This work discusses the depression phenomenon, pursuing a vision of psychopathology where does not only predominate the perspective of biological psychiatry, but also a psychoanalysis perspective. For this, it was carried out a historical research of psychopathology that, under the influence of the dictates of modern science, has contributed for the gradual elimination of the term melancholy due to psychiatry classification and psychopathology knowledge in detriment of biological psychiatry. It was also analyzed the contribution of the psychoanalyst psychopathology of the depression within a perspective in which the diagnostic activity is not concluded in terms of classification, and emphasizes the biographical dimension as indispensable for the definition of that activity. Finally, it was concluded that it is relevant to consider: (1) depression treatment based on the uniqueness of the individual, and not only taking into account its symptoms; (2) not all sadness manifestations are pathological; and, (3) the understanding of normal depression while mourning in the psychoanalyst meaning of the term, because, after a certain time period, it should be surpassed and libido embedded in other objects.
Depression; Psychoanalysis; Psychopathology; Psychiatric classification