Re: affect
Judy Diamondstone (diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu)
Thu, 9 May 1996 08:48:19 -0400
There is lots of work done from the U.S. psychiatric tradition on
affect (Bowlby (?) on mourning, loss, for instance). But psychoanalytic
theory works off readings of culture and social systems as well as
clinical evidence, it seems to me, though the outcome is a Eurocentric
model, for sure, and ahistorical. I'm interested in more references
along these lines. Julia Kristeva produced the most profound and powerful
work on the _experience_ of depression (_Black Sun: Depression &
Melancholia_) and on what has been referred to loosely as "borderline"
experience (_The Powers of Horror_) -- She's the only one I'm aware
of who has created a language for disallowed affect (the "unspeakable")
while providing an interpretive account of it (her descriptions of
art are similarly wonderful). Kristeva's work presupposes psychoanalytic
theory (Lacan). Is there in Lacan (i.e., in the Freudian tradition)
a theory that can be resurrected in CHAT perspective?....
Medical anthropologists have done the most, as far as I know,
to account for sociocultural factors in all aspects of accounts of
illness of all sorts (including the psychiatric kinds) - see,
for instance, Lindenbaum & Lock (Eds.), 1993. _Knowledge, Power,
& Practice_. CA: U.C. Press.
- Judy
Judy Diamondstone
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08903
diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu
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