Living under a diagnostic description: navigating images, metaphors, and sounds of depression

In this article, I analyze three images of depression from feldwork conducted in
Denmark: Depression as a black dog, a jarring dark sound, and a broken brain.
These images provide diferent stories of experiences of depression, as well as its
causes and treatment. I explore how people use images, metaphors, and sounds
in the process of “learning to live under the description” of depression (Martin in
Bipolar expeditions: mania and depression in American culture, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2007). I argue that metaphors, images, and sounds play a signifcant part in transforming clinical depression diagnoses into images that create
resonance to illness experiences and unique lives. In closing, I compare the three
images, and discuss benefts and drawbacks of each. I suggest that cultural repertoires on depression provide a space for inventive play with a depression diagnosis,
pointing to a creativity, selectivity, and variability in how people relate to a diagnosis in present-day diagnostic cultures