| 释义 |
neurosis|njʊˈrəʊsɪs|
Pl. neuroses.
[ad. Gr. type *νεύρωσις, f. νεῦρον nerve: see -osis.]
1. Path. A functional derangement arising from disorders of the nervous system, esp. such as are unaccompanied by organic change in the structures of the body; a nervous disease.
1776–84W. Cullen First Lines Pract. Physic §1091, I propose to comprehend, under the title of Neuroses, all those preternatural affections of sense or motion which are without pyrexia, as a part of the primary disease. 1797Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) XI. 96/2. 1822–34 Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) I. 167 note, He considers it [lead colic] to be a neurosis. 1845Encycl. Metrop. VII. 527/1 The diseases of function..embrace the neuroses, hæmorrhages, and dropsies. 1874H. Maudsley Mental Dis. i. 32 Families in which insanity, epilepsy, or some other neurosis exists. 1899Allbutt's Syst. Med. VIII. 296 For two or three preceding generations such neurotic stocks had intermarried, and so accentuated the neuroses present.
2. Psychol. A change in the nerve-cells of the brain prior to, and resulting in, psychic activity.
1871Huxley in Contemp. Rev. Nov. 462 As it is very necessary to keep up a clear distinction between these two processes, let the one be called neurosis, and the other psychosis. 1882Romanes in Nature No. 641. 335 Some intimate association between neurosis and psychosis being thus accepted as a fact by the hypothesis of automatism.
Add:[1.] In mod. use, any mental illness or disorder, not attributable to organic disease, in which contact with external reality is maintained but there is a disabling or distressing exaggeration of states such as anxiety, fear, or obsession. Cf. psychosis n. 1. (Further examples.)
1924W. B. Selbie Psychol. Relig. xv. 286 The inception of this method is due to Professor Sigmund Freud, of Vienna, whose study of neuroses led him to find underlying them certain unfulfilled desires, generally unknown to the patient, and based chiefly on repressed sexuality. 1957Encycl. Brit. XVIII. 667/1 Every man has his breaking point, since neuroses are reactions of persons predisposed to respond in an individual manner to a particular quantity of a meaningful stress. 1970T. Lupton Managem. & Social Sci. (ed. 2) i. 14 Nor were they due to neurosis, i.e. to failures in the mental capacity of individuals to adjust to reality. 1983Stafford-Clark & Smith Psychiatry for Students (ed. 6) i. 16 Neuroses are those disorders of emotional and intellectual functioning which do not deprive a patient of contact with reality.
3. In extended use: any more or less specific anxiety or malaise experienced by an individual, group, nation, etc.
1927New Republic 21 Sept. 129/1 The emphasis has swung from thought to feeling, from bare information and skill to character and personality... This began with the neuroses of the clinic, was transferred promptly to the neuroses of the family, then to the neuroses of all the large human enterprises, and the neuroses of nations. 1959I. Berlin Four Ess. Liberty (1969) iv. 198 The mass neurosis of our age is agoraphobia; men are terrified of disintegration and of too little direction. a1967J. R. Ackerley My Father & Myself (1971) xii. 106 One more neurosis, shared with my mother: I was worried about bad breath. 1984V. S. Naipaul Finding Centre ii. 105 They could deal in an African way with African neuroses; they also knew about herbs and poisons. |