Orkideh Behrouzan

Based on ethnographic fieldwork amongst psychiatrist, psychoanalysts, and Iranian youth, this book investigates the emergence of previously stigmatized psychiatric discourses, concepts, and terminologies like dépréshen in the aftermath of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. It examines broader historical shifts that legitimated the medicalization of everyday life. Embodying psychiatry as a mode of thinking, different generations of Iranian youth simultaneously historicize and medicalize what they call dépréshen. Analyzing their memories and cultural sensibilities, online and offline, the project argues that psychiatric forms of personhood created new possibilities for Iranians to make sense of and situate their emotional distress in historical and social contexts.