, and the bourgeoning theaters
of Africa, Greek tragedy remains constantly in production. This global revival, in addition to delighting audiences, has highlighted both the promise and the pitfalls of ...
In the popular imagination, Islam is often associated with words like oppression, totalitarianism, intolerance, cruelty, ...
In the popular imagination, Islam is often associated with words like oppression, totalitarianism, intolerance, cruelty,
misogyny, and homophobia, while its presumed antonyms are Christianity, the West, liberalism, individualism, freedom, citizenship, and democracy. In the most alarmist views, the West’s ...