Abstract

Hauptman’s paper tells of a Mr. A, who refused exogenous treatment for the depression he felt consequent on the end of a romantic relationship, because such treatment seems to be inauthentic and despicable. It seemed this way because the depression felt like an apt response to the loss of the beloved.Like Hauptman, I have some sympathy with Mr. A’s position. To medicate away authentic emotional reactions to the trials of living is, it seems to me, to promote a form of self-alienation and radical inauthenticity. Surely only the blandest form of life, which had substituted the virtues of living a truthful and meaningful life informed by those emotions that themselves embody essential information about our self in...