Davies, Will. 2025. Another age of anxiety: psychological distress and the 'asset economy'. Theory Culture & Society, ISSN 0263-2764 [Article] (In Press)

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Abstract or Description

Rates of 'anxiety disorder' have risen rapidly in the twenty-first century, provoking much public debate as to the causes. However, despite attending to varieties of mental distress over its history, sociology has said little about the context of this 'epidemic'. By contrast, the rise of depression and anti-depressants in the 1980s has been viewed by cultural theorists and critics as a distinctly neoliberal affliction, that casts light on its sociological context. Too often, both in critical and non-critical discourses, the distinction between 'depression' and 'anxiety' has been elided. The article seeks to take anxiety seriously as a distinct contemporary sociological phenomenon. To do this, it examines how anxiety has been framed in the past by existentialist and psychoanalytic traditions, then how this history was systematically eliminated by the medicalisation of psychiatry. It then considers how the sociology of assets and assetization might provide an explanatory context for contemporary anxiety 'disorders'.

Item Type:	Article
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Politics > Political Economy Research Centre Politics
Dates:	Date Event 8 January 2025 Accepted
Item ID:	38082
Date Deposited:	08 Jan 2025 16:01
Last Modified:	08 Jan 2025 19:50
Peer Reviewed:	Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/38082

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