Treating obsessional neurosis in Paris 75009

Obsessive neurosis is the most widespread psychological structure among the population, in Paris and throughout the world. As a structure, it corresponds to a specific relationship between the individual and reality which is distinguished first of all from that of its little sister, hysterical neurosis, then from the two other structures, psychosis and perversion. Also called constraint neurosis, the subjective experience of the obsessive being is particularly organised around the feeling of constraint and obligation.

The obsessive structure is therefore a specific articulation of psychic functioning which is distinguished by the particularly pronounced use of certain psychic mechanisms such as:

- doubt
- regression
- repression
- isolation
- displacement
- intellectualization
- rationalisation
- reaction formation
- retroactive cancellation or making it not happening - denial
- generalisation

We often speak of obsessive neurosis itself when the symptoms of the neurosis begin to become problematic for the being.

It is important to know that because of the particularly effective organisation of his defence mechanisms, the obsessional can easily alienate himself from his own suffering, he can somehow lie to himself, rationalise and generalise most of his or her troubles and it is often his or her partner who pays the bill.

Moreover, it is not uncommon that it is after a romantic breakup that the obsessive neurotic finally confronts his pathology.

No longer having the support thanks to which he could continue to alienate himself, he finds himself confronted with himself. If he does not find another escape, a person, an activity, a job thanks to

which he can keep his head on track, he may then find himself confronted with his symptoms, strictly speaking, obsessive.

Likewise, this way of recognizing in external causes (society, illness, destiny, etc.) the disorder which animates it is a modality of alienation particularly popular with the obsessive who thus avoids facing the responsibility that he has in the inner conflict of which he complains. In fact, he often sees this conflict which assail him as the result of external constraints without realising that this restrictive relationship to desire is an intersubjective phenomenon linked to his own psychic functioning.

This policy of the ostrich, so to speak, becomes a daily and exhausting exercise because the danger against which the obsessional tries to defend himself does not come from outside but from inside. Even if he can convince himself that the conflict that inhabits him is linked to external causes, to injustices, to societal constraints or even to the tyranny of his boss, his real enemy is well within himself, masked, hidden behind a concrete wall of rationalisations and systems of thought that give the obsessional its apparent rigidity.

This particularly pronounced alienation of the obsessional is what has delayed its recognition as a psychic structure in its own right. Indeed, recognizing obsessive neurosis meant that alienists had to question their own neurosis. Some of them will therefore speak of reasoning madness or even the madness of doubt, finding in the meaning of “madness” a possibility of distancing themselves from their own pathology. However, what they highlight through these meanings is the defensive and pathological use of reason and doubt in human beings.

Because obsessive neurosis is precisely the neurosis of a normal man!

In a certain way, the obsessive neurotic lives under the yoke of a real tyranny of the norm which manifests itself sometimes in a form of opposition and systemic contradiction to the desire of the other, stubborn and stubborn, sometimes in a form of submission to the request of the Other. What some have recently called the “good student” or “nice guy” syndrome reveals this ambivalent and overwhelming relationship between the obsessive and the demands of the Other which ultimately prevents him from being himself.

This inner tyranny that he feels as a constraint in his relationship with others, at work, in his relationship, with those around him, can lead him to isolate himself more and more to avoid confronting his feelings that he exhausts himself in masking.

Thus, the symptoms of the obsessional, since they are constituted as such, are located more at the level of thought: obsessions, doubt, scepticism, rumination, concerns, fears irrational, lack of self-confidence, concentration and prioritisation disorders...

The list is long of these obsessive symptoms which monopolise his mind, exhaust him and can lead him to lose it in harmful procrastination. Any object of thought is good to feed his obsessions: a bodily symptom, a conflict at work, a derogatory remark. It is therefore not so much the object of the thought that counts as the obsessive-compulsive process itself.

To try to defend yourself from certain obsessive thoughts, you can also set up rituals, checks that we have for some time called OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).

To conclude on this theme, which we will return to later, it is important to specify that it was Freud who discovered obsessive neurosis and who was able to best define it. Psychoanalysis is in fact the treatment most suited to treating obsessive neurosis and it is moreover the treatment of compulsion neurosis which has made it possible to perfect the psychoanalytic method and refine psychoanalytic theory.

Indeed, free associations (the method of psychoanalysis or psychotherapy with a psychoanalyst, see our article) will allow the obsessive to escape from this alienating logic in which he exhausts himself and literally misses out on his life and his life. his desires. The psychoanalytic treatment will allow him to gradually face the conflict he is trying to flee through his symptoms. By putting an end to the internal battle that he tries to master in vain and in which he exhausts himself, he will be able to awaken an unsuspected energy that he will be able to use to achieve what he really desires.

Treating obsessional neurosis in Paris 75009