How To Tell If You Are Neurotic
Nowadays the term “neurotic” is a fashionable issue. We can no longer, to express our disapproval of someone, use the terms “capricious”, “pusillanimous” or “suspicious”; now, our modernism forces us to call them “neurotic”.
It is difficult, and more so in three lines, to develop what it means to be neurotic. Sometimes we even use this term and do not know what it denotes.
To conceptualize neurosis it is necessary to take into account, and very seriously, the cultural norms that govern the individual and his life circumstances. Why are cultural norms important? Because through them society establishes its parameters of normality and abnormality. Normality: what the majority does; abnormality: those who go beyond the line that establishes the limit. Thus, based on these standards, we will consider neurotic the artist who earns a small weekly salary when he could earn much more by devoting more time to his work, and who, instead, chooses to enjoy life to the extent that his modest income allows him, wasting a good part of his life in the company of women. The reason why we call him neurotic is because we allow ourselves to be guided by social norms that have instilled in us a desire to progress in the world, to outdo others, to earn more money than is required for sustenance. For solid reasons, such as the fact that a few influential and important social figures determine the way of life of the majority, every culture clings to the belief that its own impulses and feelings constitute the only normal expression of “human nature.”
There are two characteristics that can be seen in any neurosis and they are: 1) a certain rigidity in reactions and 2) discrepancy between the individual’s capacities and his achievements. By rigidity in reactions we mean the absence of flexibility. For example, a normal person is suspicious when he sees reasons for them; a neurotic, on the other hand, may be dominated by incessant suspicions regardless of the given situation and whether or not he is aware of his condition. However, rigidity is only an indicator of neurosis when it is at odds with cultural norms. Similarly, the discrepancy between one’s ability and one’s achievements may be due only to external factors. In the case of a neurotic, however, it would be an indicator of this condition if the individual continued to be unproductive despite his good talents and, in addition, having all the external possibilities favourable to his achievement.
We also find in neuroses an essential factor, common to all of them: anxiety and the defences raised against it. This anxiety is the factor that triggers the neurotic process and keeps it going. First, the conditions of life prevailing in every culture give rise to certain fears, which may be due to external dangers (the force of nature) or to the forms that social relations take (the unleashing of hostility due to injustice, oppression). The neurotic not only shares the fears common to all individuals in a culture, but also suffers from other anxieties, which are distinguished by their quantity or quality from those corresponding to his culture. Second, fears are usually avoided by means of certain protective devices such as taboos, rituals and customs. Thus, a normal person will usually be able to realize all his capacities and enjoy what life has to offer. The neurotic always suffers more than the average individual because he is continually forced to pay an exorbitant price for his defenses; a price consisting of the reduction of his vitality and expansiveness or, more specifically, the restriction of his capacities for realization and enjoyment.
We have combined psychological and sociological factors to understand the neurotic. This is the method we have followed in indicating that fear and defence constitute one of the dynamic centres of neurosis, but that they only produce neurosis when they differ in quantity and quality from the normal fears and defences in the same culture.
There is still another essential characteristic of neurosis: the presence of conflicting tendencies, of whose existence the neurotic himself is not aware and in response to which he automatically tries to reach certain compromise solutions. What distinguishes neurotic conflicts from those which usually occur in a culture is not their content but, on the contrary, the fact that these conflicts are more acute and accentuated in the neurotic.
The neurotic pursues and reaches compromise solutions less satisfactory than those obtained by the average, established individual, to the great detriment of the total personality.
In summary: neurosis is a psychic disorder produced by fears, by defences against fears.
