title: Contributions of psychoanalysis to the understanding and treatment of depression.
abstract: Psychoanalysis continues to make important contributions to basic clinical understanding of adaptive and maladaptive psychological development, and particularly to the understanding of depression and its treatment. This paper demonstrates that a basic theoretical conceptualization, central to many of Freud's fundamental contributions, has provided the basis for a wide range of contemporary psychoanalytic and nonpsychoanalytic formulations of personality development and organization; for understanding various forms of psychopathology in adults as deriving from disruptions of normal developmental processes, especially personality disorders and depression; and for conducting research on psychotherapeutic process and outcome in both brief and long-term intensive treatment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06519, USA. Sidney.blatt@yale.edu
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Blatt
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D005260:Female; D005619:Freudian Theory; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010553:Personality Development; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy