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==Jacques Lacan==
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
The term '[[neurosis]]' (''[[névrose]]'') is used in [[psychoanalysis]] to describe a number of nervous disorders.
==Jacques Lacan==
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 structure]]s:
* [[neurosis]],
* [[psychosis]] and
* [[perversion]].
==Psychoanalytic Treatment==
[[Freud]] argued that [[neurosis]] was an illness that could be [[cure]]d.
[[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 [[psychoanalysis|psychoanalytic]] [[treatment]] is not the eradication of the [[neurosis]] but the modification of the [[subject]]'s position ''vis-a-vis'' the [[neurosis]].
==The Question==
According to [[Lacan]], "the structure of a neurosis is essentially a question."<ref>{{S3}} p.174</ref>
[[Neurosis]] "is a question that being poses for the subject."<ref>{{E}} p.168</ref>
The two forms of [[neurosis]] ([[hysteria]] and [[obsessional neurosis]]) are distinguished by the content of the question.
The question of the [[hysteria|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 [[hysteria|hysterical]] question about [[sexual identity]], and the [[obsessional neurosis|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.<ref>{{S3}} p.190</ref>
{{Encore}} pp. 86-87
