ABSTRACT
Solved conflicts lead to progress in development, whereas unsolved conflict can halt normal development. During the whole life span from birth to death, psychic development has to deal with and resolve many conflicts. S. Freud’s original model consists of the theory of trauma as the cause of neurosis. According to this theory, the neurosis is a result of the inability to cope with the overwhelming affect that has emerged in a traumatic situation. The connection between trauma and conflict obtains: the fearful or painful experience generates a greater readiness for reactions of fear, followed by a speedy mobilisation of defence mechanisms. Somatic symptoms can become crucial for the development of the patients suffering: the same symptoms of anxiety hysteria continue to exist in the “functional syndromes,” the increasingly subtle diagnosis of which continues to mount pressure on modern medicine. Neurotic defence mechanisms include repression, displacement, reaction formation, and various kinds of defences such as intellectualisation, isolation, rationalisation, undoing, and magical thinking.
