[Somatic disorders and depressive states]

Somatic disorders in depression can be separated into two main categories. The first comprises those which are true side effets of drug-therapy; the other includes somatic symptoms of the depression itself, which are subsequently considered as apparent side effects. Under the same treatment true side effects occur much more frequently in psychogenic depression, especially if the patient has a personality disorder. During the course of the treatment the disappearance of somatic complaints is noticed more easily by the physicians than the appearance of true side effects (schulterbrandt). The relative frequency of symptoms of depression as compared with all other symptoms seems to be higher in manic-depressive psychoses than in other varieties of depression (Watts). The other somatic disorders might either be symptoms of organic illness with secondary depression, the psycho-somatic equivalents of depression, or finaly the only symptoms of a masked depression.