concerned with depression here only insofar as it is such a defense.)
Depression, like anxiety, can be normal or pathological. Anxiety is a response to the threatened destruction or loss
of a value; depression is a response to the accomplished destruction or loss of a value. Anxiety is anticipatory, it is
directed to the future; depression is directed to the past.
Depression is regarded as pathological when it is unrelated to any object loss, or when its intensity and duration are
grossly disproportionate to the loss.
Neurotic depression is characterized by despair, passivity, a feeling that action and effort are futile, that nothing is
worth doing—and by feelings of self-rejection and self-condemnation.
Now, in what manner can depression relate to anxiety?
A person is made anxious because of urgent demands, claims, or self-expectations which he feels unable to satisfy;
for example, the imperative that he possess certain knowledge and be able to cope with certain responsibilities; or
that he act in a certain manner; or that he respond emotionally in a certain manner; or that he live up to certain
standards and ideals. He is caught in a conflict. Suppose that he attempts to deal with it, and to minimize his
anxiety, by repressing both the conflict and the related guilt. In its place, on the conscious level of his awareness, he
experiences a sense of passivity, futility, and general worthlessness.
If one listens closely to his declarations that he is hopeless, that life is hopeless, that he is "no good," one can
discern another message to be read in his words: Expect nothing of me—demand nothing of me. Since he is
incurably worthless, he is outside the realm of moral expectations; for him, there can be no "I must." In this manner
he ''resolves" the conflict that threatens him with anxiety.
In other words, he seeks to anticipate the worst and make it a fait accompli—without coming to grips with his
actual problem. Under the guise of renouncing his self-esteem, he is still secretly trying to protect it by neurotic
means.
This is one of the ways in which depression can be a subconsciously elected alternative to anxiety. But it is not the
only pattern. Here is another.
This pattern is related to the foregoing, but is more indirect in its workings. It is the by-product of repression.
Suppose that a