When we talk about a person with depression, we generally imagine a man or woman suffering from an episode of depressed mood and with little ability to perceive pleasure and joy in what they do, hopelessness and probably some passivity and lack of desire. to do anything. The image that comes to mind will probably be that of an adult or a teenager. But the truth is that there are also various types of depression in childhood.
One of the first authors to investigate them, and creator of various concepts, was René Spitz. The life and work of this author is of great interest, which is why throughout this article Let’s see a short biography of René Spitz
René Spitz, whose full name was René Árpád Spitz, came into the world on January 29, 1887. His birth took place in the city of Vienna , being the eldest of two brothers, sons of Árpád Spitz and Ernestine Antoinette Spitz. He was part of an important and economically influential family from Hungary and of Jewish origin. He also had a younger sister, Desirée Spitz (later Bródy).
Despite being born in Vienna, the family moved to Budapest, where the young Spitz would grow up and begin to develop and train at an academic level.
Training
Spitz would enter the University of said city, studying Medicine. In addition to Budapest, he studied in other cities such as Lausanne and Berlin. During these years He worked with professionals such as Sandor Ferenczi and began to become familiar with the work of Sigmund Freud He concluded his studies in medicine during the year 1910. All of this gave Spitz a great interest in the human psyche and psychoanalytic theory.
A year later (in 1911) and under Ferenczi’s recommendation, Spitz began to be analyzed by him in order to learn, and ended up training in psychoanalytic psychology. He became a member of the Viennese Psychoanalytic Society in 1926, a society from which he participated in various researches. Later in 1930 he did the same at the German Psychoanalytic Society.
However, two years later during 1932 He moved to the city of Paris, where he would work as a professor of psychoanalysis at the École Normale Supérieure Likewise, little by little his interest would focus on infantile neurosis, beginning to focus his research on the development of minors from 1935 onwards.
But there came a time when Nazism rose to power and a large number of people had to emigrate in order to avoid the war, including Spitz.
Move to America and work life on the continent
In 1939, during World War II, this important professional left Paris and went into exile to the United States due to the risk to his life of having Jewish ancestry. There he would serve as a professor at the City College of the City University of New York. Likewise, he made a film with his research that would be released in 1952 and he also maintained a job as a professor of psychiatry at Lenox Hill Hospital.
He later moved to Denver, Colorado, where he would be hired as a professor at the University of Colorado. Beyond his duties as a teacher, In this period of his life he would begin to focus more and more on the relationships of mother-child dyads and it would be during this vital period that he would begin to work with orphaned children.
And it would be with them that he would discover one of his best-known concepts: anaclitic depression. He would also analyze the effects of abandonment and emotional deprivation, as well as child development by analyzing object relations. During this period he would carry out numerous studies regarding childhood neurosis and development from a psychoanalytic and genetic psychology perspective (seeking the veracity of the data within his model). He also made numerous graphic reports, such as the one produced in 1952: “Psychogenic Illness in Early Childhood.”
In 1945 he would begin to publish in the magazine “The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child”, and a year later one of his great works would be published in which he explained the concept of anaclitic depression: the book Anaclitic Depression, The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child. Over the years he published a large number of publications and works, in addition to continuing to teach at the university. Finally He was named president of the Denver Psychoanalytic Society in 1962 a position that remained until a year later.
Some of his best-known contributions
Among the most representative works and concepts of the author highlights the conception of analytical depression , which is defined by the presence of irritability, asthenia, dependence, anxiety, sleep and eating problems, isolation and poor attachment, and intellectual, communicative and motor problems. This symptomatology appears derived from the existence of a partial deprivation of affection during early childhood, and specifically in the first eighteen months, in which the minor has not been able to be close to the mother. His studies were carried out with children up to two years old.
Within this concept and further elaborating his theory, he established the existence of three stages throughout this type of depression: the pre-object phase, in which the smile appears as an organizational mechanism and there is no possibility of distinction between objects or separate itself from the rest, the phase of the precursor object in which it begins to be able to recognize what is known and Finally, the real object phase in which a differentiation between mother and child begins to be understood and the anguish when it is gone and in which anguish and the ability to say no also appear.
We must also take into account the concept of hospitalism, which mainly refers to separation between mother and child for a prolonged period, in situations such as hospital admission.
His observations made him consider that the bond with the mother is the origin and marks the set of social relationships He also worked on aspects such as the acquisition of identity. Another well-known concept of this author is that of marasmus, which refers to the emergence of pathology in children with deprivation of affection, which can generate a state of great loss of weight and appetite and which in many cases can lead to the death of the child.
Death and legacy
This author’s death occurred on September 11, 1974, in the city of Denver, at the age of 88.
Although he is not an author especially known to the majority of the population, his legacy still endures: was the first to assess the existence of psychiatric disorders in children , and specifically in showing interest, analyzing and assessing the existence of depressive symptoms in minors. His work and that of Bowlby are complementary, helping to understand elements such as the attachment of minors. And the idea of anaclitic depression and reactions such as hospitalism and marasmus are an important contribution to science. In this sense he also incorporates a certain rigor in the management of information, obtained through processes more based on observation and less abstract than other psychoanalysts.
