Understanding Depressive Feelings as Situated Affections

Ağören G. C.

Emotion Review, vol.14, no.1, pp.55-65, 2022 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 14 Issue: 1
  • Publication Date: 2022
  • Doi Number: 10.1177/17540739211057846
  • Journal Name: Emotion Review
  • Journal Indexes: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, Psycinfo
  • Page Numbers: pp.55-65
  • Keywords: phenomenology of depression, extended affectivity, situatedness, intercorporeality, interaffectivity
  • Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

© The Author(s) 2021.Phenomenologists define social impairments as key aspects of depression and argue that depression is irreducible to the individual. In this article I aim to further elaborate this non-reductionist notion of depression by claiming that depression not only corresponds to an impaired experience of social relations, but also arises from a socially impaired world. To pursue this goal, I will challenge the understanding of depression as an affective disorder blocking the affective communication between individual and environment. I will redefine feelings of depression as situated affections, and hence suggest that (1) they are products of the individual's situatedness in a depressogenic environment and (2) they function in initiating an active withdrawal from such environment.