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'Functional nervous disorder' is a term giving way to 'Psychoneurosis' which is in accord with the modern view of the genesis of nervous disorders.
This view, the author states, is one now held by the majority of workers on the subject who are qualified to express an opinion, namely, that functional nervous disorders are psychogenic in origin.
This being the case we must employ some kind of psychotherapy in treating the psychoneuroses. Any scientific psychotherapy must involve two processes. Firstly, finding out the particular mental factors responsible for the morbid condition. Secondly, the carrying out of some procedure designed to eliminate or modify these factors.
These two processes he terms 'analysis' and 'rectification'. Analysis presumes a knowledge of psychology and psychopathology in order that the hidden causes in the deeper layers of the mind may be understood. 'Rectification' or modification of the causal factors discovered by analysis is brought about by the use of various weapons such as persuasion, re-education, or by making the patient aware of the mental factors at work and their nature, and teaching him to deal with them consciously and efficiently rather than in the haphazard way which has produced his neurosis.
He would also press into the service of treatment such emotional factors as ambition, interest, religion, and everything summed up under the concept 'suggestion'.
He next mentions hypothetical cases to illustrate the way in which functional nervous disorders are caused and can be treated.
The title of the paper is 'Modern Treatment of Functional Nervous Disorders'. Not once, however, does the author mention psycho-analysis as a method of treatment, although he borrows the terms 'repression' and 'conflict' from the terminology of Freud to explain these functional nervous disorders in the way that Freud has shown him.