Psychoanalysis and Neurosis

Psychoanalytic Theory classifies psychological disorders into three levels of severity, they are:
-  neurosis (e.g. depression and anxiety)
-  personality disorder (e.g. borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder)
-  psychosis (e.g. delusional disorder and schizophrenia)

Neurosis refers to an emotional disturbance, the type of disturbance that is caused by the internal conflicts that are experienced by both "normal" and "abnormal" populations. Usually, the disturbance is not so severe as to prevent the individual who has it from functioning in his day-to-day living.

Its development is similar to that of hysteria.  A neurosis emerges when the urges or needs of the Id are denied or repressed and hence not being satisfied.  The needs or urges are then expressed themselves in other ways.  They create all sorts of problems and produce what are called neurotic symptoms.

Example

Peter is a fresh graduate who is aspired to becoming a teacher and in fact, he got a teaching offer and is now working in a college.  However, during his time in the college, he has realized that the "teaching" that he is doing is not quite the same as what he thought to be.  Instead of devoting himself to the needs of his students, he has been spending most of her time dealing with administrative tasks which he does not find personally meaningful.  Under the pressure of his colleagues and principal as well as the prevalent culture of education in his home town, it seems that there is not much he can do to fulfill his needs or wishes but follow the trend and working guidelines given.  Gradually, he has developed a number of neurotic symptoms like sleeping problems, anxiety and depression.

In this case, there is an obvious conflict within Peter's mind, the differences between the ways society sees education and that Peter sees it.  They are not in line and Peter chose to neglect his needs (aspiration) and hence the psychic energy sought its way out and formed the above-mentioned symptoms.

To explain the development of neurosis, psychoanalysts have taken a developmental view which is connected with the five psychosexual stages identified by Freud.  See if we could discuss them later.

References 

American Psychiatric Association, & American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders : DSM-IV-TR (4th , text revision ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.   

Bornstein, R. F. (2006). A freudian construct lost and reclaimed: The psychodynamics of personality pathology. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 23(2), 339-353. doi: http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.lb.polyu.edu.hk/10.1037/0736-9735.23.2.339

Engler, B. (2009). Personality theories :An introduction (8th ed.). Belmont, CA:Wadsworth/Cengage Learning. 

Freud, S. (1910).  Five lectures on psychoanalysis. SE (vol.11).