Understanding Depression: Feminist Social Constructionist Approaches

Front Cover
Psychology Press, 2000 - 239 pages

Women are particularly vulnerable to depression. Understanding Depression provides an in-depth critical examination of mainstream approaches to understanding and treating depression from a feminist perspective. Janet Stoppard argues that current approaches give only partial accounts of womens' experiences of depression and concludes that a better understanding will only be achieved when womens' experiences and lived realities are considered in relation to the material and social conditions in which their everyday lives are embedded. The impact of this change in approach for modes of treatment are discussed and solutions are suggested.
Understanding Depression offers new insights into the problem and its treatment. It will prove useful to those with an interest in depression and gender as well as mental health practitioners.

 

Contents

Depression a gendered problem
3
What does the term depression mean?
6
A terminological note
9
How has depression among women been explained?
10
epistemological and methodological issues
14
What is left out when research on depression is conducted according to the positivist scientific method?
17
Depression in women in context
21
What is depression? Definitional debates
24
A Materialdiscursive framework for understanding depression in women
108
Embodied lives understanding depression in women in context
111
Depression in adolescence negotiating identities in a girlpoisoning culture
113
an historically specific life stage
115
Mainstream theories and research on depression in adolescent girls
118
Understanding adolescence from the perspective of girls lived experiences
125
A materialdiscursive framework for understanding depression in adolescent girls
133
Womens lives and depression marriage and motherhood
137

Diagnosing depressive disorder
25
format and content
26
Science and the DSM
32
Assessing depressive symptoms
35
Exploring womens depressive experiences
36
Can definitional debates be resolved?
39
Explaining depression in women mainstream frameworks
41
Looking for sources of depression within personenvironment interactions diathesisstress models
43
How diathesisstress models explain depression in women
48
Empirical evaluations of diathesisstress models
50
A feminist and social constructionist analysis of diathesisstress models
51
Concluding comments
58
Depression and womens psychology susceptibility or specificity?
59
Evaluating psychological susceptibility approaches to explaining depression in women
61
the relational self
63
Evaluating psychological specificity approaches to understanding depression in women
64
A feminist and social constructionist analysis of psychological accounts of depression in women
67
Concluding comments
72
Social models of depression sources of adversity and stress in womens lives
74
adversity and stress
75
Adversity and stress in womens lives as a source of depression
79
A feminist and social constructionist analysis of social models of depression
83
Concluding comments
88
Womens bodies womens lives and depression exploring materialdiscursive approaches
90
The biological body and depression in women
93
The medicalization of womens bodies and womens distress
97
Exploring materialdiscursive approaches to depression in women
102
Toward a materialdiscursive framework for understanding depression in women
139
Young womens experiences in relation to marriage and motherhood
140
The meanings of marriage and motherhood
142
the practises of wives and mothers
145
Discourses of femininity and the social construction of the good mother
149
Depression and womens lived experiences as wives and mothers
153
Women and aging depression in midlife and old age
161
socially constructed and produced categories
162
Research on depression in midlife and older women
166
Womens experiences at midlife
168
possibilities for aging disgracefully
175
Implications for theory and practise feminist social constructionist approaches
183
Women overcoming depression coping treatment and politics
185
Women coping with depression on their own
188
treatment alternatives
192
Exploring links between the personal and the political
199
toward a materialdiscursive framework
202
Why new perspectives are needed for understanding depression in women
205
Material themes
208
Discursive themes
209
Materialdiscursive conditions and depression in women
211
Womens depressive experiences and discourses of depression
213
References
216
Author Index
231
Subject Index
235
Copyright

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About the author (2000)

Janet M. Stoppard is a Professor in Psychology at the University of New Brunswick, Canada. She has worked as a clinical psychologist and has published widely in women, mental health and depression.

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