Abstract
The conclusion briefly highlights some alternative models of melancholia at the turn of the twentieth century, before turning the focus to the decline of the melancholia diagnosis and the rise of clinical depression as the new dominant mood disorder in diagnostic literature. The Conclusion considers how the developments outlined in the previous chapters have been foundational not only for the modern psychiatric concepts ‘mood disorder’ and ‘clinical depression’, but also more broadly for classification and clinical practice in twentieth- and twenty-first-century psychiatry. Finally, the book turns the spotlight to the politics of psychiatric classification, and asks what is at work, and at stake, when psychiatry tries to label, classify, and diagnose psychological distress.