Loopy: The Political Ontology of Bipolar Disorder

Abstract

This essay is at once a critical analysis, an experiment in form, and – with some irony – a cautionary tale. Triggered by the inclusion of prodromal diagnoses in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and the recent call by the United States’ (U.S.) Obama administration for increased mental health screening, I argue that shifts toward identifying and intervening on one’s potential madness, or risk, circulate with/in the contemporary U.S. climate of intensified discipline and terror, and use Bipolar Disorder as a site to critically explore how and with what implications this circulation occurs. Specifically, I weave Massumi’s ‘political ontology of threat’ with the narrative of a woman diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder in order to trace the pre-emptive politics and affective logic of a risk-based approach to madness. I contend that the diagnosing and drugging of potential is a self-perpetuating loop that is personally and politically harmful, and consider alternatives to this burgeoning practice.