Neuroses and Personality Degradation: Elias Perepel. Psa. Rev., XXVIII, 1941, pp. 173–187.

Not only psychoses but also neuroses result in a degradation of the personality. This is a consequence of the very essence of the neuroses which Perepel looks upon partly from a freudian point of view but partly in a rather different way. He takes an 'ambivalent attitude towards the own ego' as the basis on which all neurotic phenomena have to be explained. An enormous conscious self-love is regularly counterbalanced by an unconscious self-hatred. This self-hatred is based on feelings of guilt which are rooted in childhood experiences such as 'bad influence, sex laxity on the part of adults, physical violence, religiousness'. 'Religious up-bringing' and 'repression of incestuous sadistic cravings', seem especially important. The ambivalence towards one's own ego is then responsible for all the other neurotic phenomena by distorting the patient's perception of reality. Strangely enough Perepel states that neurotics are never envious. A short analysis of Berlioz illustrates those theses. Finally Perepel expresses the opinion that the chronic tensions of the neurotic may eventually injure their brain organically.