Behaviors or bodily abnormalities that are caused by the return of the repressed. According to psychoanalysis, insistent desires that the individual feels s/he must repress will often find alternative paths toward satisfaction and therefore manifest themselves as symptoms. Freud defines a symptom thus: "A symptom is a sign of, and a substitute for, an instinctual satisfaction which has remained in abeyance; it is a consequence of the process of repression" ("Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety" 20.91). Symptoms tend to be activities that are detrimental or perhaps only useless to one's life. In extreme cases, such symptoms "can result in an extraordinary impoverishment of the subject in regard to the mental energy available to him and so in paralysing him for all the important tasks of life" (Introductory Lectures 16.358).
==def==
The term '''''symptom''''' (from the [[Greek language|Greek]] ''syn'' = con/plus and ''pipto'' = fall, together meaning co-exist) has two similar meanings in the context of physical and mental health:
* Strictly, a symptom is a sensation or change in health function experienced by a patient. Thus, symptoms may be loosely classified as [[strong]], [[mild]] or [[weak]]. In this, medically correct, sense of the word, it is a ''[[Wiktionary:Subjective|subjective]]'' report, as opposed to a sign, which is ''[[Wiktionary:Objective|objective]]'' evidence of the presence of a [[disease]] or [[disorder]]. Examples of ''symptoms'' are [[Fatigue (physical)|fatigue]]/[[tiredness]], [[pain]], or [[nausea]]. The symptom that leads to a diagnosis is called a [[cardinal symptom]]. In contrast, [[hypertension|elevated blood pressure]], or abnormal appearance of the [[retina]], would be a medical [[Sign (medicine)|sign]] indicating the nature of the disease.
Behaviors * A symptom may loosely be said to be a physical condition which shows that one has a particular illness or bodily abnormalities that are caused disorder (see e.g. Longman, 1995). An example of a symptom in this sense of the word would be a [[rash]]. However, correctly speaking, this is known as a [[Sign (medicine)|sign]], as would any indication detectable by a person other than the return sufferer in the absence of verbal information from the repressed[[patient]]. Some symptoms (e.g. nausea) occur in a wide range of disease processes, whereas other symptoms are fairly specific for a narrow range of illnesses: for example, a sudden loss of sight in one eye has only a very limited number of possible causes. According Some symptoms can be misleading to psychoanalysisthe patient or the medical practitioner caring for them. For example, insistent desires that [[cholecystitis|inflammation of the individual feels s/he must repress will gallbladder]] quite often find alternative paths toward satisfaction and therefore manifest themselves gives rise to pain in the right shoulder, which might (quite reasonably) lead the patient to attribute the pain to a non-abdominal cause such as symptomsmuscle strain, rather than the real cause. Freud defines a The term "Presenting symptom thus: "or "Presenting complaint" is used to describe the initial concern which brings a patient to a doctor. A symptom can more simply be defined as any feature which is a noticed by the patient. A sign is noticed by the doctor or others. It is not necessarially the nature ofthe sign or symptom which defines it, but who observes it. Clearly then, the same feature may be noticed by both doctor and patient, and so is at once both a sign and a substitute forsymptoms. The distinction is as simple as this, an instinctual satisfaction which has remained in abeyance; and therefore it may be nonsensical to argue whether a particular feature is a consequence of sign or a symptom. It may be one, the other, or both, depending on the process of repression" observer("Inhibitionss). Some features, Symptomssuch as pain, and Anxiety" 20can only be symptoms.91 A doctor can not feel a patient's pain (unless he is the patient!). Symptoms tend to Others can only be activities that are detrimental or perhaps only useless to one's lifesigns, such as a blood cell count measured by a doctor and his/her laboratory. In extreme casesengineering, such symptoms "can result symptom may be used to refer to an undesired effect occuring in an extraordinary impoverishment of a system. To eliminate the effect, a [[Root cause analysis]] is performed which traces the subject in regard symptom to its cause and again through the mental energy available to him cause's cause and so in paralysing him for all on until the subsytem is identified that can be changed to eliminate the important tasks symptom. ==See also==* [[List of medical symptoms]]* [[Causality]] ==Reference==* ''Longman dictionary of life" contemporary English'' (Introductory Lectures 161995).358)Third edition. ==External links==*[http://my.webmd.com/medical_information/check_symptoms/default.htm Online Medical Symptom Checker] [[Category:Medical terms]][[Category:Symptoms|*]]
