Neurosis
The term 'neurosis' (névrose) is used in psychoanalysis to describe a number of nervous disorders.
For Lacan, the term 'neurosis' refers not to a set of (behavioral or psychosomatic) symptoms but to a particular clinical structure.
Lacan identifies three clinical structures: neurosis, psychosis and perversion.
Freud argued that neurosis was an illness that could be cured. Lacan argues that 'mental health' is an illusory idea of wholeness which can never be attained because the subject is essentially split.
The aim of psychoanalytic ttreatment is therefore not the eradication of the neurosis but the modification of the subject's position vis-a-vis the neurosis.
According to Lacan, "the structure of a neurosis is essentially a question."[1]
Neurosis "is a question that being poses for the subject."[2]
The two forms of neurosis (hysteria and obsessional neurosis) are distinguished by the content of the question.
The question of the hysteric ('Am I a man or a woman?') relates to one's sex, whereas the question of obsessional neurosis ('To be or not to be?') relates to the contingency of one's own existence.
These two questions (the hysterical question about 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 their existential values.[3]
