[lbo-talk] Lack of left due to prescription drugs?

[123hop at comcast.net]

Depression, in the most general sense, describes the body's lowering of energy where that energy is felt (on a subconscious level) to be a threat. That would apply to the "anger turned inward" deal. It also applies to the use of depression as a defense against anxiety.

A good encyclopedic reference is Otto Fenichel's "The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis." He was one of the Marxist analysts (along with Reich and Fromm). And he was both smart and sensible.

Putting aside the normative psychologists, the sort who lend their expertise in devising more effective means of repression, up to and including torture, there is much to be learned for the writing and thought of the psychoanalists: Freud, Fenichel, Laing, Reich, Fromm, Winnicot, Szaz, and Perls. 

Joanna