This article questions the prescribing of antidepressant drugs and therefore also questions the diagnosis and the psychiatrist’s role as the familiar-strange in a psychoanalytic relationship or in an analytically-based psychotherapeutic relationship in today’s life of urgent time. The article briefly describes recent contributions in comprehensive, idiographic diagnosis, and uses two clinical vignettes to describe pathos before and after the use of psychopharmacological drugs.
Pharmakon; comprehensive diagnosis; interface; pathos