Abstract
Manic-depressive illness is believed to comprise two different clinical entities: Bipolar and Monopolar. This paper aims to study any differences there may be between monopolar and bipolar depressions in respect of three factors: occurrence of affective disorder (including suicide) in first degree relatives; parental death before the patients' twelfth birthday and the extent of ‘jointness' (Khatri, 1970) of the patients' family.