ABSTRACT
There are various ways of defining neuroticism. A psychoanalyst may prefer to define it in his theoretical terms as a particular kind of conflict, with generation of anxiety, between the ego, id, and super-ego. Historically there has been a tendency for clinical psychology to develop its test devices in isolation, as instanced in the Rorschach, the etc., from the basic research on measurement in the normal individual. The clinical psychologist, therefore, really needs to concern himself more than he has before with measuring essentially normal processes, using norms and scales which will allow him to recognize when the process has moved to an abnormal range. The personality dimension which has been labelled M, or Autia, expresses itself in high subjectivity and disregard of the external world. The therapeutic task is to find where the ergic tensions are high, what particular forces are in conflict, and how an acceptable expression can be found for what is now expressing itself in symptoms.
