Author(s)

Hideki Hayashi¹, Yuko Takei², Akihito Fujimori², Itsuko Takeuchi², Takahiro Hono²

¹Graduate School of Health and Welfare, Kawasaki University of Medical Welfare, Okayama, Japan.
²Kawasaki University of Medical Welfare, Okayama, Japan.

This study aimed to clarify ego functions of the university students having a tendency to atypical depression by comparing those with other students having a tendency to melancholic depression and borderline personality disorder. The answers to the questionnaires were obtained from 278 university students. The results showed that no difference was found in the total scores of ego functions and the scores of the sub-scales such as “synthetic-integrative functioning,” “sense of reality,” “control of impulses,” “objective relation,” “stimulus barrier,” and “autonomous functioning” between the students having a tendency to atypical depression and those having a tendency to melancholic depression; while the scores of the “defensive functioning,” one of the ego functions, were significantly higher in the students having a tendency to atypical depression than in those having a tendency to melancholic depression. This suggested that the students having a tendency to atypical depression may have a higher function of protecting their ego from conflicts than those having a tendency to melancholic depression.

Tendency to Atypical Depression, Ego Functions, Tendency to Melancholic Depression, Defensive Functioning

Hayashi, H. , Takei, Y. , Fujimori, A. , Takeuchi, I. and Hono, T. (2017) Differences in Ego Functions between Those with Tendency to Atypical Depression and Those with Tendency to Melancholic Depression. Psychology, 8, 1657-1668. doi: 10.4236/psych.2017.811109.