DO NEGATIVE SELF-RATINGS OF DEPRESSIVES P ERSIST AFTER AFFECTIVE IMPROVEMENT BY SLEEP-DEPRIVATION

In order to investigate whether depression-specific negative self-conc epts depend on the mood of clinically depressed subjects or whether th ey persist beyond affective changes, we examined 10 medication-free in patients with a major depressive disorder and 10 age-and sex-matched h ealthy controls, using their subjective self-referent ratings of posit ive and negative state-and trait-adjectives before and after sleep-dep rivation. The results of our study indicated that the depressive inpat ients used more negative and less positive adjectives for self descrip tion than the controls and furthermore, that sleep-deprivation improve d only the self-referent responses of patients to the mood related neg ative items and not the ratings in the more stable trait-specific cate gories. Moreover, they indicate that clinically depressed patients sho w a disturbed positive rather than a monolithic negative self-concept.