Hostility, personality and depression

The study describes findings on two samples of depressives and normals matched for age, sex, social class and religious affiliation. The following observations on the psychopathology of depression were made by considering the relationships between personality, various aspects of hostility, and the degree of depression: (1) depression, guilt and anxiety are linked together; (2) the extent to which anxiety is somatized is not dependent on the way hostility is handled; also, somatic symptoms occur independently of hysterical symptoms in depressive illness; (3) obsessional symptoms are likely to occur together with hysterical symptoms and to be associated with hostility-aggression during depressive illness; (4) hysterical tendencies may accentuate intropunitiveness.