Causes, Types and Treatments of Depression

From the psychoanalytic viewpoint, as we read in Fine, depression was first attributed by Freud to be caused by sexual frustration, intensified by lack of self-confidence. Abraham later complicated the diagnosis by stressing aspects of orality and hostility. Basically, whatever the specifics, psychoanalysis sees depression as a manifestation of the depressed person turning his anger or hostility against himself internally instead of outwardly against the known or unknown object of the anger (407).

Freud used depression or melancholia as a means of defining the superego: "In depression the superego punishes the ego either for forbidden wishes or for not living up to the ego-ideal set by the parents" (Jacobson 586).

Klein argued as well that depression was caused by the loss of the love of the parents in the second three months of the infant's life (117).

Other psychoanalytic approaches have linked depression to the lack of self-esteem, the loss of the love of the mother in later childhood, helplessness, the "giving up" syndrome, and detachment from the loss of a love object. The fact that "some depressives become psychotic, and others suicidal" is attributed to "quantitative and internal-economic factors" (Kubie 4).

Irwin notes that all of us are subject to the kinds of problems which can m

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classifying depression as to types leads to a "semantic jungle." There are biological factors, environmental factors, psychological factors, factors related to the patient's responses to various treatments, chemical factors, and so on. In Clayton and Barrett, we read that "the classification of depressive disorders has been an area of intense interest since the early decades of this century" (53). Earlier classification efforts focused on clinical observations, specifically concerning symptoms. Later, statistical methods were introduced in helping to define clinical depressive traits. As a result of the latter advance, "great strides were made in delineating various depressive disorders, particularly on the basis of (a) course of illness--unipolar/bipolar distinction; (b) response to somatic therapy; or (c) symptom characteristics--endogenous/nonendogenous distinction. In more recent years, workers have applied various biochemical and physiologic measures to elucidate the genetic factors and biological characteristics that may ultimately lead to a comprehensive classification system" (53). Irwin provides a more simple classification explanation. His approach is useful in reaching some conclusion about types, as long as
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Approximate Word count = 2394
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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