ABSTRACT
Th roughout recorded hist ory there is evidence of depression, and it comprises one of the most common conditions mental health professionals treat, supporting the position that it is a naturally occurring entity, at least for humans. However, how it is structured is debatable. Th roughout the history of psychiatry there has been a tendency to view depression as consisting of discrete types. Two types have traditionally been identifi ed: Endogenous, vital, or melancholic, and reactive, neurotic, or dysthymic (Healy, 2013; Kiloh et al, 1972; Parker et al, 1988; Paykel, 2008). Melancholia was identifi ed at the time of Hippocrates and persisted as a diagnosis through Galenic and medieval times (Paykel, 2008). In 1621, Richard Burton wrote Th e Anatomy of Melancholia (in Paykel, 2008). Carl Lange, in 1880, identifi ed a disorder with neurovegetative features that became known as endogenous or vital depression (in Healy, 2013). Psychoanalysts led by Freud were instrumental in advancing the notion of reactive depression, in which the actual or symbolic loss of a love object gives rise to depression (in Shorter, 1997). According to Alfred Meyer all psychiatric illness consists of a psychobiological reaction to stress (in Paykel, 2008).
