Melancholy and Depression

Abstract

Depressions are focused from the psychoanalytic point of view, taking into account: 1. Depressive affects. Their two fold unpleasant and painful aspect; to exist in pain. The phaenomenology and metapsychological conceptualizations of such affects. 2. The object and its loss. Some questions concerning the nature and function of this object; why its loss is not followed by normal mourning. The fate of this loss. 3. The individual’s history. Internalization of an archaic pathogenous relationship leads to a kind of narcissistic configuration. Lack of self object differentiation with certain ego and superego feature within this narcissistic configuration determines a depressive personality structure. 4. Depressive crises. The metapsychological differences between psychotic and neurotic crises and the relevant therapeutical implications