Neurasthenia - Symptoms, Kinds, Causes, Cure

Neurotic disorders are considered to be of five kinds.

1.     Neurasthenia

2.     Anxiety neurosis

3.     Anxiety hysteria

4.     Obsessive - compulsive neurosis

5.     Hysteria

Anxiety hysteria:

Anxiety hysteria unlike anxiety neurosis is not merely phobia because there is more of anxiety in it. In anxiety hysteria the sufferer is afraid of circumstances, which do not frighten the normal person, such as dark places, height etc. A young woman always asked mother and father to accompany her wherever she went.

Symptoms:

Physical symptoms:

The main ones are shivering, high rate of heartbeat and occasionally fainting. Patient is often frightened very much. He perspires, his heartbeat increases and he even faints.

Psychological symptoms:

The most prominent psychological characteristics of anxiety hysteria are anxiety, restlessness, insomnia, projection, introjections, regression aggression, compulsion etc. In anxiety hysteria often the patient displaces the object inspiring his anxiety.

For example some people are afraid of broad or very narrow streets. Displacing the fear to the lane is an example of projection in anxiety hysteria. Otto Ferickel has mentioned the case of young man who was abnormally afraid of hens because he had projected his internal conflict on hens.

Kinds of anxiety hysteria:

Anxiety hysteria takes various forms of fear and anxiety in different individuals such as agro phobia, acrophobia, clustophobia, ochlophobia, locomotion phobia, path phobia, ero-phobia or tox-phobia, etc.

Simple concrete anxiety phobia:

In this the patient is afraid of some concrete object such as water. Fischer has mentioned the case of a young lady who was so profoundly affected by the sound of running water that she once fainted on hearing a fountain.

Symbolic concrete anxiety hysteria:

In this the case, fear and anxiety is certainly concrete but the patients fear is not for its physical shape but because it symbolises some other object of experience. In one case the young woman is afraid of knifes that she could not even touch it and she could not even sleep, fear that her mother would stab her with a knife if she slept. In this an abstract object that functions as a symbol for example, closed or wide open spaces, height and depths etc.

Causes of anxiety hysteria:

Conditioning, emotional shock, disorganization of mind or power of volition, strong feelings of incest, repression not only of the sexual drive but of any very strong desire are the causes leading to anxiety hysteria.

Cure of anxiety hysteria:

Suggestion, psychoanalysis, hypnosis are some of the methods for curing the disease.