The Concept of Depression in Freud and Jung
Sigmund Freud argues that although there exist many different clinical forms of depression, or melancholia as he calls it, each form is characterized by an internal guilt caused by the loss or devaluation of a sexual object (Freud, 1966, 531). An understanding of several terms as Freud uses them is necessary for a complete understanding of his theory of depression.
Basically, Freudian psychoanalytic theory argues that our psychological life is determined by our conscious and unconscious life (Freud, 1960, 3). Our conscious life, however, is transitory, in the sense that concepts or memories that are conscious or manifest at any given time may become preconscious or unconscious at a later time. If ideas are preconscious, Freudian theory argues that they are latent, which means they are capable of becoming conscious and they continue to affect our conscious life (4). However, if these ideas are unconscious, Freudian theory argues that they have been repressed and that a specific and determined opposing psychic force whose job it is to govern the repression of certain ideas at certain times represses them (5).
The ego is the force that controls the repression of unconscious ideas. Freudian theory argues that each individual possesses a coherent organization of mental processes called the ego (8). The ego governs our conscious actions inasmuch as it governs our reactions to external stimuli (8). However, the ego also controls our conscious thought by repressing certain ideas that may conflict with our conscious thoughts and desires. The conflict between our conscious desire as expressed by our ego and the repressed unconscious desire is the psychoanalytic definition of a neurosis (9).
For the purposes of this paper, and at the risk of oversimplification, we shall refer to the force that controls or unconscious thoughts and desires as the id (17). However, although they govern diff...