It is probable that the clinical manifestations of depressive reaction in childhood are found in identical form in adults. What do not appear to occur in young children but do in adults are pathological identifications and introjections that are the consequence of defensive and restitutive processes. While it is clear that tolerating frustration, and the depressive affect associated with it, is important in development, the experience of depression in itself would not appear, as Hartmann has suggested, a valuable one. The outlook becomes progressively bleaker for children and adults who react to disappointment with a depressive response, who fail to individuate, and who cannot withdraw their attachment from infantile ideals.