Posted by stjames on July 21, 2000, at 2:36:09
In reply to depression with psychotic features, posted by Diane E. on July 20, 2000, at 15:24:05
> Hi,
>
> I have just gotten off the phone with my husband's therapist. He suffers from depression and I had called her
> yesterday to let her know that he was doing particularly poorly.James here....
From the Merck, http://www.merck.com/pubs/mmanual/section15/chapter189/189b.htm
Some experts consider psychotic manifestations, which occur in 15% of melancholic patients, the hallmark of a delusional or psychotic depressive subtype. Patients have delusions of having committed unpardonable sins or crimes; hallucinatory voices accuse them of various misdeeds or condemn them to death. Visual hallucinations (eg, of coffins or deceased relatives) occur but are uncommon. Feelings of insecurity and worthlessness may lead some patients to believe that they are being observed or persecuted. Others think that they harbor incurable or shameful disorders (eg, cancer, sexually transmitted disease) and that they are contaminating other persons. Very rarely, a person with psychotic depression kills family members--including infants--to "save" them from future misfortune and then commits suicide.
Dexamethasone suppression test results are consistently positive in patients with psychotic depression.
In atypical depression, reverse vegetative features
poster:stjames
thread:41047
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000717/msgs/41101.html