Some remarks on dysphoria from an anthropological point of view.

ABSTRACT

The concept of 'dysphoria', as defined by the Vienna Group from the psychopathological point of view, is analyzed on the anthropological level. In an anthropological perspective, personality is conceived as a factor modulating affective disorders, and the manifold clinical expressions of affective disorders are viewed as functions of the relationship between the entity of the 'endothymic' fluctuations and the amalgam of the person who is in charge to confront and cope with the thymic experience. The hypothesis that dysphoria may be interpreted as a sthenic, oppositional and therefore irritated and hostile personological reaction to the occurrence of endogenous 'restrictive' or 'expansive' mood swings is discussed.