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On paper, writing a monograph or putting together an anthology dealing with Lacan's views on depression and melancholia comes across as a futile undertaking. It is like conceiving a book on Freud's opinions about alcoholism or dipsomania. In both cases, the clinical labels were very much part of the standard psychiatric tool kit when the authors developed
their ideas, yet neither author paid much attention to them (Madden 1995; Berrios 1988; 1996, pp. 289-331). The lack of a solid psychoanalytic theory of alcoholism in Freud's work can be attributed plausibly, yet nonetheless hypothetically, to the observation that in his private practice he seldom got to see patients who suffered from chronic alcohol abuse. In Lacan's case, the glaring absence of a thorough theoretical explanation and concurrent clinical psychoanalytic approach for depression and melancholia is more puzzling. For many years Lacan worked both as a psychiatrist and as a psychoanalyst, which would have significantly broadened his exposure to a variety of clinical conditions. Also, Lacan's infamous habit of conducting short sessions implies that he most likely saw more patients during his lifetime than any other psychoanalyst in history, some of whom must have come with a diagnosis or symptoms of depression or melancholia.
In the introduction to this interesting collection of essays, the editors, Derek Hook and Stijn Vanheule, state that they are not particularly surprised by Lacan's limited interest in depression and melancholia. All in all, they offer four reasons for this. First, they point out that the notion of depression “falls short of the clinical and conceptual rigor required of a properly Freudian concept” (p. 1). Second, they claim that “this diagnostic label [of depression] had not attained [in Lacan's time] the pervasive cultural predominance it has today” (p. 2). Third, they contend that “the notion of depression is considered to be under-defined and too all-encompassing” (p. 6). And,