Citation

Fenton N. J. Abnorm. Psychol. Soc. Psychology 1925; 20(3): 282-293.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1925, R.G. Badger)

DOI

10.1037/h0070788

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

"In the anticipation neurosis, the novelty of response comes from the fact that the stimuli are all developed by the patient and spring from his own imagination. The importance of the anticipatory type of neurosis was not in their frequency nor in their clinical appearance; but in the fact that they show that fear is so primal a quality that the organism responds relatively quickly to the expectancy of danger as well as to the fact. Further, the existence and recognition of this form of neurosis gave a ready explanation for a condition seen in the recovered or apparently recovered cases of combat neurosis when the anticipation of a renewal of that experience led to the redevelopment of the original clinical picture previously removed by treatment. A study of this factor, anticipation, indicates that it is present in all cases of neurosis; and that recovery in the cases of war neurosis during the period of active fighting is on that account more often apparent than real, as, due to anticipation, there may be at any time a recurrence of the old symptoms." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)