Els Van Compernolle – Depression, sign of the Times – On the Real in Clinical Work
 
THE LETTER 26 (Autumn 2002) pages 212-224
 
Introduction
 
Depression is omnipresent in contemporary clinical praxis. With statistics showing an enormous increase in the number of depressions in the last decades, depression is diagnosed as a sign of the times, inextricably bound up with the fate of the post-modern subject. Simultaneously, another change or shift is taking place: the so-called classical symptoms, with a psychosexual aetiology, seem to have disappeared (the disappearance of classical hysteria being a well-known example); instead, ‘new symptoms’ are emerging, with borderline, self-mutilation, eating disorders, aggressive and sexual acting out, etc… operating as new labels. It is as if the real is gaining ground on the symbolic in present-day psychopathology.