Crying in Depression

Abstract

In making a diagnosis between psychotic and neurotic depression, characteristic signs and symptoms are usually looked for. Although there is much controversy in the literature in respect to this difference, particularly since Lewis's work in 1934, nevertheless one commonly observes that when people are sad they cry. We would expect, therefore, that this would apply also in depressions. Yet, in our survey of the journal literature and such major textbooks as Mayer-Gross, Slater and Roth's Clinical Psychiatry, Arieti's American Handbook of Psychiatry, and Freedman & Kaplan's Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, the authors fail to include crying as a symptom of depression.