The energy metaphor for the human body and its effect on the rise of neurasthenia, neurosis and depression

Abstract This article aims to provide a historical critique of the rise of three diagnostic categories: neurasthenia (late nineteenth century), neurosis (first half of the twentieth century) and depression (mid-twentieth century to the present). The hypothesis is that their broad dissemination can be explained through their link to the energy metaphor for the human body. From the mid-nineteenth century on, the concept of energy spread through western culture, encouraging certain fictions about what we are – the ontological dimension – and what we could be – the ethical dimension. The article shows that these pathologies have codified and made intelligible a set of life trajectories that did not obey the imperatives of those onto-ethical fictions.