ABSTRACT
Pierre Marty was a psychiatrist and a full member and former president of the Paris Psychoanalytical Society. He was keenly interested in contemporary psychosomatic practice, and, with Michel de M'Uzan, he developed the concept of 'operational thinking' and emphasised the importance of economic aspects. Psychosomatic depression, which on several occasions the author have called 'objectless depression', is ultimately better termed essential depression because it constitutes the very essence of depression, namely the reduction in the level of libidinal tonus without any form of positive economic compensation. The clinical assessment of this depression must be based primarily, as is usual, on the mode of relationship that the patient forms with the investigator. Depression is evident, however, as revealed by the psychoanalytic contact and confirmed by the anamnesis: it resides in the marked reduction in the level of both objectal and narcissistic libidinal tonus.
