Depression and Narrative: Telling the Dark

by Hilary Anne Clark (Introduction)

Depression and Narrative examines stories of depression in the context of recent scholarship on illness and narrative, which up to this point has largely focused on physical illness and disability. Contributors from a number of disciplinary perspectives address these narrative accounts of depression, by both sufferers and those who treat them, as they appear in memoirs, diaries, novels, poems, oral interviews, fact sheets, blogs, films, and television shows. Together, they explore the stories we tell about its contested causes; its gendering; the transformations in identity that it entails; and the problems it presents for communication, associated as it is with stigma and shame. Unlike certain physical illnesses, such as cancer, depression is stigmatized--sometimes as a nonproblem (the sufferer should "snap out of it") and sometimes as the slippery slope to madness. Thus, depression narratives have their work cut out for them. This book highlights the work these stories do, including bringing meaning to sufferers, explaining depression, justifying therapies and treatments, and reducing the burden of shame--accounting for a suffering that is, in the end, unaccountable.

274 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2008

About the author

Hilary Anne Clark (born 1955) is a Canadian poet and a Professor of English at the University of Saskatchewan. She teaches in the areas of literary theory, modernism, life writing, and contemporary poetry. Her research interests from 2008 on have included issues of time, narrative, and interpretation in case histories of child psychoanalysis.

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Most of the essays are just fair.

[Mercy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Make sure to reread at some point. This book is absolutely captivating and well constructed. Each chapter offers incredible insight and analysis that is hitting me in all the right places.