Discussion of Bernhard Berliner's Article, Psychodynamics of the Depressive Character

There is much to be learned from this distillate of Dr. Berliner's years of interest in the problems of depression and “moral masochism.” However, it seems that in the zeal of stressing factors which are undoubtedly signifcant (the pathogenic influence of disturbed object relations based on the hostility of parents toward children), he has made sweeping absolute statements which, in a discussion group, he would probably modify.

For example, how would he define “depression” “depressive illness,” “depressive reactions” and other related terms and diagnostic labels? Would there necessarily be general agreement on which of these are born out of “the depressive character, which is the matrix of any depressive illness”? Should the word “any” be modified? Is there “general agreement that a depressive state of mind in later life is a continuation or a reproduction of a primal depression in childhood”? How early does a depression have to occur to be called “primal”? Is it universal experience “that every one of these patients had an unhappy childhood”?

(In my own experience I have found to my surprise that sometimes the patient remembered only a happy childhood in which he had been the most loved or admired member of the household; apparently significant traumata had not occurred until mid-latency or beyond. In these instances it seemed that the depressive reactions were related either to the disappointment of the unconscious expectation that he was about to recapture the lost satisfactions of a very “special” childhood or to the conviction that he would never regain them except in death.)