From Melancholia to Depression – How Psychiatry Redefined Mood Disorders

In this episode of The Mad Genius Thesis Podcast, we explore From Melancholia to Depression by Åsa Jansson, a deep dive into the 19th-century transformation of mental health diagnoses. We discuss how melancholia evolved into depression, shaped by advances in physiology, asylum practices, and cultural beliefs. Key figures like Laycock, Carpenter, Griesinger, and Maudsley played pivotal roles in redefining disordered emotions, linking them to medical science and statistical data. How did shifting diagnostic criteria affect perceptions of suicidal tendencies, religious delusions, and mental pain? And what does this shift reveal about modern psychiatry and neoliberal influences on mental health? Join us as we trace the medicalization of mood disorders and its impact on the creative mind.

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