The more closely the processes in mental disease are examined the more they are found to betray certain characteristic stigmas at all stages of their development.1 In its manifestation of homogeneity of process involutional melancholia has a peculiar distinction. So characteristic is this homogeneous pattern that we feel justified in designating it "the involutional melancholia process." This study, begun in September 1935, at the suggestion of Dr. Edward A. Strecker, had as its aim the critical examination of the total life pattern of a number of persons suffering from involutional melancholia, the collection of data regarding prepsychotic personality traits, the course and prognosis of the disease and the formulation, if possible, of a total concept of the disorder.
We shall endeavor to bring more clearly into the light some striking facts about the prepsychotic personality of patients suffering from the disease and to relate these facts to the onset