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Sickness Of The Soul: Language Mediated Understandings Of Depression Across Cultures, Elyssa M. Fogleman

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Through the use of word association tasks and semi-structured interviews, the present study gathered information on the current dominant understandings of “depression” in America and “yuutsu” and “utsubyou” in Japan. The results were compared to the findings of a similar study that was conducted in the mid 1970s that aimed to find connections between language and the subjective experience of depression. In comparing the responses from the 1970s and the present, it was found that the dominant understanding of depression has been subject to change. These changes can be attributed to larger shifts in the sociopolitical climate, the proliferation of …