The article aims at analysing online depression forums enabling lay reinterpretation and criticism of expert biomedical discourses. Firstly, two contrasting interpretations of depression are reconstructed: expert psy-discourses are confronted with the phenomenological descriptions of lay experiences, with a special emphasis on online forums as empirical platforms hosting such debates. After clarifying the general theoretical stakes concerning contested ‘depression narratives’, the results of an online ethnography are introduced: the main topics appearing in online discussions are summarised (analysing how the abstract tensions between lay and expert discourses appear in the actual discussions), along with the idealtypical discursive logics (analysing pragmatic advises, attempts of reframing self-narratives and expressions of unconditional recognition). Finally, based on these analyses an attempt is made to explore the latent functionality of online depression forums by referring to a secular ‘ritual healing’ existing as an unreflected, contingent potential.

本文旨在分析在线抑郁症论坛，使人们能够对专家生物医学话语进行非专业的重新解释和批评。首先，重构了对抑郁症的两种截然不同的解释：专家心理话语面对外行经验的现象学描述，特别强调在线论坛作为举办此类辩论的经验平台。在阐明了有争议的“抑郁症叙述”的一般理论风险之后，介绍了在线民族志的结果：总结了在线讨论中出现的主要主题（分析在实际讨论中外行和专家话语之间的抽象张力是如何出现的），以及具有理想的典型话语逻辑（分析实用建议，尝试重新构建自我叙述和无条件认可的表达）。最后，基于这些分析，我们尝试通过将世俗的“仪式治疗”作为一种未反映的、偶然的潜力来探索在线抑郁症论坛的潜在功能。