Article
A Note on Depression in the Schizophrenic
A short paper by Melanie Klein, her contribution to a congress symposium on depressive illness, published in the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis in 1960. Klein argues that schizophrenic patients suffer from depression too. Their depression differs from the manic-depressive's: it concerns chiefly the loss of parts of the self that have been split off and projected, rather than mainly the loss of a loved object, and this makes it hard to recognise and to reach.
Main ideas
- Schizophrenic patients also suffer from depression.
- Their depression bears on the loss of parts of the self, split off and projected, rather than mainly on the loss of a loved object.
- This difference from manic-depressive depression makes the schizophrenic's depression hard to recognise and to reach.