Depression might now be an exhausted signifier - its sheer ubiquity having pushed it towards inexorable meaninglessness, a word that can describe anything from general low mood to a state of crippling monolithic despondency.
All the same, for medical professionals and the pharmaceutical industry, depression has a biological reality - medications are manifold and will usually be made available prior to any mention of talking therapy.
How then might psychoanalysis be of help? When trying to fathom the inner logic of the depressed subject, Freud’s paper ‘Mourning and Melancholia’ is still the best guide we have - a meta-psychology of loss that provides a map to the hidden structure of depression.
No medication can unravel the unique experience of loss that underpins a state of depression - pharmaceutical numbing can help the subject maintain a state of avoidance, endlessly deferring an encounter with the real object of their grief.
When depression descends, often seemingly from nowhere, it’s psychoanalysis that can provide the theoretical tools to locate a cause and determine the possible approach to treatment.
Lacanian analyst Conor McCormack digs deep into an area where psychoanalytic psychotherapy can be at its most effective - the treatment of depression. Using clinical material and texts from popular culture, he thoughtfully ushers Freud’s classic paper into the 21st century consulting room.
