Saul sees neuroses and psychoses not as disease entities but as reaction-formations which are prevalent in all people to varying extents. Nervous disorders represent increased quantitative use of various normal mechanisms, which are regressively employed. Phobias, for example, are exaggerations of childhood timidities; compulsions, of problems appropriate to the age of toilet training. Saul links his concepts with the ideas expressed by Adolf Meyer in developing the terminology of the ergasias.