neurosis Hear it!

neurosis Definition

neu·ro·sis (no̵o rōsis, nyo̵o-)

noun pl. -·ses′--sēz′

  1. Psychiatry any of various mental disorders in which there is a symptom or group of symptoms that causes psychological pain or discomfort and may be very disabling: common neuroses include anxiety, compulsions, phobias, and depression
  2. popularly any emotional disturbance other than a psychosis

Etymology: ModL: see neuro- & -osis

neurosis Synonyms

neurosis

n.

psychoneurosis, compulsion, deviation, instability, mental disorder, mental illness, emotional disturbance, neurotic condition, aberration; see also insanity 1, obsession.

neurosis Usage Examples

Preposition: of

  • society: Many of the maladjustments and neuroses of modern society arose directly out of such conditions.

Possessives

  • other: Feed each others ' neuroses among the better can bet all.
  • man: For this man's neuroses, the world paid a dreadful price.
  • group: Sometimes referred to as part of the group ' neuroses ' - characterized by anxiety, personal dissatisfaction and inappropriate but not psychotic behavior.

Converse of object

  • have: We have neuroses; we are seeing an alarming increase in degenerative diseases at the peak of life.
  • call: About half a century ago, the National Secular Society published a leaflet called Religious Neurosis.
  • feed: There is little of the obsessive manipulation of money and place that feeds the educational neurosis of the American and British middle classes.
  • suggest: Nesse humorously suggested that neuroses may be defined as a situation when we respond inappropriately to defection; somebody defects and we cooperate more.
  • prevent: There is no reason to suppose that smoking prevents neurosis ( paras.

Adjective modifier

  • obsessional: Another case of obsessional neurosis in which the disorder took the form of chronic doubt illustrates the value of hypnosis.
  • traumatic: These have been explained as similar to traumatic neuroses caused by fright.
  • own: Like too many of their ilk, they are simply projecting their own neuroses onto others.
  • severe: Failure to attend to these details may easily set up a severe neurosis.
  • collective: Or was it a collective neurosis at work, a modernist world trying to capture and tame the past?
  • universal: The religious believer joins in similar communal rites, thus accepting the " universal neurosis " of religion.

Noun used with modifier

  • anxiety: A reply to criticisms of my paper on anxiety neurosis.
  • war: Freud wrote little about war neuroses yet the subject had a profound impact on his theory.
  • situation: Situation neuroses are easy to ' fix ' at the basic level of shifting context.
  • transference: There then emerges another clinical distinction: transference neurosis and narcissistic neurosis.
  • compulsion: Few people have any conception of the misery which a compulsion neurosis may cause.
neurosis Quotes

Neurosishas anabsolutegenius for malingering.There is no illness which it cannot counterfeit perfectly.

—Proust, Marcel

Neurosis is the way of avoiding non-being by avoiding being.

—Tillich, Paul Johannes

   Insects are what neurosis would sound like, if neurosis could make a noise with its nose.

—Amis, Martin Louis