ABSTRACT
We have so far considered—in broad outline at least—the more purely psychiatric aspects of the Involution Melancholias. With these data before us, we are in a position to discuss their psychological significance. The first problem here is to determine which one of the many symptoms presented in the foregoing case histories can be regarded as peculiar to this clinical type. As the different manic depressive reactions are described, it will be seen that few patients present absolutely pure regressions, in which the ideas belong exclusively to one type. This, after all, is but natural. When we speak of a normal man as having any given kind of personality, we are not surprised to observe in him traces of other varieties of attitude or conduct. For instance, a man of sanguine temperament is capable of feeling disappointment; we speak of him as optimistic because he is not long dejected by untoward circumstances and tends to find some ground for hope, rather than to concentrate his thoughts on distressing incidents. As a matter of fact, abnormal reaction types are much more consistent than are normal ones. Psychiatric classification is therefore a simpler matter than the recognition of normal types; indeed, the former analysis is so much easier that it enables us to detect general psychological principles applicable to the problems of ordinary life, which is the larger task of psychiatry. We must therefore attempt to pick out from a welter of symptoms those which are present prominently and consistently—those which enable us to make a diagnosis—and subject them only to psychological analysis.
