Neurosis

Neurosis, in psychoanalysis, a mental illness characterized by anxiety and disturbances in one’s personality. Generally, only psychologists who adhere to a psychoanalytic or psychodynamic model of abnormal behavior use the term neurosis. Psychiatrists and psychologists no longer accept the term as a formal diagnosis. Laypersons sometimes use the word neurotic to describe an emotionally unstable person.

Scottish physician William Cullen coined the term neurosis near the end of the 18th century to describe a wide variety of nervous behaviors with no apparent physical cause. Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and his followers popularized the word in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Freud defined neurosis as one class of mental illnesses. In his view, people became neurotic when their conscious mind repressed inappropriate fantasies of the unconscious mind.

Until 1980 neurosis appeared as a specific diagnostic category in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a handbook for mental health professionals. Neurosis encompassed a variety of mental illnesses, including dissociative disorders, anxiety disorders, and phobias.

In the psychoanalytic model, neurosis differs from psychosis, another general term used to describe mental illnesses. Individuals with neuroses can function at work and in social situations, whereas people with psychoses find it quite difficult to function adequately. People with neuroses do not grossly distort or misinterpret reality as those with psychoses do. In addition, neurotic individuals recognize that their mental functioning is disturbed while psychotic individuals usually do not. Most mental health professionals now use the term psychosis to refer to symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, and bizarre behavior. See Psychosis.