15 - Depressive symptoms in late adolescence: a longitudinal perspective on personality antecedents

Summary

We have witnessed, over the last decade or so, growing interest in integrating the developmental and clinical aspects of depression. Researchers have attempted to delineate age-related manifestations of depressive symptoms from early childhood through adolescence and to trace the socioemotional and environmental antecedents of this disorder (Bemporad & Wilson, 1978; Rutter & Garmezy, 1983; Rutter, Izard, & Read, 1986; Sroufe & Rutter, 1984).

This research effort has identified adolescence as a period during which depressive symptoms and moods are especially evident. Of course, recognition of the mood fluctuations of the adolescent is not new; psychoanalysts have traditionally offered this perception (Freud, 1958; Lorand, 1967). Recent empiricism, however, has provided additional insights into the nature of adolescent depression. Following puberty there is a sharp increase in the frequency of depression, most notably among girls, a rise in the occurrence of manic moods, intensification of grief reactions, and greater frequency of suicide attempts (Rutter, 1986; Rutter & Garmezy, 1983). Although depression during early adolescence (age 13–16) may still be manifested via ageconstrained expressions – possibly due to adolescent egocentrism, insufficiently developed time perspective, and limited life experiences (Bemporad & Wilson, 1978; Malmquist, 1971) – depression during late adolescence (age 16–18) is likely to be more truly comparable to the kind of depressive disorders characterizing adults (Weiner, 1975). This development is likely to derive both from an age-related maturation of cognitive structures (i.e., expressions of depression are no longer constrained by cognitive level) and from what has become, over time and living, a sufficient internalization of feelings and experiences.