Table Of ContentEmpty Suffering
Interdisciplinary in approach, this book combines philosophy, sociology, his-
tory and psychology in the analysis of contemporary forms of suffering. With
attention to depression, anxiety, chronic pain and addiction, it examines both
particular forms of suffering and takes a broad view of their common features,
so as to offer a comprehensive and parallel view both of the various forms of
suffering and the treatments commonly applied to them. Highlighting the
challenges and distortions of the available treatments and identifying these as
contributory factors to the overall problem of contemporary suffering, Empty
Suffering promises to widen the horizon of critical theories of modernization,
therapeutic interventions and social policies. As such, it will appeal to schol-
ars across the social sciences and humanities with interests in mental health
and disorder, social theory and social pathologies.
Domonkos Sik is an associate professor of Sociology at the Eötvös Loránd
University, Budapest, and alumni of CEU-IAS, Budapest-Vienna. He is the
author of several monographs in critical theory, including Radicalism and
Indifference.
The Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization
Breaking decisively with the often ideological and moralistic approach of
treating problems of health and well-being as discrete and individual prob-
lems to be addressed in isolation both from one another and their broader
social contexts, this series pursues the investigation of the ways in which
contemporary malaises, diseases, illnesses and psychosomatic syndromes are
related to cultural pathologies of the social body and disorders of the collec-
tive ésprit de corps of contemporary society.
It avoids reductive psychological and biomedical understandings of
pathologies – including depression, stress-related illnesses, eating disorders,
suicide and deliberate self-harm – to focus instead on the socio-cultural con-
texts in which they occur, examining the radical changes to social structures
and institutions, and the deep crises in our civilization as a whole to which
such conditions are connected.
The Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization thus welcomes man-
uscripts from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives across the humanities
and social sciences – sociology, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, pol-
itics, economics and cultural studies, as well as from the fields of medicine
social care, therapeutic practice and the healing arts – that explore the fruit-
fulness locating health and well-being not simply in the individual body or
soul but within a trans-disciplinary imagination that takes into account the
integral human person’s situatedness within collective social bodies, particu-
lar communities, entire societies, or even whole civilizations.
Series editors
Anders Petersen, Kieran Keohane and Bert van den Bergh
Titles in the series
Late Modern Subjectivity and its Discontents
Anxiety, Depression and Alzheimer’s Disease
Kieran Keohane, Anders Petersen and Bert van den Bergh
States of Intoxication
The Place of Alcohol in Civilisation
John O’Brien
Healing Rites of Passage
Salutogenesis in Serious Fun Camps
Peter James Kearney
Empty Suffering
A Social Phenomenology of Depression, Anxiety and Addiction
Domonkos Sik
For more information about this series, please visit:
https://www.routledge.com/The-Social-Pathologies-of-Contemporary-
Civilization/book-series/ASHSER1434
Empty Suffering
A Social Phenomenology of Depression,
Anxiety and Addiction
Domonkos Sik
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Domonkos Sik
The right of Domonkos Sik to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sik, Domonkos, 1982- author.
Title: Empty suffering : a social phenomenology of depression, anxiety and
addiction / Domonkos Sik.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. |
Series: The social pathologies of contemporary civilization | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021023982 (print) | LCCN 2021023983 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032045573 (hbk) | ISBN 9781032053899 (pbk) |
ISBN 9781003197355 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Suffering. | Anxiety. | Social sciences--Philosophy.
Classification: LCC BF789.S8 S56 2022 (print) | LCC BF789.S8 (ebook) |
DDC 152.4--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021023982
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021023983
ISBN: 9781032045573 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781032053899 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003197355 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003197355
Typeset in Bembo
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
PART I
Genealogies of late modern suffering 11
1 From naturalized suffering to futile ownership:
A genealogy of depressed lifeworld 13
2 The social constituents of fear: A phenomenology
of negative integration 43
3 Power from indirect pain: A historical phenomenology
of medical pain management 63
PART II
Networks of depression, anxiety and addiction 81
4 Depression as social suffering: Distortions
of communicative and competitive interactions 83
5 Networks of anxiety: From the distortions of late
modern societies to the social components
of anxiety 103
6 Actor-networks of addiction: From reification
to the emergence of a late modern hybrid
subjectivity 117
vi Contents
PART III
Beyond suffering: Spontaneous and hybrid
strategies dealing with late modern social suffering 141
7 From the contingencies of biomedicine to secular
ritual healing: An online ethnography of depression
forums 143
8 Beyond organic solidarity: From the paradoxes
of late modern welfare state to the moral challenges
of crisis management 163
9 Ways out from suffering: On quasi-therapeutic
networks 190
Index 210
Acknowledgements
I started to work on the sociology of mental disorders and social suffering
during a Bolyai Fellowship (2016–2018) provided by the Hungarian Academy
of Science. A related project about solidarity in late modernity (2018–2021)
was financed by NKFI (FK-129138). Since 2019, the Higher Education
Excellence Program of the Ministry of Human Capacities at Eötvös Loránd
University (ELTE-FIKP) provided support for analysing online depression
forums. My workplace, Eötvös Loránd University also provided generous
support while I was finalizing the manuscript.
I would like to express my gratitude to the members of the Social
Pathologies of Contemporary Civilisation research network (http://
socialpath.simplesite.com/), their conferences provided an invaluable plat-
form for discussing the challenges of late modernity in a critical and inter-
disciplinary manner. I would like to thank Sabine Flick, Anders Petersen,
Bert van den Bergh and especially Kieran Keohane, who supported and
encouraged me in the publication process. Finally, I would like to thank
Ildikó Zakariás, who was the first reader of most chapters – her comments
and support mean a lot to me.
The first version of Chapters 1–5 and 7 appeared previously in the follow-
ing journals:
Chapter 1: From naturalized suffering to futile ownership – A genealogy
of depressed lifeworld. Journal of Historical Sociology, 33(4): 546–566. https://
doi.org/10.1111/johs.12305.
Chapter 2: Towards a social theory of fear: A phenomenology of nega-
tive integration. European Journal of Social Theory, 23(4): 512–531. https://doi.
org/10.1177/1368431019850074.
Chapter 3: Power from indirect pain – A historical phenomenology of
medical pain management. Continental Philosophy Review, 54(1): 41–59.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-020-09518-5.
Chapter 4: From mental disorders to social suffering: Making sense
of depression for critical theories. European Journal of Social Theory, 22(4):
477–496. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431018760947.
viii Acknowledgements
Chapter 5: Networks of anxiety – From the distortions of late modern
societies to the social components of anxiety. Phenomenology & Mind (18).
https://doi.org/10.17454/pam-1817.
Chapter 7: From dealing with the contingencies of biomedicine to secular
ritual healing – An online ethnography of depression forums. In: Culture,
Medicine, and Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-020-09702-5.
Introduction
Exposedness to suffering is one of the fundamental aspects of human exist-
ence. As the attributed causes constitute the horizon of the ‘problematic’,
suffering does not merely affect a passive actor but also contributes to the
emergence of agency. The process of constructing a meaningful horizon is
inseparable from the past memories, the present experiences and the future
projections of suffering. These phenomenological components shape the
individual lifeworld (which is partly built around them) while also affect-
ing the institutionalization of cultural praxes shared by an intersubjective
community (which are developed to commemorate, treat or prevent suffer-
ing). Vice versa, by providing an interpretative framework, the collective
discourses also frame the experience of suffering. Due to these narrative rep-
resentations, suffering does not exist as a raw impression, but a potentially
meaningful experience embedded in a historical and social context. Every
society elaborates various ways of relating to suffering, including the attrib-
utes of its paradigmatic forms; the explanatory or justifying narratives; and
the technologies of treatment. Accordingly, the experience of suffering is a
two-fold phenomenon: it happens to the subject, while being intersubjec-
tively constructed at the same time.
Similar to any other eras, contemporary, ‘late modern’ societies are also
characterized by a specific paradigm of suffering. The notion of late moder-
nity refers to a dividing line: while ‘classic modernity’ is characterized by
an unreflected identification with rationalist utopic prospects (i.e. social,
technological or scientific development), unquestioned epistemic authorities
(i.e. expertise based on formal rationality) and triumphant institutions and
structures (i.e. bureaucratic organizations, capitalist market); late modernity
is characterized by the doubting and dissolving of these constituents. That
does not mean, however, the complete giving up on the project of modernity
(as theories of post-modernity claim it), rather its reconfiguration as a con-
tingent and ambiguous horizon. This book focuses on this era: by analyzing
the idealtypical contemporary forms of suffering, the related interpretative
narratives and interventions, an attempt is made to describe some of the key
constituents of late modern existence. In order to reveal its specific character-
istics, suffering is reconstructed as a historical phenomenon, in a genealogical
DOI: 10.4324/9781003197355-1
