Depression, Sign Of The Times? On The Real In Clinical Work

Depression is omnipresent in contemporary clinical praxis. With statistics showing an enormous increase in the number of depressions in the last decades, depression is diagnosed as a sign of the times, inextricably bound up with the fate of the post-modern subject. Simultaneously, another change or shift is taking place: the so-called classical symptoms, with a psychosexual aetiology, seem to have disappeared (the disappearance of classical hysteria being a well-known example); instead, 'new symptoms' are emerging, with borderline, self- mutilation, eating disorders, aggressive and sexual acting out, etc... operating as new labels.…