In order to find factors which could be used to distinguish affective psychoeses with anancastic symptoms from affective psychoses without these traits, this study matched 104 manic-depressive patients with anancastic symptoms to 104 non-anancastic probands with affective psychoses. The pattern of the anancastic symptoms was rather uniform; aggressive obsessions, mostly in the form of suicidal and homicidal obsessions, were present in more than two thirds of the cases. The anancastic depressions were often less severe than non-anancastic depressions in that the latter were more often complicated by decidedly psychotic symptoms. (68 refs)