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A Psychotherapist Looks at Depression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Anthony Storr
Anthony Storr*
Affiliation:
The Warneford Hospital, Headington, Oxford
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Extract

1. Depression is not an illness, but a psychobiological reaction which can be provoked in anyone.

2. It is much more easily provoked in some people than in others.

3. Vulnerability to depression is partly dependent upon social factors, as George Brown has demon strated. It is also determined by internal factors in the personality.

4. There is increasing evidence to show that the child's attachment to his mother is an important determinant of future mental health.

5. It will be argued that children who make ‘anxious attachments’ to the mother, as described by Bowlby, are less likely to incorporate her as a ‘good object’ within the psyche, and that this renders them more vulnerable to later depression than children who form ‘secuartetachments.’

6. Many features of depression in adults resemble or are related to ‘anxiouatstachments.’

7. The way in which psychotherapy can alleviate vulnerability to depression is described in terms of this hypothesis.

8. Reference is also made to the fact that effective action can be a source of self-esteem as well as love. Many of the great creators were partially effective in dealing with vulnerability to depression by work.

9. Freud affirmed that mental health depended upon the capacity to love and the capacity to work. It will be argued that the former capacity has been over-emphasized at the expense of the latter.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 143 , Issue 5 , November 1983 , pp. 431 - 435
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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