CriticaLink | Lacan: The Mirror Stage | Terms

Neurosis is a broad term covering many forms of psychic distress. Less severe than the psychoses, neuroses include states of anxiety, obsessions, phobias, and hysteria. For Lacan, neurosis is an inescapable condition of human consciousness because the psyche, caught up in its identification with an illusory, unattainable imago of wholeness and in its ultimately unfulfillable desire, can never attain the "equilibrium" or "self-awareness" that we commonly associate with "normal" mental health.

• Baldwin, James Mark
• Bosch, Hieronymus
• Bühler, Charlotte
• Caillois, Roger
• Freud, Anna
• Hegel, G.W.F.
• Köhler, Wolfgang
• Lévi-Strauss, Claude
• Wallon, Henri

• Aha-Erlebnis
• anxiety
• captation
• Cogito
• defenses of the ego
• fragmented body
• Gestalt
• Ideal-I
• identification
• imago
• Innenwelt
• legendary psychasthenia
• libido
• méconnaissance
• mirror stage
• neurosis
• object
• obsession
• other
• Oedipus complex
• perception consciousness system
• phobia
• primary narcissism
• psychosis
• subject
• transitivism
• Umwelt
• Verneinung