CLINICAL DEPRESSION IN WOMEN: COGNITIVE SCHEMAS OF SELF, CARE, AND RELATIONSHIPS IN A LONGITUDINAL STUDY (INEQUALITY, MARRIAGE, COMMUNICATION)

This two year longitudinal study of thirteen clinically diagnosed depressed women examines their personal experience of depression. An exploratory study, it had two aims: (1) a description of cognitive schemas which guide a depressed woman's thinking about self and self-evaluation, care, her roles of wife and mother, and her future options; (2) a theory building investigation of how women's understanding of self, morality, and social role contribute to the dynamics of depression.;In depression, the positive sense of self is fundamentally disturbed. Sadness, despair, and hopelessness about the self and its prospects dominate the individual. Negative self-evaluation also characterizes depression, resulting in low self-esteem and feelings of worthlessness. Since morality is the system by which one evaluates the self as good or bad, the individual's moral understanding plays a central role in depression. Gilligan's (1977, 1982) research sheds light on women's and men's differing sense of self and morality and therefore provides a valuable new framework for exploring the dynamics of women's depression. And because social norms regarding appropriate gender behavior and prerogatives powerfully affect the individual's moral code and behavior, the woman's understanding of her social role was also explored. Finally, Bowlby's (1980) work on attachments, their formation and importance, and the predictable behaviors following their loss, contributes a paradigm for conceptualizing the interpersonal origin and nature of depressive symptoms.;Intensive, semi-structured interviews over a two year period were used to gather data for the study. Thirteen clinically depressed women were selected to highlight issues of attachment, understandings of morality, and views of the self. Prior to referral to the study, all subjects had been diagnosed as depressed by physicians and clinicians according to DSM III criteria for depression. Subjects range in age from 19 to 55, socioeconomic status ranges from poverty (on welfare) to upper class, nine of the women have children, and only one woman was not partnered or married when first interviewed. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UMI.;Studies report women are depressed two to six times more often than men. But investigation and theory so far have failed to account for the preponderance of depression in women. Research on depression has not examined the cognitive schemas which guide women's self-evaluation: this study addresses that empirical gap.