Mixed depressive states: Nosologic and therapeutic issues

Abstract

This paper focuses on the clinical importance of affective mixed states with special attention given to agitated depression, which has lost its status as a mixed state in the DSM and ICD systems. Following a historical review of the topic, the psychopathological elements are examined. Psychic and motor agitation are considered equally important for the definition of agitated depression and the concept of latent agitated depression is introduced for those major depressive episodes that become agitated following antidepressant treatment. The thesis is advanced that the erroneous nosologic position of agitated depression and its treatment as simple, unipolar depression is at least partly responsible for the problematic issues of the unfavourable treatment outcome and high suicide rates among depressive patients.

Sometimes it is more ‘inward anxiety and trembling’, a painful tension … sometimes it is an anxious restlessness, which finds an outlet in the most varied gestures, in states of violent excitement, and in heedless attempts at suicide. These moods are most frequently found in the periods of transition between states of depression and mania; they are, therefore, probably most correctly regarded as mixed states of depression and manic excitability.

Emil Kraepelin, 1913

The inner unrest is the constant thing, the motor unrest is variable.

Sir Aubrey Lewis, 1934