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Distorted Packaging: Marketing Depression as Illness, Drugs as Cure

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Abstract

Prominent consumer depression manuals issued in recent years circulate a standard depression script as scientific knowledge. The script, asserting that a broad spectrum of depressions are brain illnesses that require antidepressant treatment, is in fact highly contested among researchers. This paper reviews the logical problematics of these manuals, and how such discourse promotes the diagnosis and pharmaceutical treatment of behaviors ranging from mild symptoms to severe depression. In keeping with the trends of pharmaceutical advertising and State health policy, these manuals encourage consumers to self-scrutinize risky behavior, and to treat common behavioral and mood distresses with antidepressants. Ultimately, these activities of self-management function to produce a more productive citizen population.

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  1. Department of Communication and Theater Arts, Bridgewater State College, Bridgewater, MA

    Paula Gardner

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Gardner, P. Distorted Packaging: Marketing Depression as Illness, Drugs as Cure. Journal of Medical Humanities 24, 105–130 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021314017235

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