In their interesting study the authors tried to test experimentally the psychoanalytic concept that depressed patients turn against themselves the hostility that had orginally been directed at others. The experimenters attempted to distinguish the relationship between the two variables in the two situations of the depressed state itself and a depressed character trait existing prior to clinical depression. As might be expected, the results point to some lack of clarity in defining the specific nature of the hostility and the intensity involved. One conclusion was that patients who were most severely depressed had an increase in both inwardly and outwardly directed hostility. A possible conceptualization for these findings is that depression as a primary emotional state acts as a signal emotion. The authors propose that depression, anxiety, and hostility may have a parallel relationship as a response to a common stimulus. It is further speculated that hostility of both types may be activated as a defense against depression.