SYMPTOMS
One psychoanalytic view of depression is that it is anger against the self.  The common understanding of depression is that it is something which is much more aligned to the emotion of sadness, rather than anger, so why would "anger" be referred to?  And why would the anger be against the self?  Before we consider the issue of "anger" in depression, in terms of a causative explanation, let's first consider our perception of anger.   How do we know that someone is depressed?  We know this because of his observable behavior.  The observable behavior which leads us to the conclusion that a person is depressed is that the person's  facial expression is flat and without a look of happiness, he is not self-expressive, his physical movements are slower than they usually are, he is significantly less communicative than he normally would be, he shows significantly less interest in personal projects, relative to his non-depressed state and he is significantly less inclined to have any projects currently in development and his recreational and entertainment activities are inclined to be at a low or even at a minimum.   Decreased activity seems to run the gamut of  a depressed individual's "symptoms."  Considering the notion of "activity" then, we might ask ourselves "why do we act?" We act to gain some "thing" or some state of being.  Desired but unrealized gain has very high likelihood for becoming a "goal."   Are depressed individuals without goals?  Not necessarily.  The constitution of their goals may be quite different than what is normally the case for the individual who is not depressed.
It maybe quite apparent to us that an individual's behavior tells us that he is depressed but what is not necessarily apparent is both the pattern of his past and his present perception of his future.  The constitution of a depressed person's goals may include what can be referred to as "time-binding", that is there may be a special link in the depressed individual between his past, his projected future and his "present" goals.  The significance of those states of mind is that something may have occurred in his past which is now coloring his perception of his future so that what he sees or does not see is not giving him sufficient cause or reason for taking action inrespect to his life. What he does see, in his mind, is not worthpursuing.  In fact it may be very much the opposite of being worthy of pursuing in the sense that it may be very much worth avoiding.  And what  you do not see cannot be the basis for inspiring you towards acquiring it (a particular state of being or of having something.)  All organisms have developmental phases and thus, insome minimal sense, have goals.   The deployment of an organisms means of  attaining goals would result in discouragement, especially if that organism is at the higher biological order of life.  It would result in discouragement in relation to "carrying on" effectively through the phases of life.  The opposite of  discouragement is encouragement  and the most fundamental root word of "encouragement" is the word "courage."  The opposite of  courage is fear.  In the process of eliminating fear we must first recognize what it is that makes us afraid.  The word "recognize" is veryinteresting.   If we dissect the noun "recognition"  we have "re" which means "again" and "cognition" which means to know.  Essentially then we could say that the word "recognition" refers to knowing again.  But what it really means is that we know a second time but in a different state of consciousness. 
There are three fundamental states of consciousness:  firstly, waking consciousness; secondly, sub-conciousness and thirdly, the unconscious, which is a state that changes when we dream because in dreaming the "unconscious" can actually be contacted.  In a qualified sense then we can even say that dreaming is a forth state of consciousness.  Cognition is the mental state of  knowing something in a fully conscious way and additionally knowing that we know.  The preconscious, on the other hand, may hold notions that are not only unclear but even totally delusional, in other words the preconsciousmay hold ideas that are false.   It is important to understand the difference between motivation and intention in respect to understanding the differences between the mechanics of the conscious as opposed to the unconscious.  Human beings do not always know why they behave in a certain manner or even why they do certain things.  For example, a person may be attracted to certain social events which events may be created for reasons other than romantic connections or the consumption of food,  but it may be that romance and food are his real reasons for attending those events and not the particular social aspect of the events themselves which social aspect is the reason why the events are created.  The point is that they may not really know why they are doing what they do.  In other words "motivation", even though it may cause us to act in a certain way, does not have to be something that we know about because we may not know why we do what we do.  We may even believe that we are doing something because that is what the purpose of that activity is supposed to be about but yet that is not our real reason for doing what we do.  Motivation can very much be in the preconscious, that is below the level of full conscious awareness.  Cognition, again, is the state of fully knowing.  Intentions, on the other hand,  involve the causes of our behavior which are, in fact, known to us, otherwise we would not even be able to create the mechanisms which support intentions.  For example, if we want to meet someone at two o'clock in the afternoon we must intend to meet him otherwise we couldn't set the time for two o'clock and tell him that that would be the meeting time.  Intentions are far closer to cognition than are motivations because motivations can be rooted in that psychic level that is preconscious and therefore is non-cognitive.            Continued