Bodies of Knowledge Working Group: Medicalization of Love: Neuroscience, Addiction and New Diagnostic Categories

Mental health disorder diagnostics are reviewed every once in a while, and updated versions are published in diagnostic manuals. However, how does a new condition come into being? What does it look like before it integrates the diagnostic manual? Which fields of expertise contribute to the emergence of a new diagnostic category and what kind of evidence do they offer? Who are the subjects experimented on and where are the spaces hosting experimentation? The talk will tackle these questions by exploring the contemporary approach to affective disorders by science and biomedicine. It will focus specifically on pathological love, a category-in-the-making in a public psychiatric hospital in South America. We will examine the main premises and the preferred models animating a generative dialogue on pathological love carried on between lab science, bioethical normative assessment, and healthcare protocols. Ultimately, we will engage with the question of governance, and the subjects and problems pathology addresses and regulates.

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