What are neuroses according to Freud and psychoanalysis? We will discuss the emergence of neuroses, the history of this word, and ways of approaching and treating neuroses.

Concept and origin of the concept

A neurosis was first classified as a disease arising from nervous and psychological disorders. The physician William Cullen, in the year 1769, presented the term neurosis with this meaning. However, Sigmund Freud by developing the psychoanalytic theory meant the term neurosis as being the way in which the individual relates to his desires and his contradictions .

To understand what are neuroses It must be said that, like other types of psychic disturbances, neuroses have their childhood origin in the constitution of the subject during the phases of psychosexual development.

Neurosis is individual and is characterized as a response to events that were repressed by the individual at one or more specific moments in the formation of his personality.

Thus, the repressing of conflicting and undesirable content serves as a psychic defense mechanism Such mechanisms, when triggered, tend to surface in the form of symptoms and repetitive patterns of behavior.

Neurosis can be categorized into different types, according to the particularities and symptoms specific to each type of neurosis.

The three types of neuroses

The main neuroses are

• a Obsessive Neurosis ,
• a Phobic Neurosis e
• a Hysteria Neurosis .

The other types of neuroses are branches, to a greater or lesser degree, of the neuroses mentioned above.

What are obsessive neuroses?

A Obsessive Neurosis is a type of neurosis that is characterized by the presence of compulsive symptoms It is when the human mind is invaded against the will of the individual by images, ideas, or words.

According to Freudian theory In obsessional neurosis, consciousness and reason remain lucid and intact, but these uncontrollable obsessions can deprive the individual of thought and action.

Obsessive Neuroses are phenomena generated by internal conflict, due to frustration of an instinctive impulse .

It is considered that obsessional neurosis is a reflection of our experiences, traumas and repressions Thus, the symptoms of this type of neurosis are like a symbolic expression of a psychic conflict.

For Freud, the obsessive neurosis is related to the fixation and regression to the anal-sadic phase and, also, with the development of a rather rigid superego .

What are neuroses for Freud?

In "The Disposition to Obsessional Neurosis: A Contribution to the Problem of Choice Neurosis," Freud suggests that obsessional neurosis is a fixation and a regression to the anal-sadic phase.

Furthermore, Freud suggests that "a chronological overtaking of libidinal development by ego development must be included in the disposition to obsessional neurosis. Such an early age would make it necessary to choose an object under the influence of the ego instincts at a time when the sexual instincts have not assumed their final form, and a fixation on the stage of pre-genital sexual organization would thus be abandoned" (p.325).

Thus, in the object relationship, hatred will precede love and "the obsessive neurotics have to develop a super morality to protect their object-love from the hostility that lurks behind it" (p.325).

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Obsessive neuroses reflect intense and exaggerated symptoms such as:

• to worry excessively about cleanliness,
• wash your hands repeatedly,
• checking several times doors, windows, gas, not wearing clothes of a certain color believing in some belief related to this color,
• not going through certain places for fear that something will happen,
• and any other kind of obsessive manifestation, as the name implies.

What do the phobic neuroses mean?

In understanding what neuroses are, we come to the second large group. A Phobic Neurosis is a type of neurosis that is characterized by fixation of anguish in an exterior object .

In the case of Phobic Neurosis, the fear of the external object is inversely proportional to its actual danger In his studies, Freud compared the phobic neurosis with the anxiety neurosis, considering that the phobia causes anguish to the individual who feels it .

A phobia is nothing more than a panic attack when an individual is faced with an object, animal, place, or person that causes him distress.

The origin of Phobic Neurosis is related to phallic phase The feelings of love and hate for the parents remain repressed and unconscious, making conscious only the fear that such feelings provoke.

These are examples of phobia:

• Claustrophobia,
• agoraphobia,
• the Acrophobia,
• The phobia of darkness and transportation,
• Social phobias and, in special cases, erythrophobia, the phobia of human and animal contacts,
• the fear of getting sick,
• the fear of dying and
• the dread of going crazy.

Concept of Hysteria Neurosis

A Hysteria Neurosis is a type of neurosis that is mainly characterized by states of altered consciousness In the hysteria neurosis, sensory or motor manifestations, paralysis, blindness, and some types of tics may occur.

Generally, the symptoms of hysteria neurosis are temporary and transient. In his studies on hysteria, Freud defined it as an abnormal variant of behavior, an exaggerated attitude of psychic origin. In hysteria, the individual stages illnesses as a way of escaping from situations he considers insurmountable.

It was in Anna O" case that Freud discovered that the physical manifestations of hysterics were related to repressed memories of great intensity, and that these physical manifestations were theatrical.

Individuals with hysteria neuroses present symptoms characteristic of some disease, and for this reason these symptoms have been divided into two large groups: Dissociative and Conversive. We will differentiate what neuroses are from this distinction of two types of hysteria neuroses:

• Dissociative There is a predominance of a rupture with reality, which can cause fainting, amnesia, and automatisms, among other symptoms.
• Converters There is a predominance of physical manifestations anchored in psychic conflicts. The individual may present contractures, spasms, tremors, loss of speech, and some tics.

Hysteria is related to oral phase and the phallic phase Submission to the other's demand and counter-will would then, according to Freud, be the main cause of symptoms in individuals with hysteria neurosis, making them unable to do anything according to their wills and desires.

This overview on what are neuroses The origin of the concept and the distinction between obsessive neuroses, phobic neuroses and hysteria neuroses is a contribution of the author Caroline Cunha Caroline is a Reiki Therapist, Chromotherapist and Psychoanalysis student, passionate about the mysteries that involve the human mind, born in Rio Grande, Rio Grande do Sul, Instagram @caroline.cunha.31542, @luzeobrigada and @espacoconexaoeessencia.

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