The philosopher relates the depression to the distortions of global capitalism

In a departure from conventional medical and psychological models, a new paper by Domonkos Sik of Etvs Lornd University in Budapest argues that depression is more than a disease that affects the mind or body.

Instead, Sik identifies depression as a social phenomenon deeply rooted in the complexities of modern life, where acceleration, system colonization, and biopolitics are altering our sense of time, agency, and relationships.

“Many of these paradoxes and distortions, which are partly responsible for the altered socialization processes that result in a depressed chiasma, are not modifiable in any therapeutic intervention (for example, those located at the level of the economic structures of global capitalism, the information technologies of mass communication or the political institutions of representative democracies). These structures can only be transformed gradually, based on broad and long-term social mobilization. Although at first it may seem that psychotherapy has nothing to do with these emancipatory movements, it does counterexamples,” writes Sik.

It expands its argument to show its implications for expanding the phenomenological understanding of depression and its potential to impact the clinical space.

“This self-reflexive critical and therapeutic praxis monitors dominant discourses, structural hierarchies, latent value judgments, and the wider ideological context, the unintended structural consequences of intervention, and clients’ space of opportunity at the same time. Although they constrain actors, social structures are far from immutable: they are constantly reproduced as unintended consequences of social action. interaction By reshaping the actors’ involvement in these reproductive processes, the structures could also be reconfigured: their gradual emancipatory transformation could begin with not only psychotherapeutic but also sociologically reflexive help. subjects”.

Sik’s study presents a compelling framework that connects social theory with phenomenological psychopathology, calling for a reorientation of how we perceive and deal with depression. It asserts that societal forces such as rapid technological change, economic instability, and network capitalism profoundly affect an individual’s ability to find hope, meaning, and authentic connections. Depression emerges from this context not only as a biological or psychological problem, but as a social problem, shaped by altered experiences of time, agency, and relationships. Sik’s analysis urges clinicians and policymakers to expand their understanding of depression, emphasizing the need for therapeutic approaches that recognize the social dimensions of mental health.

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Sik reimagines the psychopathology of depression through a phenomenological lens rooted in the work of philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Sik introduces the concept of “chiasmatic disruption,” which views depression as an intertwined distortion of awareness of time, agency, and interactivity. He relates this disruption to social and cultural phenomena such as globalization, biopolitics, and capitalist acceleration, arguing that current models overmedicalize depression and neglect the social context in which individuals live.

In this framework, depression can be reinterpreted as a rupture of the chiasma: it is not only the disease of the body, the disorder of the mind, or a specific form of social suffering (as various disciplines explain it), but the distorted reconfiguration of the flesh (that is, the pathology of the existential structure). Such distortions affect the entirety of the world: the consciousness of time loses its plasticity and linearity; agency is hindered by a horizon made up of obstacles rather than potentials; and inter-affectiveness is blocked as the other is reformulated as a body-object rather than a living body.

From the perspective of the chiasma, there are no concrete divisions between inside and outside. Instead, individuals are made up of interrelated bodily, intentional, and intersubjective components. Rather than seeing individuals as distinct entities, they see them as continuous with their environment. Human existence is an intertwining of subjective, material and social components.

From this perspective, Sik expands and reconfigures the etiology of suffering and depression by calling to complement the existing and dominant biological and psychopathological perspectives with the sociological gaze, which refers to the intersubjective component of the flesh. Suffering affects not only the body and mind, but the entire chiasm. In other words, causal models of depression should not be understood only as dysfunctions of body and mind, but rather inherently involve the disruption of intersubjectivity.

Thus, Sik uses this framework and offers a paradigm for reinterpreting depression as a disruption of the chiasm with distortions of time, agency, and intersubjectivity. Disruptions in these three categories contribute to depression by creating a distorted perception of the past and future, suspended agency and loss of hope, and disconnection from self and others. It explores these categories in relation to phenomenological descriptions of depression and the dysfunctions of modernization.

Dysfunction of time awareness

Sik explains the dysfunction of time consciousness through experiences of unpredictability and change. Since the economy is constantly accelerating due to the logic of capitalism and the focus on novelty, the pace of life is also accelerating accordingly. However, political and social structures move at more traditional speeds, resulting in different accelerations, causing disintegration and individual suffering.

This is further exacerbated by the information society, the endless intake of information and stimuli without adequate narrative processing, without security or predictability.

Dysfunction of agency

Despite the promise of individualization in modern society, increasing autonomy and individual agency, Sik demonstrates how this is not possible within the framework of a capitalist market. In reality, the individual embedded in the constraints of networked capitalism is disconnected from the objectified other, a process further exacerbated by globalization, governmentality, and the emergence of the cult of performance and the self-project.

Sik writes:

Actors became dependent on structures, which can no longer be controlled by institutional means; they naturalize and internalize the principles of a high-performance, hyper-flexible self as the basis of self-identity while exposed to surveillance technologies that monitor and control the remnants of their autonomous activity.

Dysfunction of interactivity

Due to globalization and the need for efficient ways to integrate larger and more distant social units, the space for community interactions based on shared meanings and mutual understanding is greatly reduced. Structural transformations have significantly affected the basic need to make sense of the world and the self, affecting the ability to communicatively construct a mutual life world. Examples of these transformations are the role of biomedicine and psychodisciplines in defining what is considered normal intimacy and the capitalist logic, which incorporates intimacy in a way that supports production and consumption.

In short, colonization has forced social interactions and emotional connections that conform to concepts of normality and efficiency, as dictated by the structures of political and economic systems, and individuals cannot freely relate to each other.

Sik expands his analysis to explore how globalization, biopolitics, and system colonization shape socialization processes, resulting in the aforementioned distortions, which ultimately lead to depression.

Sik interprets socialization in a way that relates to the chiasma as coadjustment which is the mutual adaptation of biological, psychic and social systems. He writes:

Socialization not only intertwines with the interactive, institutional, and cultural realms, but also includes bodily and mental adjustment.

According to this definition, awareness of time, agency and interactivity are made up of those socializing interactions, which are responsible for the coordination of social action, adaptation to the environment (consisting of social, bodily and psychic systems ) and the redistribution of social positions.

When a combination of these social mechanisms consistently alters an individual’s awareness of time, agency, and interactivity, their worldview becomes one of uncertainty, burdensome responsibilities, political polarization, mistrust, professional anxiety, unsupportive intimacy, among others, which has a high probability of an individual meeting the clinical definition of depression.

The presence of these negative social distortions within one’s social network increases the likelihood of socially induced depression, so understanding the distortions, along with biological and psychological factors, is crucial.

The article concludes with multiple potential consequences of using a social theoretical perspective to expand the phenomenological understanding of depression.

First, mental state would be seen not only as an individual’s state of mind or biology, but as influenced by a person’s structural and cultural context. This may provide new tools for clinicians to understand clients and their life worlds.

In addition, it can be used to expand the focus of therapy beyond the internal to the external and map and classify distortions as set out in the article.

Finally, it encourages clinicians and clients to reflect on their experiences and mobilize to transform the political and economic structures that contribute to mental health challenges, further demonstrating the role of psychodisciplines in promoting social change.

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Sik, D. (2024). Socialized in depression towards a phenomenological social psychopathology. Philosophical psychology126. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2024.2331011 (Link)