'Vital' forms of depression.

Vital depression must be diagnosed when the patient complains of fatigue, oppressive feelings of heaviness and narrowness as well as inhibition of thinking and acting and when such symptoms are more obvious in the morning than in the afternoon or evening. Besides there is an inability to experience pleasure and to pursue interests. Vital depression however is the target symptom for the indication of treatment with specific antidepressants. This applies not only to endogenous but also to reactive depressions and to various other psychiatric diseases at the bottom of which vital depressive symptoms can be found when investigated.