An old term for a range of psychiatric disorders excluding psychosis.
A general term applied to mental or emotional disturbance in which, as opposed to PSYCHOSIS, there is no serious disturbance in the perception or understanding of external reality. However, the boundaries between neurosis and psychosis are not always clearly de?ned. Neuroses are usually classi?ed into anxiety neuroses, depressive neuroses, phobias (see PHOBIA), HYPOCHONDRIASIS, HYSTERIA and obsessional neuroses.
Anxiety neurosis, or anxiety state, constitutes the most common form of neurosis; fortunately it is also among the most responsive to treatment. Once the neurosis develops, sufferers are in a state of persistent anxiety and worry, ‘tensed up’, always fatigued and unable to sleep at night. In addition, there are often physical complaints – for example, palpitations, sweating, apparent discomfort on swallowing (‘globus’), and headache.
Obsessional neuroses are much less common and constitute only about 5 per cent of all neuroses. Like other neuroses, they usually develop in early adult life. (See MENTAL ILLNESS.)
n. (pl. neuroses) any long-term mental or behavioural disorder in which contact with reality is retained and the condition is recognized by the sufferer as abnormal: the term and concept originated from Freud. A neurosis essentially features anxiety or behaviour exaggeratedly designed to avoid anxiety. Defence mechanisms against anxiety take various forms and may appear as phobias, obsessions, compulsions, or sexual dysfunctions. In recent classifications, the disorders formerly included under the neuroses have been renamed. The general term is now anxiety disorder; hysteria has become *conversion disorder; amnesia, fugue, and depersonalization are *dissociative disorders; obsessional neurosis is now known as *obsessive–compulsive disorder; and depressive neurosis has become *dysthymia. Psychoanalysis has proved of little value in curing these conditions; *behaviour therapy and *SSRIs are effective in many cases. —neurotic adj.
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