Depressed Woman: Study of Social Relationships (Phoenix Books)

Myrna M. Weissman and Eugene S. Paykel studied the behavior of forty depressed women over a period of twenty months, examining them during acute depression, recovery, and, in some cases, relapse. Case descriptions are richly dispersed throughout the text. The authors were especially concerned with the effects of a patient's behavior on her marriage, family, and friends. Their study makes valuable contributions to two fields of growing interest: community psychiatry and the study of women. In addition to a sample group of forty depressed women, Dr. Weissman and Dr. Paykel used a control group of forty women who were similar in age, religion, physical health, race, and social class. The norms of the control group provided a base line of expectations against which the patients could be compared.