[Depression and faith in Job].

Depression and faith are closely connected in Job. Struck by heavy buffets of fate and suffering from an incurable disease Job despairs of God. He ist no longer able to connect his suffering with his former experience of God. Whereas his friends exhort and rebuke him, Job feels to be innocent and expresses his despair in continuous laments and accusations in order to challenge God to give an answer. His ability "to transcend", his hope of "God, his friend" against "God, his enemy" saves him from resigned self-negation and total paralysis. In the care of Job it is safe to assume that there is no melancholy nor endogeneous depression, during which the power of faith and hope is often extinguished. The problem to what extent the category of hope and the ability of "transcending" in heaviest suffering and deep depression become especially relevant under the psychotherapeutic aspect, is an important question to be put to psychiatry and psychotherapy.