Depression as Discourse: Its History, Power, and Construction in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Chun-Wei Wang, 王君緯
• Other Authors: Shyh-Heng Weng
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/v9u6s8

碩士 === 國立東華大學 === 諮商與臨床心理學系 === 107 === Depression as a serious issue in all kind of mental disorders which expected cause problems of person’s survive, social solidarity, and the socioeconomic activities at large scale in the near future, it’s became an “affective” object of governmentality that must deal with by international organizations, national social policy, and the disciplines of public health, psychiatry and mental health. In Taiwan, the domain of society, economy, politics, and culture all came through a great vicissitude within merely fifty years after World War II. Under the dynamic of international medical and public health trend, national social welfare and medical health policy, and activities of local professional group and non-profit organizations, along with natural disaster and serious social events, depression’s discourse were gradually rising and constructing it knowledge/technology to cope with depressive experiences of Taiwanese people, and produce and re-produce social reality which depressive emotion and it’s disorder(suffering) need and meant to be govern nowadays. This study using Michel Foucault’s genealogy to examine historical materials gathered from government institutions, non-government and professional groups, and texts from textbooks, academic researches, traditional media and new media associated with depression or suicide. Begin with histories of western psychiatry’s implementation and legalization after W.W.II, this study describes the rise of depression’s discourse and its power relation transverse social texture after the eighties of the 20th century in Taiwan. By genealogically explore those histories, this study shall dis-construct the depression’s discourse and illustrate the rationality of governmentality that might derivative unintentional consequences and some other risks in modern condition.