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[[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]]).

==Jacques Lacan==

This use of the term to designate a [[structure]] problematizes [[Freud]]'s distinction between [[neurosis]] and normality.

===Neurosis and Normality===

In [[structural]] terms, therefore, there is no distinction between the "normal" [[subject]] and the [[neurotic]].

===Psychosis and Perversion===

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]].

According to [[Lacan]], "the structure of a neurosis is essentially a question."<ref>{{S3}} p.174</ref>

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>

===Phobia===

At times [[Lacan]] lists [[phobia]] as a [[neurosis]] alongside [[hysteria]] and [[obsessional neurosis]], thus raising the question of whether there are not two but three forms of [[neurosis]].<ref>{{E}} p.168</ref>

==See Also==

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