[Loss events in childhood as predisposing factors for neurotic and psychotic depression (author's transl)].

In a semistructured interview 90 endogenous depressives, 38 neurotic depressive patients, and 41 controls, 47-67 years of age, were questioned to ascertain the loss events during childhood. 1. The endogenous depressives, the neurotic depressive patients, and the control group had experienced an equal amount of deaths and separations in their childhood. 2. The depressive patients who first became ill after their 41st year of life were as frequently separated from their parents during childhood as the control group. Patients who had first become ill before their 41st year of life had experienced a separation from their parents more frequently than the control group. 3. Within the depressive patient group the following applies: Patients with illnesses before the age of 40 had lost their father earlier than those who became ill after 40; likewise, patients who were ill two and more times had more frequently experienced the loss of a father than those who were depressively ill only once.