Lincoln's Melancholy

[L Verge]

(10-13-2016 12:44 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  

Quote:I would agree on periods of clinical depression, but is clinical depression mental illness? I am not in favor of that term, and I think better and correct would be mental disorder (i. e. acute condition).

The short answer to that is yes. This comes from the website WebMD.

To be diagnosed with clinical depression, you must meet the symptom criteria for major depressive disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association. This manual is used by mental health providers to diagnose mental conditions and by insurance companies to reimburse for treatment.
For clinical depression, you must have five or more of the following symptoms over a two-week period, most of the day, nearly every day. At least one of the symptoms must be either a depressed mood or a loss of interest or pleasure. Signs and symptoms may include:

Depressed mood, such as feeling sad, empty or tearful (in children and teens, depressed mood can appear as constant irritability)

Significantly reduced interest or feeling no pleasure in all or most activities

Significant weight loss when not dieting, weight gain, or decrease or increase in appetite (in children, failure to gain weight as expected)

Insomnia or increased desire to sleep

Either restlessness or slowed behavior that can be observed by others

Fatigue or loss of energy

Feelings of worthlessness, or excessive or inappropriate guilt

Trouble making decisions, or trouble thinking or concentrating

Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide, or a suicide attempt

As I have repeatedly stated, I think Lincoln's mental illness would be best described as a mild form of clinical depression, which is still a major illness. And looking through the list, we have eyewitness accounts on many of these criteria.

Best
Rob

In our age of understanding genetics and also chemical analysis, I think it should be pointed out that our DNA can pre-dispose us to clinical depression. It does run in families (I belong to such a family), much like pre-dispositions to addictions, and can also be triggered by changes in one's bodily chemicals. I doubt that we would ever find this mentioned in a Lincoln biography.