Postmodern Madness on Campus

Bradley Lewis, MD, PhDNew York University

Postmodern Challenges• Rise of neoliberalism and transnational capital,

erosion of democratic process, fragmentation of meaning and subjectivity, commercialization of everyday life, widespread debt and addiction to consumption, growing inequality, intractable unemployment, erosion of middle class, increasing competition for limited jobs, alienated workforce, and catastrophic risk from financial collapse, nuclear or biological weapons, environmental destruction, or epidemic spread of infections.

Campus Response

• In a 2010 survey of students by the American College Health Association, 45.6 percent of students surveyed reported feeling that things were hopeless and 30.7 percent reported feeling so depressed that it was difficult to function during the past 12 months

POSTMODERN POSSIBILITIES:From incredulity of metanarratives

to narrative multiplicities

Metaphor

Plot

Character

POV

Metaphor, Plot, and Character

PATHOLOGICALBiopsychiatryPsychoanalyticCognitive BehavioralInterpersonalFamilyBiopsychosocialExistential/humanistic

GENERATIVEPoliticalCreativeSpiritual

Metaphors and Modelsof Madness

Memoirs of Depression

William Styron

Virginia Heffernan Chase Twitchell Russell Banks

Lesley Dormen

David Budbill

Joshua Wolf Shenk

Process of Recovery Research

Breakdown

Breakthrough

Navigating Multiplicity and the Sick Role