Depression and burnout stem from excess positivity, not repression
Evidence
Psychoanalysis presupposes the negativity of repression and negation. The unconscious and repression, Freud stresses, are “correlative” to the greatest extent. In contrast, the process of repression or negation plays no role in contemporary psychic maladies such as depression, burnout, and ADHD. Instead, they indicate an excess of positivity, that is, not negation so much as the inability to say no; they do not point to not-being-allowed-to-do-anything [Nicht-Dürfen], but to being-able-to-do-everything [Alles-Können]. Therefore, psychoanalysis offers no way of approaching these phenomena. — Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, 108
Categorization
- DEFINE: The Nicht-Dürfen vs Alles-Können contrast is the core definitional move distinguishing disciplinary from achievement subjectivity.
- XREF: Directly tests Han against Foucault’s disciplinary society and against the reader’s own week of choice-fatigue and overcommitment. — connects to: Unlimited self-optimization becomes a new coercion producing depression and burnout; Therapeutic emotional exercises can oppress as much as older repressive regimes. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 664; Melancholia is a conscious refusal to adjust while depression is accommodation to decline — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2289
- QUESTION: This is the contestable claim — what about depression that does follow on trauma or systemic oppression, where repression/negation clearly plays a role?
Related
- Depression, ADHD, and burnout stem from excess positivity rather than external threat (similarity 0.82)
- Depression is the self-exploiting subject’s loss of ability, an internalized war. (similarity 0.79)
- The imperative to achieve, not self-responsibility, causes burnout and depression. (similarity 0.79)