The Independence of Neurotic Depression and Endogenous Depression

In 1926 Mapother stated that in manic depressive psychosis we are dealing with “a merely quantitative deviation” from the normal, morbid only in its undue prolongation or if disproportionate or disastrous in its degree. He included anxiety neuroses along with mania and all varieties of depression as members of the manic depressive group. Perhaps these beliefs reflected the inevitable pessimism of a period when therapy was largely expectant and custodial. Somewhat despondently Mapother goes on to say “sub-division serves little purpose unless the types discriminated are correlated with differences in the unknown—for example in causation, prognosis and treatment”.