The different forms of depression

Given the relationships that exist between physical contact experience and depression and between love experience and depression the question now arises as to whether these relationships are essentially the same for each of the different forms of depression. Clearly there are a number of ways in which they might differ. Already, for example, it has been suggested that reactive depression could be associated particularly with unstable physical contact experience as opposed to stable experience in the case of endogenous depression, and a parallel state of affairs could of course apply with love experience. Alternatively the timing of either unsatisfactory physical contact experience or not loved experience (with reference to childhood and/or the present) might vary from one form of depression to another as might the role (causal and/or consequential) of such experience. In this context too qualitative differences in unsatisfactory physical contact and love experience should obviously be considered. Finally there is the possibility that the different forms of depression could be associated with different combinations of physical contact and love experience.