Covariation of conflict and mood in depression

The proportion of conflict involved in the personal problems of neurotic and depressed inpatients was assessed and correlated with the patients' mood over a period of several months. Mood correlated highly with conflict, i.e. when conflict was high, patients felt more depressed, fatigued and tense. Conflicts in the patients' beliefs about themselves also tended to correlate highly with mood, while conflict connected with their attitudes concerning their problems did not. Individual patients seemed to "react" to conflict with different kinds of mood.