This interdisciplinary book explores both the connections and the tensions between sociological
psychological and biological theories of exhaustion. It examines how the prevalence of
exhaustion - both as an individual experience and as a broader socio-cultural phenomenon - is
manifest in the epidemic rise of burnout depression and chronic fatigue. It provides
innovative analyses of the complex interplay between the processes involved in the production
of mental health diagnoses socio-cultural transformations and subjective illness experiences.
Using many of the existing ideologically charged exhaustion theories as case studies the
authors investigate how individual discomfort and wider social dynamics are interrelated.
Covering a broad range of topics this book will appeal to those working in the fields of
psychology sociology medicine psychiatry literature and history.
