Neurosis defines a clinical condition characterized by emotional instability, tendency to depression, high anxiety, as well as excessive rumia and feelings of guilt, among other symptoms. People with neurotics are plants of continuous concern, very vulnerable profiles that, however, can very well respond to psychological therapies.
It is quite possible that, for many, the term neurosis brings traces of a past, from the time when Sigmund Freud focused part of his work on psychonevrosis, we are faced with a very classical psychological dimension, highlighted in 1769 by the Scottish doctor William Cullen, when he tried to classify under a label all the disorders that distorted what was considered rational thinking.
- Neurosis or neurosis is a psychological tendency characterized by emotional mismanagement and an obvious difficulty in maintaining control.
Today, psychology has replaced the concept of neurosis with another nomenclature, so, in the previous edition of DSM-5, neurosis had already been dismembered in a number of disorders, clinical aspects that often affect these patients, such as the example of somatomorphic disorders. , anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, dissociative disorders, etc.
Today we have several mechanisms to better understand the characteristics of neuroticism and thus provide adequate therapeutic guidance to each person. However, for many years, neurosis was little more than a “disaster box,” where all those with almost some psychological alteration, however small, were integrated.
Hippocrates, in his day, has already laid the foundations for this condition by talking to us about the melancholy temperament. They were, in his opinion, people with chronically disturbed “bodily fluids. “One way or another, and for thousands of years, the most anxious patterns of nervous behavior, prone to depression or excessive anxiety, were considered condemned not only to have no control over their lives, but also to sabotage that of too many.
The neurotic word itself has a negative designation, and that is something that we must correct, so mental health professionals have been forced to ban the term neurosis, in order to generate a broader, logical and interactive therapeutic (but also social) . focus on responding to a manageable condition.
Neurosis is part of a spectrum. That is, there will be those who have a higher score in this psychological dimension and who, on the other hand, will have few characteristics, so even if most have the idea that neurosis is essentially emotional instability, it must be said that it hides more complex and interesting roots.
To understand this psychological condition a little more, we can refer to a curious story that Paul Watzlawick explained about neurosis with the history of the hammer, imagine, for example, that our neighbor needs a hammer to nail an image and wants to borrow from us. . However, the good man is somewhat pessimistic, and he begins to think that we will not leave and we will not imagine one, like dozens of increasingly strange situations where the answer is always the same, a negative.
In the end, he ends up accumulating so much frustration and anger that he comes to our door to just say, “We can have this damn hammer. “It is clear that in the face of this behavior, we are speechless and even a However, before we come to the conclusion that our neighbor “is not well”, we must get a little closer to this reality. Let’s look at some features.
These are profiles characterized by high negativity, catastrophic thoughts.
The first thing we need to know about neurosis is that we can all, at some point, exhibit behaviors characterized by excessive anxiety, rumia, vulnerability . . . As historians say, characters like Newton or Charles Darwin were very sensitive, unstable, moody and always worried. However, there was some genius in them, something that allowed them to channel all that mental energy in a good way.
Therefore, before we see neurosis as purely pathological, we must understand that it is sufficient to offer tools to the person so that he can better manage his emotional universes, to see the appropriate changes. The real problem with the so-called neurotic profile Is that we had before us a patient unable to face his day to day, someone attached to his own fears and concerns in the solitude of his home, without daring to tell, work, take a functional life.
Neurosis is treated with psychotherapy, with cognitive behavioral therapy being one of the most recommended, so, as noted above, the response to this type of psychological treatment is usually very effective, from the moment the person is able to regain the reins of his emotions by applying appropriate management techniques, most of the characteristics mentioned above lose intensity until disappear.