This work analyzes depression in adolescence from a perspective of psychopathology which discusses psychoanalysis theory and biological psychiatry. Within this context, it is used the term of depression and the promise of cure through the adjustment of neuro-hormonal deficits which are expected to be offset by medications. Psychoanalysis fosters a differentiation between the terms depression and melancholia and correlates the depression concept with the the mourning due to the children's structure loss.Finally, four aspects are considered in characterizing the depression concept during the adolescence: (1) not all sadness manifestations or behavior changes are pathological; (2) it is part of psychism and individual structure; (3) it functions as a defense of psychism so as to protect the human being (4) it should be conceived as a mourning in the psychoanalyst meaning of the term which, after a certain time period, needs to be surpassed and libido embedded in other objects.
Depression; adolescence; psychopathology