ABSTRACT
Depression comes in different forms, ranging from melancholy, with its delusions of shame and guilt, to essential depression, presenting as a psychic desert. In between, there is a wide variety of clinical presentations that disregard rigid nosographic classification. Yet, one would like to find some underlying common denominator. The author proposes that in every form of depression lies an unpast core, akin to the nucleus of actual neurosis that Freud found at the heart of the psychoneuroses. A clinical example illustrates the emergence of such core and how it affects the course of treatment.
