PERSONALITY AND ENDOGENOUS MAJOR DEPRESSION - AN EMPIRICAL-APPROACH TO TYPUS-MELANCHOLICUS .2. VALIDATION OF TYPUS-MELANCHOLICUS CORE-PROPERTIES BY PERSONALITY-INVENTORY SCALES/

The purpose of this study was to objectify some of the personality dim ensions of the typus melancholicus (TM) personality formation in endog enous depressives and to compare the consistency of the term used in q uestionnaires with the original concept as delineated in our preceding paper. The prevalence of TM in endogenous-depressive inpatients was 5 1% for patients with clearly salient TM features. In addition 25% of t he sample showed TM features to a minor extent. These findings are con sistent with the literature. MMPI and MPI could not separate TM and no n-typus melancholicus (NTM) in univariate analyses. However, the Munic h Personality Test (MPT) contributes to validating the TM concept. TM depressives scored significantly higher in MPT subscales rigidity and norm orientation. According to its item structure the MPT rigidity sub score can be considered to conceptually encompass hypernomia, i.e. the patient's incapacity to change the norms that were once adopted, Base d on the characteristics of item formulations in the MPT subscore norm orientation it was hypothesized that this subscore corresponds to the concept of heteronomia, i.e. conformism towards externally determined and uncritically followed social norms, Since MPT norm orientation in TM does not covariate with control scales of the other inventories us ed in this study, it is likely that MPT norm orientation refers to the TM patient's sincere commitment to social norms rather than to a sham reaction in the sense of a lie scale, There was no consistent indicat ion that TM shows lower neuroticism scores than NTM.