EXCESS OF ATTENTION. THE CONSTRUCTION OF A DISORDER IN CHILEAN SCHOOLS

The aim of this article is to explore the epistemic and practical conditions of production of the diagnosis of ADHD in Chilean schools. It develops along two main lines: 1) the role of schools inChile in relation to the characteristics and treatment of this diagnostic category; and 2) the construction of the diagnosis in the classroom, analyzing the treatment of attentional behavior and the configuration of the ADHD Situation. We will conclude by considering student anxiety related to the diagnosis as an indicator of a clash of civilizational orders expressed in the modes of affective modulation performed in the classroom, wherein attempts will be made to resolve institutional violence by way of a demand for individual reform.

Affective modulation in positive psychology’s regime of happiness

Over the last decade, positive psychology has reified happiness as the key to achieving an understanding of human psychological experience and development. According to positive psychology, happiness can be understood as a measurable object of self-cultivation and psychological enhancement. This conceptualization has provoked multiple critiques, focusing on the power effects invested in these psychological discourses, with a special emphasis on the governmentality practices they exercise on subjectivity formation, in the context of neoliberal capitalism. Less attention has been paid to the ways in which specific technologies, derived from this “turn to happiness,” have had an influence on subjects’ bodies and embodied experiences beyond discursive means. In this article, we borrow insights from affect studies to contribute to and expand the critique of positive psychology. We do this by analyzing a positive psychology-based app called “Happify.” Our analysis consists of identifying and describing three mechanisms through which this technology modulates the capacities of human bodies by producing preemptive habits that result in what we call the positive psychology regime of happiness.