hysterical neurosis

neurosis /neu·ro·sis/ (ndbobr-ro´sis) pl. neuro´ses  

1. former name for a category of mental disorders characterized by anxiety and avoidance behavior, with symptoms distressing to the patient, intact reality testing, no violations of gross social norms, and no apparent organic etiology.

2. in psychoanalytic theory, the process that gives rise to these disorders as well as personality disorders and some psychotic disorders, being triggering of unconscious defense mechanisms by unresolved conflicts.

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character neurosis  a type of high-level personality disorder with some neurotic characteristics.

hysterical neurosis  former name for a group of conditions now divided between conversion disorder and dissociative disorders.

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Hysterical neurosis

An older term for conversion disorder or dissociative disorder.

Mentioned in: Somatoform Disorders

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neurosis [noo͡-ro´sis] (pl. neuro´ses)

former name for a category of mental disorders characterized by anxiety and avoidance behavior. In general, the term has been used to refer to disorders in which the symptoms are distressing to the person, reality testing does not yield unusual results, behavior does not violate gross social norms, and there is no apparent organic etiology. Such disorders are currently classified as anxiety disorders, dissociative disorders, mood disorders, sexual disorders, and somatoform disorders.

anxiety neurosis an obsolete term (Freud) for conditions now reclassified as panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.

hysterical neurosis a former classification of mental disorders, now divided into conversion disorder and dissociative disorders.

obsessive-compulsive neurosis former name for obsessive-compulsive disorder.

prison neurosis chronophobia occurring in prisoners having trouble adjusting to a long prison sentence, characterized by feelings of restlessness, panic, anxiety, and claustrophobia.

transference neurosis a phenomenon occurring in most psychoanalyses, in which the patient undergoes, with the analyst as the object, an intense repetition of childhood conflicts, reexperiencing impulses, feelings, and fantasies that originally developed in relation to the parent.