ABSTRACT
The conception of neurosis has been gradually altered and expanded during the last fifty years. At first it was dominated by the fact that no organic cause could be found for these physical and mental disorders. From a diagnostic point of view, the conception is a negative one, the cause being sought for in a morbid disposition. The first exact descriptions and analysis of symptoms were stimulated by the French workers, Charcot and Janet. German workers (Möbius, Hoche, Gaupp, Kraepelin, Freud) have since then shown more and more clearly that neurotic disorders are connected with the affective life. Freud has extended this conception the farthest. By means of his detailed analyses, he has convinced many of us that neuroses are to be regarded as the expression of repressed emotional difficulties. Through the discovery of infantile sexuality and the relationship between the emotional difficulties of later and earlier life, it has been possible to give a scientific explanation of many hitherto quite incomprehensible neurotic symptoms. Repressed, unresolved and fixated emotional difficulties are now considered by many workers to be the most essential cause of neurosis. Disposition certainly remains a significant factor in many cases, but is of secondary importance in explanation.
