How has our concept of anxiety and depression changed over time?

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-06-30 10:00

Australia; VIC

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The terms 'anxiety' and 'depression' have been increasingly pathologised - discussed in clinical terms rather than in terms of normal emotional distress - over time, according to Australian researchers. The researchers analysed the use of the words anxiety and depression across a large collection of academic texts and diverse text sources from the general population of the US published from 1970 to 2018. They say over time, anxiety and depression were discussed with increasing emotional intensity, and also were discussed more in conjunction with medical terms. The researchers say this could mean the concepts of anxiety and depression have not been diluted over time, but emotional states that may have once been seen as normal emotional distress are now being seen as a pathological problem.

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Journal/
conference: PLOS ONE

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: The University of Melbourne

Funder: Australian Research Council Discovery Projects awarded to Nick Haslam supported this research (DP170104948 and DP210103984). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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