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Fragile insights: some psychological views of depression

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Severe Depression

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Abstract

It was noted in Chapter 1 that an acceptable definition of depression remains elusive. A range of depressive disorders exist: the extent to which they belong to the same ‘family tree’ continues to provoke dispute*. Most people with serious depression are treated by a medical practitioner supported, to varying degrees, by a range of other health care professionals. The layperson can be excused for assuming, therefore, that all forms of mood disturbance represent a depressive condition equivalent to physical forms of illness: possessing distinct diagnostic characteristics; needing, and responding to, medical intervention.

By these gates entering, which cloudy show, I from the touching lustful world did go; And, faring on — need none, the way to ask — Saw in a water, there, my face sans mask ... Let not your prophets and diviners deceive you ...

(De La Mare 1984)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Dundee, Scotland

    Philip J. Barker (Clinical Nurse Consultant, Tayside Health Board, and Honorary Lecturer)

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  1. Philip J. Barker
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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Barker, P.J. (1992). Fragile insights: some psychological views of depression. In: Severe Depression. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-4455-9_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-4455-9_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-56593-051-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-4455-9

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