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After a brief introduction to the history of weaning and the substitution treatments, this literature review attempts to distinguish depression understood as the failure of the depressive capacity from depressivity considered as a defense, indicating the capacity to feel depressed. This paper argues this difference is fundamental for expressing the intrapsychic real-life experience of drug addict patients or ones undergoing substitution therapy. The above accounts for their fundamental incapacity to feel depressed. Yet, the release of a depression, as a compulsory passage guaranteeing access to depressivity, appears unable to release itself from any dependency. Based on the author’s clinical work with Patrice in a methadone center, this paper demonstrates that the obstinacy of the psychic dependency of a former heroin addict undergoing replacement treatment is akin to the preservation of a latent depression. After an anamnestic presentation, this paper proposes operationalizing and locating psychodynamic elements of depressivity. It shows the failure caused by the TAT according to the method of the school of Paris V.