ABSTRACT
A sense of hopelessness, helplessness, impotence and exasperation are all well-documented affect states in the clinical presentation of depression. They may even represent a subtype of depression. When writing about these states, psychoanalysts from different theoretical traditions tend to group them in various combinations but their intention is to emphasize the overall burden that depression places upon the psyche. However, there appears to be no rubric under which these similar states can be gathered for the sake of theoretical neatness. I think Fairbairn provides the ideal home for all of them, for the reason that with his evocative concept of `futility' he comes closest to depicting the ontological mental agony that is implied in this particular pathway to depression.
