ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the notion of emotional script to refer to different kinds of cultural agreements concerning what emotions we are supposed to feel, and how we are supposed to express them. Love and depression are prominent phenomena in our culture's emotional script, which means that they are occurrences that, in principle, everyone relates to. Many even use their experiences of love and depression to judge their state of well-being, mental health and quality of life. Depressive love is nothing less than an individual capital, which can be transformed into a social and economic capital. A social pathology is considered to be a state in which the needs, wishes and cravings of people are destroyed; it is a state caused by a misunderstanding, or a perversion, of a societal ideal inherently meant to satisfy or fulfill people's wishes of, and strivings for, well-being, mental health and life quality.
