Depression1 is problematic for psychoanalytic theory because it is neither a psychosis nor a “classic” neurosis. Analysts see the classic—hysterical, obsessional, or phobic—neurotic symptom as a compromise between unconscious representations of desire and the forces of repression. The symptoms of depression, however, cannot be understood in this manner because they are characterized by deficiencies. One therefore tends to view depression as a phenomenon that accompanies the classic neuroses, especially obsessional neurosis, insofar as its self-recriminations resemble those of melancholia. Everyday clinical