I don't know how else to describe it, though I'm afraid I sound very uncaring. But now that I have set Feb. 1 as the move-out date for Peter Pan--whose latest "plan" fell through, who has been noncooperative and hostile at home, who is not lifting a finger to help himself--he has sunk into near-catatonic depression. That is, he sleeps most of the time (during the last 24 hours, he was awake only from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m.), his speech and movements have slowed, he makes almost no eye contact, he behaves like a mental patient on Thorazine. If he continues with this behavior, the therapist and psychiatrist he's seeing on Wednesday will almost certainly send him to the hospital--which is like throwing Brer Rabbit into the briar patch. Once there, he will quickly grow feisty and demanding until the folks at the hospital call me in and practically beg me to find a placement for him. In other words, the depression is a sort of performance, intended (consciously or not) to produce certain results, at least one of which is to demonstrate to the world how coldhearted his mom is to toss out a suicidally depressed young man. (After all, he's not on drugs, doesn't steal, etc.) I've signed him up for social services and hope that if what I'm predicting happens, I can inform the hospital that he is eligible for those services. But I'm just wondering how unusual this syndrome is?