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This is an abridgement of the third German edition of Stekel's now well-known work and the first volume of his monumental work “Disturbances of the Impulses and the Emotions.” In it he has more
thoroughly documented anxiety than any other author, considering it from every possible point of view, its physical symptomatology and its psychological forms.
In the preface Stekel states how in certain respects he has come to differ from Freud and how this difference has gradually developed into this present edition. In the first edition of the work he differentiated the actual neuroses from the psychoneuroses as Freud does, the former supposedly being caused by actual sexual abuses, the second by psychic disturbances. Stekel has come to the conclusions, finally, that every state of morbid fear is psychically determined; he has been unable to find the neurasthenia of Freud at all; and in every case of actual neurosis he has found a psychic cause, and has come to the conclusion that every neurosis is caused by a psychic conflict. Back of all the physical symptoms of a neurosis he finds a wealth of psychic symptomatology. Especially interesting chapters are those on hypochondria, epilepsy, and the technique of psychotherapy. Epilepsy he considers more frequently than is ordinarily supposed to be a psychogenic disease. The chapter on technique is especially interesting because of the very considerable variety in the manifestation of the transference which he illustrates. Mention should also be made of the chapter on “Anxiety Neurosis in Children.”
White