In many neurotic patients any unperceived lapse of time is a signal for distressing anxiety. This neurotic attitude toward time is little discussed except in obsessional neurosis. The awareness of time develops as a part of the intellect. To lose the connecting link of time means that the sufferer has lost the object. To lose the object is to the neurotic to lose a part of the self. Activity helps to establish the perception of duration and succession; hence the anxious person must not be inactive, since inactivity results in the loss of time perception with consequent loss of object and of self. The recurrence of something familiar gives rise to the concept of past time which becomes memory. The formation and carrying out of a purpose gives the concept of future. The instincts know no time. The obsessional character leads all others in the use of time as a defense.