[Phenomenologic findings in melancholia in relation to empirical studies]

This psychopathological study about the experience of anxiety in 160 melancholic and 93 neurotic depressive patients (diagnostic criteria acc. to ICD-9) aims at reconsidering earlier findings about the anthropological essence of melancholia. Anxiety seems to be especially appropriate to examine changes in time experience emphasized by phenomenological authors. Only 5% of the melancholic patients spontaneously report on alterations of the experience of time. Self reports point to a "basic disturbance of temporal development" (von Gebsattel) in melancholia. The temporal structure of the experience of anxiety however, more depends on the respective content of anxiety than on the patient group examined. On the contrary the natural matter of course in dealing with hitherto familiar affairs gets lost more often in melancholia than in non-melancholic states: Anxiety about all and everything and anxiety related to depersonalization prove to be characteristic of melancholia, even with regard to the severity of depression. The data confirm that beyond changes of time experience a "separateness from the essential conditions of natural experience" (Binswanger) comes to light in melancholia.