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MY THESIS and its implications for therapy are vividly reflected in the following dream reported in a marital session by Mr. K., the husband of a severely depressed patient:
A mummified king and queen of Egypt were excavated by anthropologists in one casket. He was handsome and golden-haired; she was less beautiful. Both their throats had been cut. They were on mechanically operating biers that were synchronized to alternately raise one of them as the other was lowered, so that they took turns, the king sitting upright when the queen lay flat, and vice versa.
This dream illustrates the thesis that the overt depression of the identified patient is a manifestation of an underlying morbidity that is shared, reciprocal and alternating between both marital partners. From this viewpoint, therapeutic intervention more effectively reaches the pathology when marital therapy is combined with individual therapy.
The core etiological factor in the individual dynamics of the depressive, as viewed by classical theorists, 1, 3, 5 is the self-hatred due to ambivalence towards a love object who was introjected. From a culturalist position, Bonime 4 describes depression as a practice, characterized by hostility, manipulativeness, aversion to influence, unwillingness to give gratification, and anxiety about relinquishing the pathological operations. A clinical approach 6, 8 focuses on the symptom as a form of communication.