What is Psychoneurosis?

Psychoneurosis is a term that is not used in psychiatric nomenclature and classification systems today but is of historical importance.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, psychiatric disorders were roughly divided into several groups. The main of these were psychoses, including schizophrenia and paranoia, manic-depressive psychoses, known today as bipolar disorder, and milder psychiatric disorders in which the sense of reality was not lost, such as psychoneuroses, heresies, etc.

Today, psychiatric disorders are classified by two main systems:

• The American Psychiatric Association has developed the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
• The system known as ICD (International Classification of Diseases) was developed by the World Health Organization and used for official classification purposes in many parts of the world, including Türkiye.

There is no such category as "psychoneurosis" in these two systems.

If we consider psychoneuroses within the historical process and in the context of psychoanalytic theory, we can briefly define them as "mental disorders caused by internal conflict". Against this, there are "current neuroses".

If we explain the difference with examples: Anxiety attacks experienced by someone who has to suppress their sexual urges knowingly and willingly due to various conditions (for example, reasons such as sexual abstinence) are examples of "current neuroses", while anxiety attacks that occur when someone who has suppressed their sexual urges unconsciously, and therefore is not aware of these urges, acts in a way that leads to the condemnation of their superior in this direction are examples of "psychoneuroses".

As can be seen from the examples, the conflict in psychoneuroses is unconscious, even though it is inside the person's spiritual apparatus: in this example, it is between the lower self and the higher self.

In accordance with this definition, hysteria, obsessive-compulsive disorders, some mild depression, and even phobias may be included in psychoneuroses.

Today, the distinction between psychosis and neurosis is not used in psychiatric disorders; instead, all psychiatric disorders, starting from developmental disorders, are described in a hierarchical classification approach, from developmental disorders of biological origin to schizophrenia, mood disorders, and then to anxiety disorders, obsession disorders, etc. in categorical areas separated by themselves, according to their diagnostic symptoms.