Pathologies of Modern Space (PDF)

Pathologies of Modern Space traces the rise of agoraphobia in modern life and ties its astonishing growth to the emergence of urban modernity. The fear of stepping into the anonymity of modern cities and the anxiety that modern urban settings generate is in fact a central feature of modernity, and has been addressed by Georg Simmel and Richard Sennett. While agoraphobia is now generally treated by the psychiatric profession as a disorder unrelated to anything but the patient's psychology, Kathryn Milun shows that in the modern era its rise is closely related to the emergence of "empty urban space": homogenous space stripped of memory and tactile features (i.e., large plazas, sprawling freeways, shopping malls, and glass and steel office towers). When agoraphobia was first identified in the 1870s, psychologists connected it to features of modern urban life but, in subsequent eras, psychiatrists treated it as separate from the urban social context. While agoraphobia has exploded as a condition, the psychiatric profession has continued to ignore the social dimensions of the condition. The vast majority of sufferers are women, a fact that Milun uses to address gender differences in the way that humans experience the modern city. Pathologies of Modern Space covers a key mental health and social issue while also examining the increasing influence of a health profession that looks less to the social and more to the individual.