The interpersonal structure of depression

Abstract

This paper addresses the manner in which alterations of interpersonal experience are (a) central to most of those predicaments labelled as ‘depression’, and (b) inextricable from other, seemingly distinct depression-symptoms. I sketch an approach inspired by the phenomenological tradition of philosophy, which emphasizes how depression-experiences involve profound changes in one’s sense of possibility. In so doing, I show how anticipated and actual interactions with other people shape and re-shape experience of the wider world by imbuing it with certain distinctive types of possibility. It follows from this that a shift in how one anticipates, experiences, and relates to other people in general also amounts to a shift in the types of possibility offered by the world. My discussion is concerned primarily with the structure of depression-experiences, rather than with causes or treatment. However, I conclude by tentatively addressing some implications for the latter.