Analytic Depression is a term coined by René Spitz in 1945, an Austro-American psychoanalyst who worked as a psychiatrist at Mount Sinai Hospital and as a professor at several universities in the United States, heir to Freud’s postulates, but devoted himself mainly to childcare.
Spitz began studying the development of the child in 1935, while still residing in Europe. He used direct observation and the experimental method for his studies. All Spitz’s conclusions are based on a solid empirical basis. In 1945, he conducted a detailed investigation into an orphanage and, from his observations, the concept of anachlytic depression was born.
“What is given to children, they will give it to society. “Karl Menninger?
The work of this psychoanalyst has had a great impact, both in the scientific community and in society at large, much of his research was recorded in the 1952 film Psychogenic Disease in Early Childhood, a film that had a significant impact and brought about a change in the model of child care in hospitals and allowed the world to become familiar with the concept of analytic depression.
In the early 1930s, when René Spitz began his research, academic circles thought that children could not suffer from depression; some psychologists have argued that depressive signs are not clinically relevant in children; psychoanalysts, on the other hand, claim that children do not have it. have the ability to think and that therefore it was impossible to be depressed.
Despite these widespread beliefs, two researchers decided to check for themselves the validity of what was said. These two researchers were René Spitz, creator of the concept of anachlytic depression, and John Bowlby, who studied in detail the relationship between mother and son in the early stages of the baby’s life.
Spitz concluded that children, from an early age, were also depressed, found that this condition included a complete picture of well-defined symptoms and that the child had responded with this form of depression to the sudden separation of his mother or to affection for her. more than three months.
Spitz noted that anachlytic depression occurs in children under one year of age; occurs when the baby develops a bond with the mother and undergoes a sudden weed for a period of three months; if this happens, the child begins to show a whole range of depressive symptoms. Symptoms.
The most visible symptoms are
If emotional deprivation lasts longer than 18 weeks, all symptoms get worse. The child enters a state that Spitz calls “hospitality. “The baby is unable to establish stable emotional contact and his or her health becomes very fragile, which in many cases leads to death.
There are references to a questionable experiment conducted by Frederick II the Great, King of Prussia, who is said to have ordered the construction of an orphanage in which the physical needs of children were fully met.
Aspects such as hygiene, food, clothing, etc. have been taken into account. However, it was forbidden to establish an affective bond with babies. The result of this test is that most babies died soon after.
René Spitz’s studies on anachlytic depression have led to a major change in the way orphanages are administered, at least in more developed countries, making it clear that emotional ties with babies were as important or more important than food itself. conditions have improved markedly in these institutions.
Childhood depression exists and has increased worldwide. Suicide is currently the sixth leading cause of death among children age 5 to 14. However, we should not forget that children with emotional deprivation in their early stages develop behavioral problems more often and tend to drive stormy. Lives.