Depression: adaptation to disruption and loss

Assisting the depressed person to cope with disruption and loss and the experiences associated with each stage of his recovery is usually a long-term process involving concerted efforts to promote a restoration of self-worth, personal control, and organization. In this article the authors have attempted to elucidate the problem of depression as a clinical phenomenon, to explore its predisposition, and, through the use of a conceptual model, to discuss its psychodynamics. The processes involved in coping with disruption and loss -- processes which tend to be evoked repeatedly during recovery and resolution since each failure or delay encountered is experienced as another loss and disruption by the individual -- were described and illustrated schematically.