Abstract
This paper presents a view of melancholy based on Kierkegaard's insight of the self, showing that this dimension of depression is anticipatory of threat to well-being. The view of self, contrasted with a view presuming a connection between two factors only — body and mind — has a third factor or ethico-spiritual element. Taken as an explanatory category, this factor allows for making a distinction between melancholy as crisis and melancholy as ailment, and has implication detecting and treating the latter. That is, in the initial patient-physician dialogue, the physician might be expected to indicate whether she/he is open to consider the possibility of a third factor as an explanatory category in the formation of self-hood. Such indication would provide for patients with an inkling of their own condition, a basis for making a choice about whom they will accept as caregiver.
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Khan, A.H. Melancholy: An elusive dimension of depression?. J Med Hum 15, 113–122 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02276865
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02276865