Is the Promissory Note of Personality as Vulnerability to Depression in Default? Reply to Zuroff, Mongrain, and Santor (2004).

In contrast to D. C. Zuroff, M. Mongrain, and D. A. Santor (2004), the current authors find the promissory note of dependency-sociotropy (DEP-SOC) and self-criticism-autonomy (SC-AUT) as a model of risk for depression to be in default. The authors propose reorganizing what has been cast as unitary effort into 3 distinct endeavors: a psychoanalytic clinical theory, development of a refined empirical model of risk for clinical depression, and research examining the effects of DEP-SOC and SC-AUT on interpersonal relationships in nonclinical samples. The authors identify some issues that need to be accommodated regardless of whether the assessment of Zuroff et al. (2004) or their own is accepted. DEP-SOC and SC-AUT are best construed as correlated, continuous dimensions. Future work also needs to accommodate depression as chronic recurrent condition, advances in developmental psychopathology, and more stringent criteria for positing a risk factor for clinical disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)