11 Neurosis: Description
Description
This article is from the Psychology FAQ, by Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren roffe@tag.uio.no with numerous contributions by others.
11 Neurosis: Description
You've left your apartment for the night and have taken to town with a
couple of friends. After your second beer, you realize that you can't
remember whether or not you locked the door before you left. You start
feeling a little anxious: you tend not to forget to close the door
and you live in a pretty safe neighborhood. When you arrive home later
at night you find that the door was locked all the time and that there
really was nothing to worry about.
Now, this is quite normal, and if you had called your neighbor to make
sure that you had not forgotten to lock the door that would have been
quite normal too.
Unless it happens every weekend, every day, several times a day, even
though you know that you checked that the door was locked three
times before you left your apartment. This is, indeed, the hallmark
of the neurosis: repeated patterns of behavior associated with
anxiety.
All of us are to some extent neurotic; neuroticism is one of our
character traits. There are certain things we associate with anxiety
and which we deal with in less than constructive ways. A neurosis is
usually regarded as something to worry about only if it keeps you from
enjoying life.
Three questions remain to be answered as regards neuroses:
* Where do they come from?
* How are they cured?
* Does one need to know the origin of a neurosis in order to cure
it?
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