Clinical lore has long supported the subtype of situational or reactive depression. To date, however, there has been limited empirical research support for this subtype of major depression. We examined demographic, clinical and personality features of situational and nonsituational depression in 89 outpatients with unipolar nonpsychotic major depressive disorder. Situational depressives had a less recurrent course of illness and appeared to respond more completely to the antidepressant used for their current episode. Demographic and personality measures did not distinguish situational and nonsituational depression.