Dynamic and Interpersonal Theories of Depression

In contrast to the wealth of literature on psychodynamic and interpersonal theories of depression in adults, there is a paucity of contributions examining these aspects of depression in adolescents, and particularly in children. This relative neglect of psychodynamic approaches to juvenile depression may seem surprising, since some of the major psychoanalytic theorists of depression, such as those of Freud and Abraham, specifically implicated childhood events in the etiology of adult mood disorders. Freud suggested the loss of a love object or the love of that object in early childhood as predisposing to adult melancholia, if a substitute object could not be found. Abraham went so far as to postulate the existence of a childhood episode of depression, termed “primal parathymia,” secondary to a disappointment in the child’s relationship with his or her mother in the history of adult depressives. Later psychoanalytic authors such as Rado and Jacobson continued to consider adult depression as the result of childhood experiences that were devoid of adequate care or love, often casting the adult experience as a reliving of the childhood disillusionment with needed others and the frustration of not receiving the required nurturance from parental figures.