Melancholia: A Disorder of Movement and Mood: A Phenomenological and Neurobiological Review

by Gordon Parker (Editor), Dusan Hadzi-Pavlovic (Editor)

It has long been accepted that depressive disorders comprise a biologically-based type, the so-called "endogenous" or "melancholic" depression, and a residual set of depressive conditions resulting from social factors. The difficulty has been in distinguishing the melancholic type of depression on the basis of clinical features. This book describes the development of a behavioral sign-based approach, the CORE system, and demonstrates its superiority to previous symptom-based diagnostic systems for depression. The authors suggest that the psychomotor signs elicited may indicate the likely pathogenesis of melancholic depression, involving the basal ganglia and connections to the frontal cortex. This is therefore a challenging new account of the classification and neurobiology of depression, which is certain to interest all clinicians involved in the evaluation or treatment of such patients. The CORE measure itself is incorporated as an appendix.

Genres: Psychology

356 pages, Hardcover

First published March 29, 1996

About the author

Gordon Parker is Scientia Professor of Psychiatry at the University of NSW, Professorial Fellow at the Black Dog Institute, and a renowned researcher and expert on mood disorders. Kerrie Eyers is a psychologist based at the Black Dog Institute, Sydney. Gordon Parker and Kerrie Eyers are editors of the bestselling Journeys with the Black Dog and several other books on depression. Philip Boyce is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Sydney, Professorial Fellow at the Black Dog Institute, and an international expert on postnatal depression.