12 Neurosis: History
Description
This article is from the Psychology FAQ, by Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren roffe@tag.uio.no with numerous contributions by others.
12 Neurosis: History
The term hysteria originated with Hippocrates. He thought that the
cause of hysteria was irregular movement of blood from the internal
genitalia to the brain. Plato believed that the uterus gif was an
independent being which longed for children. If the uterus was never
fertilized, then it would wander restlessly about in the body and
cause shortage of breath and other symptoms gif .
Even though the classical explanations of hysteria do not bear much in
common with our current understanding of the neuroses, the phenomenon
as such, unwarranted anxiety, is the same.
The term neurosis was used for the first time in 1776 by the
Scottish doctor, William Cullen. He believed that neuroses are caused
by disturbances in the nervous system and not, as was commonly held,
in the cardiovascular system gif .
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