The lost subject of medical sociology
Graham Scambler in Sociological Theory and Medical Sociology, 1987
Neurosis traditionally referred to a disorder of the nervous system or to functional illness: conditions with no apparent organic pathology. But in the twentieth century neurosis has come to mean a disturbed psychological state, a condition of the psyche and not of the body. Freud invented the term ‘psychoneurosis’ around 1895 to establish a classification and aetiology of neurosis in wholly psychological terms, distinct from ‘actual neurosis’, whose origin might lie in disturbed nerve action, and from ‘traumatic neurosis’, resulting from physical shock. And as psychoneurosis also figured increasingly in routine compensation law (Figlio 1982), though less in the strict sense of Freud’s concern with hysteria and obsessions than in the general acceptance of a class of wholly psychological illness, it found a way into popular consciousness in the early part of the twentieth century.
Historical perspective
Anne M. Hassett, David Ames, Edmond Chiu in Psychosis in the Elderly, 2005
Modern psychiatric nomenclature probably began in the late eighteenth century when the term 'neurosis' was first introduced. Neurosis referred to diseases of nerves and muscles and was initially attributed to a physical cause. The term 'psychosis', first used in the mid-nineteenth century, originally referred to a 'diseased mind', a subgroup of the neuroses. By 1900, these two terms had taken on new meaning. Psychosis was now considered as a class apart, the outcome of brain pathology; neurosis was thought to originate in psychological conflict (Beer, 1996). As these changes were occurring, life expectancy began to rise and, over the course of the twentieth century, this continued dramatic increase in lifespan changed the social and cultural meaning of growing old. Until the end of the nineteenth century, the old were seen as preparing for death and it was chaplains, not doctors, who were called to care for them. By the late 1940s, old age had become a specific social and medical problem requiring professional help. When medicine and psychiatry finally turned their attention to diseases of the old, Foucault derided this new turn of events and called it the 'medicalization of old age', medicine arrogantly appropriating the terrain of sociology (Gockenjan, 1993; Hirshbein, 2001).
A Conceptual History of Anxiety and Depression
Siegfried Kasper, Johan A. den Boer, J. M. Ad Sitsen in Handbook of Depression and Anxiety, 2003
With this boom in psychopharmacological research, increasingly stringent criteria for the definition of psychiatric syndromes were drawn up. This was principally for the sake of comparability between research groups. Thus, psychopharmacological and biological psychiatric research constituted a powerful impetus for the development of the Feigh- ner Criteria [225]. These, together with the Research Diagnostic Criteria [226] formed the basis of the DSM-III and its further editions. The emphasis on descriptive precision led to the demarcation of various forms of anxiety and to an abandonment of the concept of neurosis, which was considered to be too vague. The depressive neurosis of DSM-II (1968) became dysthymia in DSM-III, falling under the affective disorders. Two types of hysterical neurosis, hypochondria and depersonalization, were classified under somatoform and dissociative disorders, respectively. Neurasthenic neurosis was discarded. Anxiety neurosis, phobic neurosis, and obsessive-compulsive neurosis were combined under the heading of anxiety disorders. Post-traumatic stress disorder, a newcomer, was added to the anxiety disorders [227,228]. The anxiety neurosis was subsequently split up into panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder, while the phobic neuroses were divided up into agoraphobia, simple phobias, and social phobia [229,230].
Conceptual and historical evolution of psychiatric nosology
Published in International Review of Psychiatry, 2021
William Cullen published the first widely used system of medical nosology in 1769. He disagreed with symptom-based classification and argued for the importance of underlying causation in determining disease groups (Munsche & Whitaker, 2012; Pichot, 1994). Accordingly, in his classification system, psychiatric disorders were grouped with certain neurological disorders as ‘neuroses,’ or afflictions of the nervous system (Munsche & Whitaker, 2012). Neuroses were considered one of four main categories of medical illness, though he later theorized that the nervous system or nervous energy undergirded all medical illness (Knoff, 1970). The tension between symptom-based (i.e. descriptive) versus causation-based (i.e. aetiological) classification systems was thus present in the 18th century, and it continues to this day. Importantly, Cullen also believed that nosologies should be based on reliable diagnoses with external signs and similar treatment response (Munsche & Whitaker, 2012).
Hypoesthesia in generalised anxiety disorder and major depression disorder
Published in International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice, 2018
Ana García-Blanco, Pablo González-Valls, Carmen Iranzo-Tatay, Luis Rojo-Moreno, Pilar Sierra, Lorenzo Livianos
Therefore, in order to offer the best therapeutic approach, it is crucial to find predictors that may help us to differentiate between anxiety and depression. In this regard, an examination of neurological soft signs may help recognising these differences. Neurological soft signs are minor neurological abnormalities in motor and sensory functions that can be easily identified through a clinical examination (Dazzan & Murray, 2002). Some psychiatric disorders appear frequently together with the presence of certain soft signs (Chan & Gottesman, 2008). Their presence suggests a genetic vulnerability factor for developing a psychiatric illness (Gurvits et al., 2006). Despite the fact that soft signs have notably contributed to the differential diagnosis between psychoses and affective disorders (Heslin et al., 2016; Zhao et al., 2013), there is a lack of evidence in the implication of these signs on the differential etiology of neuroses syndromes such as anxiety and depression.
Sex Addictions Faced With the Paradigm of Perversions
Published in Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 2023
It should be recalled that the first psychoanalytic definitions of perversion emphasize the primacy of partial drives and auto-eroticisms. Freud (1905) conceived of perversion as a regression to a pregenital phase and a fixation on childhood love objects. For him, sexual development should lead to a gathering of partial drives and their subordination to the primacy of the genital, enabling the establishment of a unity (“the” sex drive) to serve the purpose of procreation as the given aim of sex. However, Freud decries this normative end, stressing how difficult it is to determine what “normal” sexuality means. In “‘Civilized’ Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness” (1908), Freud describes neuroses as the “negative” of the perversions because they contain in a repressed state the same tendencies as “positive perversions.” “Civilized sexual morality” is what requires subjects to control and suppress their drives, obliging them to keep their sexual activities within the limits of “legal marriage.” And it is precisely because such suppression is “harmful” that it causes neurosis.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Anxiety
- Big Five Personality Traits
- Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
- International Classification of Diseases
- Negative Affectivity
- Neuroticism
- Psychoanalytic Theory
- Psychosis
- Repression
- International Classification of Diseases
- Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
- Trait Theory