ABSTRACT
In this research as to the psychological causes of depression the first questions have been answered more or less satisfactorily. The manifest symptoms of the psychosis may be attributed to repression acting against a push from the unconscious, which is formulated in an anti-social idea. The evidence—to us at least—seems to justify this assumption. But other difficulties arise at once. The whole trend of psychoanalytic psychology (which receives support from study of the psychoses) goes to show that such tendencies are universal and, almost as universal, is their repression. This however, is usually successful, and the submerged idea is transformed into some related concept that can escape censorship and gain conscious freedom. Plainly then, in depression, three differences from the normal process must be present: the pathogenic thought must remain in the co-conscious, as repression is continuing to operate; a certain mental rigidity must exist which prevents the warping of the idea into a more ethically acceptable form: and the bulk of the patient’s energy, his potential interest, must be concentrated in this criminal co-conscious fancy. Of course no question beginning with “why” can ever be completely and finally answered, but we can often carry the “why” back several steps towards the first cause. In this sense, if the question, “What causes these differences from normal mental processes?” be answered, we would have begun to answer the “why” of depression.
