DEP®ESSION AND CONSUM♀TION: PSYCHOPHARMACEUTICALS, BRANDING, AND NEW IDENTITY PRACTICES

Author: Greenslit, Nathan

Source: Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, Volume 29, Number 4, December 2005 , pp. 477-502(26)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

As pharmaceuticals are moving from private patient-doctor conversations to public television and print advertisements, best-selling books, and top TV shows, as well as into everyday conversations around risk and illness, how people understand health, sickness, and their own identity is also changing. This paper explores some of these changes by unpacking some of the social, political, and personal layers that are complicating the production and marketing of prescription drugs, and that are transforming the identity practices around contested illness. I focus on Sarafem and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (the illness Sarafem was marketed for) as a case study.

Keywords: depression; feminism; identity; marketing; pharmaceuticals

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11013-006-9005-3

Affiliations: 1: Email: npg@mit.edu

Publication date: 2005-12-01