Psychopharmacology constructing emotions: Prozac versus mind-body dualism
The paper deals with the problem which was first raised by theorists of the "new sociology of emotions" - namely, the use of different conceptions of body in the sociology of emotions. The study of emotions is divided into two main areas: positivism and constructionism. Positivist theories marginalize social aspects of emotions, whereas constructionist theories dismiss the fact that emotional experience is embodied. Therefore, proponents of the "new sociology of emotions" assert that the new study of emotions should be based on a non-positivist concept of body, so that we could examine emotions both as a social and as an embodied phenomenon. Phenomenological and interactionist concepts of body are often used in these studies. This paper suggests that Haraway's conception of body can also be used for studying emotions. Particularly, in this paper it is used for the analysis of the medicalization of sadness in the end of the 20th century during the raise of "new depression". Haraway's model allows to describe this phenomenon focusing both on the embodiment of sadness and on its social aspects. Nevertheless, Haraway's conception 42 is not ubiquitous. It is stated that this model is best suited for explaining "anomalous" cases, such as complex transformation of the emotion via medicalization.