ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on five major types of psychiatric disorders: neuroses, anxiety neurosis, phobias, obsessive-compulsive neurosis, hysterical neurosis. One of the most lucid descriptions of anxiety neurosis or 'free-floating anxiety' as it is sometimes called is that provided by the American Psychiatric Association. This neurosis is characterized by anxious over concern extending to panic and frequently associated with somatic symptoms. The essential feature of obsessive-compulsive disorders is that the ideas or impulses to action occur with 'a subjective sense of compulsion overriding an internal resistance'. Traditionally, psychiatrists have attempted to make a distinction between neurotic and psychotic depression. The obsessional personality is characterized by rigidity of thinking, excessive conscientiousness and close adherence to rules and regulations. The paranoid personality is suspicious of other people and hypersensitive to criticism. The notion of split-personality requires some elaboration here because there has been a tendency for lay people to equate schizophrenia with the Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde syndrome.
