Voice of the Drug: What Antidepressants Tell Women About Their Depression
As a student of clinical psychology, I find myself treading a thin line between advocating for awareness of social problems and supporting the efforts of my clients to cope with these problems as best they can.
For example, I often find my clients, especially women clients, couch their problems with depression in terms of "chemical imbalance." When they do this, other problems--poverty, disability, the experience of rape, and other forms of disempowerment--go unacknowledged. These women seem to think, if only their brains were better, they wouldn't feel bad about their situations.
While psychotropic medication can alleviate a lot of pain, I am concerned about the metamessage its prescription sends to many women: You are sad, not because there's anything worth being sad about in your life, but because your brain is broken.
This poster represents my master's research into how women understood the context of their depression when using antidepressant drugs. I found it a challenge to present the rich data of qualitative research in poster form, which resulted in presenting one of the stories as a comic strip. Not only did this compress more information into a smaller space, but the visual interest attracted many viewers and generated some wonderful conversations.