The article examines the relationship between psychological distress, individualism and the use of psychotropics medications. Its argument is developed through an exploration of the following hypotheses: (a) psychological distress has become reconfigured and, as a result, the social status of psychological distress has changed; (b) these reconfigurations are a sign of alterations in the process of subjectivization; (c) elective affinities exist between these changes and contemporary individualism; (d) psychological distress manifests primarily as "psychic pain"; and (e) the therapy for psychological distress has became "analgesia",' stimulating extensive use of psychotropic treatments.
Psychological distress; Individualism; Use of psychotropic medications