SYNOPSIS
In recent years, interest in psychiatric classification has been focussed very largely on depressive illness. Techniques of multivariate analysis have been widely used.
The methodology of a study of depressive illness is described with emphasis on the construction of a semistructured interview schedule. Analysis of the data obtained allowed satisfactory replication of studies by Grinker et al. (1961) and Kiloh and Garside (1963) and this lends further support to the binary view of depressive illness.