The Fate of Obsessions in Depressive Psychosis

Abstract

Obsessions may appear for the first time during the course of a depression without having been present before the onset of the depression. Such cases (hereinafter called “Gainers”) have been noted by Esquirol (1827), Prichard (1835), Marc (1840), Schüle (1886), Gordon (1925), Saunders (1932), Lewis (1934), Woolley (1937), Muncie and White (1937), Lion (1942), Stengel (1948), Terhune (1949), Sargant and Slater (1950), Pollitt (1956), Reda and Paretti (1958), and Skoog (1959). The frequency of this phenomenon, however, remains uncertain. Heilbronner (1912) described 22 cases of melancholia with obsessions of whom 18 were “Gainers”. Vurpas and Corman (1933) described 27 cases of depression with obsessions (two organically based) of whom 24 were “Gainers”.