The Self-pitying Constellation in Depression

A revival of interest in psychiatric classification has led to the use of statistical techniques such as factor analysis to help describe the depressive population. Several recent factor analytic studies rating symptoms in depressed patients have had results which portray a common clinical pattern (Hamilton and White, 1959; Kiloh and Garside, 1963; Rosenthal and Klerman, 1966b; Rosenthal and Gudeman, 1967). In each of these studies the first or primary factor has suggested the endogenous depressive pattern. In the most recent of these papers we presented the first factor in our study of 100 depressed women (Rosenthal and Gudeman, 1967). This factor was shown to be similar to the principal factors of the other studies, and to suggest the “endogenous” or “autonomous” pattern. This replication has been an encouraging indication that studies carried out in different patient populations may indeed give reproducible symptom patterns.