The availability of confiding persons both within and outside the household has been investigated in a series of 110 depressed patients and of 98 non-psychiatric controls. The depressive sample has been classified into diagnostic subgroups of unipolar, bipolar, reactive-neurotic and unspecified type of depression. The depressives reported lack of confidants to a significantly higher degree. The only difference among the diagnostic subgroups emerged for the bipolar patients who had about the same availability of a confiding relationship outside the household as the controls.