Changes

"[[Neurosis]]" is originally a [[psychiatric]] term which came to denote, in the eighteenth-century, a whole range of [[treatment|nervous disorders]] defined by a wide variety of [[symptom]]s. [[Freud]] uses the term in a number of ways, sometimes as a general term for all [[treatment|mental disorders]] in [[Works of Sigmund Freud|his early work]], and sometimes to denote a specific class of [[treatment|mental disorders]] (i.e. in opposiiton to [[psychosis]]).

[[Freud]] uses the term in a number of ways, sometimes as a general term for all [[treatment|mental disorders]] in [[Works of Sigmund Freud|his early work]], and sometimes to denote a specific class of [[treatment|mental disorders]] (i.e. in opposiiton to [[psychosis]]). ---- It is a pathological mental condition in which there are no observable lesions in the neuropsychological system.  The patient is normally aware of the morbidity of his or her coniditon and a neurosis can, unlike a psychosis, be trated with the patient's consent.  Neurosis is normally understood as a condition such as hysteria in which somatic symptoms are an expression of a psychical conflict originating in childhood.  Modern psychoanalysis describes patients presenting obsessional, phobic or hysterical symptoms as neurotic.

In [[Lacan]]'s work, the term [[neurosis]] always figures in opposition to [[psychosis]] and [[perversion]], and refers not to a set of [[symptom]]s but to a particular [[clinical structure]].  This use of the term to designate a [[structure]] problematizes [[Freud]]'s distinction between [[neurosis]] and normality.

[[Freud]] bases this distinction purely on a quantitative factors ("psychoanalytic research finds no fundamental but only quantitative distinction between normal and neurotic life",<ref>{{F}} ''[[The Interpretation of Dreams]]'', 1990a: [[SE]] V: 373</ref> which is not a [[structural]] distinction.  In [[structural]] terms, therefore, there is no distinction between the "normal" [[subject]] and the [[neurotic]].

This [[Lacanian]] nosology identifies three [[clinical structures]]: [[neurosis]], [[psychosis]] and [[perversion]], in which there is no position of "mental health" which could be called "normal".<ref>{{S8}} p. 374-5; {{E}} p. 163</ref>  The normal [[structure]], in the sense of that which is found in the statistical majority of the population, is [[neurosis]], and "mental health" is an illusory ideal of [[split|wholeness]] which can never be attained because the [[subject]] is essentially [[split]].  Thus whereas [[Freud]] sees [[neurosis]] as an illness that can be [[cure]]d, [[Lacan]] sees [[neurosis]] as a [[structure]] that cannot be altered.  The aim of [[psychoanalytic treatment]] is therefore not the eradication of the [[neurosis]] but the modification of the [[subject]]'s position ''vis-à-vis'' the [[neurosis]].

The two forms of [[neurosis]] -- [[hysteria]] and [[obsessional neurosis]] -- are distinguished by the content of the question.  The question of the [[hysteric]] ("[[hysteria|Am I a man or a woman?]]") relates to one's [[sex]], whereas the question of the [[obsessional neurosis]] ("[[obsessional neurosis|To be or not to be?]]") relates to the [[time|contingency]] of one's own [[existence]].  These two questions (the [[hysteria|hysterical]] question about [[sexuality|sexual identity]], and the [[obsessional]] question about [[death]]/[[existence]]) "are as it happens the two ultimate questions that have precisely no solution in the signifier. This is what gives neurotics this existential value."<ref>{{S3}} p.190</ref>