[Objectification of psychopathological symptoms in patients with a depressive syndrome]

75 patients, classified as suffering from endogenous depression according to the Kielholz criteria, underwent a 6 week therapy with opium tincture. Following the phenomenological picture, two sub-divisions of syndromes were formed:--inhibited-depressive and uninhibited-depressive. These we have compared with each other according to their response to therapy. The depressive symptomatics were objectified in experimental psychology by means of the Beck scale. In the light of the Beck form of enquiry a significantly better response appears in the uninhibited-depressive patients under the influence of opium. Moreover a varying responsiveness of the separate depressive symptoms can be seen in the syndromic sub-divisions. Altogether it can be stated that the Beck scale for recording depressive syndromatics surpasses the general clinical assertion in both objectivity and reliability and has proved itself in the supervision of therapy.