title: On the clinical utility of the concept of depressive affect as signal affect.
abstract: The author reviews the scant literature relating to the concept of depressive affect as an affect parallel to anxiety. Then, through the presentation of detailed clinical psychoanalytic data, in particular the patient's associations to interpretation, he demonstrates the value to the conduct of a psychoanalysis of an awareness of the role of depressive affect as a signal affect that triggers defense.
authors.affiliation: New York Psychoanalytic Institute.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hoffman
mesh_terms: D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D011573:Psychoanalytic Interpretation; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy / Q000379:methods*