ABSTRACT
The concept of Actual Neurosis holds that some psychological symptoms have no particular psychological content but are a direct result of sexual overstimulation. Originally the anxiety neurosis was believed to be an example of actual neurosis, in contrast to anxiety-hysteria, which is characterized by highly structuralized symptoms having symbolic psychological content. The "Genetic Point of View" is relevant to the origin of the dichotomy: The Unconscious retains residues of infantile sexuality and aggression that, as a result of trauma, were unable to be integrated into the secondary process. Freud developed the concept of actual neurosis from clinical observations of male patients who complained of "contentless" anxiety, in whom the anxiety symptoms had certain qualities of orgasm and in whom the symptoms disappeared when the man's wife was pregnant. Incomplete discharge of sexual stimulation from coitus interruptus was believed to be the source of overstimulation, to which the ego then reacted with intense, contentless anxiety.
