Neurosis

: neuroses) is a term mainly used today by followers of Freudian thinking to describe mental disorders caused by past anxiety, often that has been repressed.

The term "neurosis" is no longer used in condition names or categories by the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (ICD) or the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

The term neurosis was coined by Scottish doctor William Cullen to refer to "disorders of sense and motion" caused by a "general affection of the nervous system".

The cure originally involved women being isolated in bed, only communicating with a nurse trained to talk about unchallenging topics, a fattening diet of milk, plus massage and the application of electricity.

According to Breuer, the slow and laborious progress of her "remembering work" in which she recalled individual symptoms after they had occurred, thus "dissolving" them, came to a conclusion on 7 June 1882 after she had reconstructed the first night of hallucinations in Ischl.

He wrote in his book Leçons sur les maladies du système nerveux, (1885-1887) (and published in English as Clinical Lectures on the Diseases of the Nervous System):[22]Quite recently male hysteria has been studied by Messrs. Putnam [1884] and Walton [1883][23] in America, principally as it occurs after injuries, and especially after railway accidents.

This is in part because what is in question is often some experience which the patient dislikes discussing; but principally because he is genuinely unable to recollect it and often has no suspicion of the causal connection between the precipitating event and the pathological phenomenon.

As a rule it is necessary to hypnotize the patient and to arouse his memories under hypnosis of the time at which the symptom made its first appearance; when this has been done, it becomes possible to demonstrate the connection in the clearest and most convincing fashion...

Our experiences have shown us, however, that the most various symptoms, which are ostensibly spontaneous and, as one might say, idiopathic products of hysteria, are just as strictly related to the precipitating trauma as the phenomena to which we have just alluded and which exhibit the connection quite clearly.

Our therapy does its work by means of changing the unconscious into the conscious, and is effective only in so far as it has the opportunity of bringing about this transformation...[53]Freud added to this with his paper "Aus der Geschichte einer infantilen Neurose" (From the History of an Infantile Neurosis) published in 1918, which is a detailed case study of his treatment of the "Wolfman".

Its recommended course of treatment included: While recognizing that each individual case of war neurosis must be treated on its merits, the Committee are of opinion that good results will be obtained in the majority by the simplest forms of psycho-therapy, i.e., explanation, persuasion and suggestion, aided by such physical methods as baths, electricity and massage.

The committee are of opinion that the production of deep hypnotic sleep, while beneficial as a means of conveying suggestions or eliciting forgotten experiences are useful in selected cases, but in the majority they are unnecessary and may even aggravate the symptoms for a time.

If the patient is unfit for further military service, it is considered that every endeavor should be made to obtain for him suitable employment on his return to active life.The common neuroses and their treatment by psychotherapy was a book released by British psychiatrist Thomas Arthur Ross[54] in 1923, to instruct medical doctors in general.

By the second edition of 1935, its category of "psychoneuroses" included: The general adaptation syndrome (GAS) theory of stress was developed by Austro-Hungarian physiologist Hans Selye in 1936.

[64] In 1937, Austrian-American psychiatrist Adolph Stern proposed that there were many people with conditions that fitted between the definitions of psychoneurosis and psychosis, and called them the "border line group of neuroses".

The post-World War II boom in the number of patient-treating psychologists in the United States led to a major restructure of the American Psychological Association in 1945.

For his 1947 book, Dimensions of Personality, German-British psychologist Hans Eysenck created the term "neuroticism" to refer to someone whose "constitution may leave them liable to break down [emotionally] with the slightest provocation".

Regarding the definition of this category, the Manual stated:Grouped as Psychoneurotic Disorders are those disturbances in which "anxiety" is a chief characteristic, directly felt and expressed, or automatically controlled by such defenses as depression, conversion, dissociation, displacement, phobia formation, or repetitive thoughts and acts.

For this nomenclature, a psychoneurotic reaction may be defined as one in which the personality, in its struggle for adjustment to internal and external stresses, utilizes the mechanisms listed above to handle the anxiety created.

The qualifying phrase, x.2 with neurotic reaction, may be used to amplify the diagnosis when, in the presence of another psychiatric disturbance, a symptomatic clinical picture appears which might be diagnosed under Psychoneurotic Disorders in this nomenclature.

[101] The popular textbook The causes and cures of neurosis; an introduction to modern behaviour therapy based on learning theory and the principles of conditioning was published in 1965 by Hans Eysenck and South African-British psychologist Stanley Rachman.

Janov criticizes the talking therapies as they deal primarily with the cerebral cortex and higher-reasoning areas and do not access the source of Pain within the more basic parts of the central nervous system.

In January 1980, Stanley Rachman published a well-cited working definition of "emotional processing",[116] aiming to define the "certain psychological experiences" Freud had mentioned in his 1923 book (and had earlier referred to).

Patients with acute stress disorder (ASD) have been found to benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy in preventing PTSD, with clinically meaningful outcomes at six-month follow-up consultations.

[130] In a systematic literature review in 2014, the Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Assessment of Social Services (SBU) found that a number of work environment factors could affect the risk of developing exhaustion disorder or depressive symptoms: The term "neurosis" is no longer used in a professional diagnostic sense, it having been eliminated from the DSM in 1980 with the publication of DSM III, and having the last remnants of being removed from the ICD with the enacting of the ICD-11 in 2022.

According to the "anxiety" concept of the term, there were many different neuroses, including: According to C. George Boeree, professor emeritus at Shippensburg University, the symptoms of neurosis may involve:[132] ... anxiety, sadness or depression, anger, irritability, mental confusion, low sense of self-worth, etc., behavioral symptoms such as phobic avoidance, vigilance, impulsive and compulsive acts, lethargy, etc., cognitive problems such as unpleasant or disturbing thoughts, repetition of thoughts and obsession, habitual fantasizing, negativity and cynicism, etc.

Interpersonally, neurosis involves dependency, aggressiveness, perfectionism, schizoid isolation, socio-culturally inappropriate behaviors, etc.According to psychoanalytic theory, neuroses may be rooted in ego defense mechanisms, though the two concepts are not synonymous.

Freud's typology of neuroses in "Introduction to Psychoanalysis" (1923) included: Carl Jung found his approach particularly effective for patients who are well adjusted by social standards but are troubled by existential questions.

He idealizes, to begin with, his particular "solution" of his basic conflict: compliance becomes goodness, love, saintliness; aggressiveness becomes strength, leadership, heroism, omnipotence; aloofness becomes wisdom, self-sufficiency, independence.

The opposite of neurosis is a condition Horney calls self-realization, a state of being in which the person responds to the world with the full depth of their spontaneous feelings, rather than with anxiety-driven compulsion.