The survey studies 114 female patients suffering from a recent onset of depression living in Camberwell and treated as psychiatric in- or out-patients. All were between 18 and 65. The year before `admission' was studied in detail and all life events and difficulties occurring in this time systematically recorded. A comparison group of 458 women from the same general Camberwell population was selected at random and comparable material collected. In addition the presence of any psychiatric disorder was established and the date of any onset in the year before interview recorded. It was therefore possible to study the rate of life events and difficulties among a series of patients and among women developing <i>psychiatric caseness</i> in the general population. (All were <i>onset cases</i> of depression and few had received treatment from a psychiatrist). The women without psychiatric caseness in the general population were used as a comparison series to establish the usual rate of life events and difficulties among `normal women'.