Psychosomatic symptoms represent an attempt to resolve tension within the organism. Tarachow distinguishes between psychoneuroses as 'psychic representations' of the conflict over the resolution of tension, and physioneuroses as 'somatic representations' of the same conflict. In each of a series of cases, either inhibition or excitation sharply colored the clinical manifestations in both spheres. Where there was strongly marked psychic inhibition, there was also profound inhibition of various somatic functions; where there was psychic excitation, there was analogous concomitant physiologic disturbance. Failure to master a situation realistically, with consequent accumulation of tension, leads to overmobilization (anxiety) or inhibition.