This article discusses the importance of the research carred out by the French psychiatrists Jules Cotard and Jules Séglas regarding Freud's first considerations on melancholia. In his attempt to distinguish psychic affections, Freud took into consideration the main concepts outlined by classical psychiatry, namely, moral suffering, the condition for the delusion of indignity, the mechanism of self-blame, and the hemorrhage of the libido. The article discusses articulations between the two French authors mentioned above, as an important step in better diagnosing melancholia. It is seen that, today, melancholia leads us back not only to the classics, but especially to Freud and his earliest considerations.
Diagnosis of melancholy; indignity; self-blame; hemorrhage of the libido