ABSTRACT
The concept of symptom formation was central to all three; the theory of symptom formation in the psychoneuroses was the same as Freud's conceptual models of dreams and the psychopathology of everyday life. The psychoneurotic symptom begins with something that occurs in the relations between the "second system" and reality. Freud's concept of psychoneurotic symptom formation is thus an increase in repressed object libido, which is produced by turning away from reality objects to childhood objects. The result is an increase in undischarged object libido, which threatens to create an "actual neurosis". Freud called the decisive step in the development of a psychoneurosis "Regression Proper", which differs from Manifest Regression. In persons who have left large amounts of libido fixated at various points in development, there is relatively little libido left for normal, flexible regressions to cope with reality frustrations.
