Depression

1. Etymology

Depression names a psychological state characterized by lack of energy. Related: abaissement-du-niveau-mental; libido; night sea journey; regression; final.

2. Plain summary

Energy unavailable to consciousness does not vanish—it regresses and stirs unconscious contents that need to be brought to light. Jung reads depression as unconscious compensation whose content must be made conscious if it is to work; that means consciously regressing with the depressive tendency and integrating the memories it activates.

It is not necessarily pathological. It often foreshadows renewal of personality or a burst of creative work—the empty stillness before the new page turns, when new development has drawn energy off from consciousness. Samuels stresses psychic energy over object-loss frames: enter the state fully enough for vague feeling to become a clearer idea or image; watch psychosis co-presence.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common depression motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
lack of available energy; energy regresses / stirs unconscious; unconscious compensation; consciously regress with the tendency; integrate activated memories; not necessarily pathological; foreshadows renewal / creative burst; empty stillness before creative work; incubation of personality change; kinship with abaissement-du-niveau-mental; regression regenerative aspect; psychosis caution.

3. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology depression is energic lowering with compensatory aim—Sacrifice / Transference essay territory in Sharp. Descent Press keeps Sharp and Samuels in §4. §5 holds sample CW stamps at CW 5 ¶625; CW 16 ¶372.

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Depression. A psychological state characterized by lack of energy. … Energy not available to consciousness does not simply vanish. It regresses and stirs up unconscious contents… Depression should therefore be regarded as an unconscious compensation whose content must be made conscious… Depression is not necessarily pathological. It often foreshadows a renewal of the personality or a burst of creative activity…

(Sharp, 1991) — cites CW 5 ¶625; CW 16 ¶373 in Sharp’s lemma.

Samuels, Shorter & Plaut (1986) — depression p. 41

depression Jung’s approach to depression concentrates on the question of psychic ENERGY rather than on OBJECT RELATIONS… conceptualises depression as a damming up of energy which, when released, may take on a more positive direction… A state of depression is one which should be entered into as fully as possible… it may take the form of ‘the empty stillness which precedes creative work’ (CW 16, para. 373)…

(Samuels, Shorter, & Plaut, 1986, p. 41)

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

Depression should therefore be regarded as an unconscious compensation whose content must be made conscious if it is to be fully effective. This can only be done by consciously regressing along with the depressive tendency and integrating the memories so activated into the conscious mind…
(Jung, 1912/1967, CW 5, p. 646, ¶625)

During the incubation period of such a change we can often observe a loss of conscious energy: the new development has drawn off the energy it needs from consciousness. This lowering of energy can be seen most clearly before the onset of certain psychoses and also in the empty stillness which precedes creative work.
(Jung, 1946/1966, CW 16, p. 181, ¶372)

See also: libido; abaissement-du-niveau-mental; regression; consciousness; unconscious; individuation.

References

Jung, C. G. (1966). The psychology of the transference. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 16, p. 181, ¶372). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1946)

Jung, C. G. (1967). The sacrifice. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 5, p. 646, ¶625). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1912)

Samuels, A., Shorter, B., & Plaut, F. (1986). A critical dictionary of Jungian analysis. Routledge.

Sharp, D. (1991). Jung lexicon: A primer of terms & concepts. Inner City Books.