Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-s22k5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-07T18:30:36.883Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Evidence for a General Neurotic Syndrome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Gavin Andrews ,
Gavin Stewart ,
Allen Morris-Yates ,
Phoebe Holt  and
Scott Henderson
Gavin Andrews*
Affiliation:
Clinical Research Unit for Anxiety Disorders, The University of New South Wales at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, NSW 2010, Australia
Gavin Stewart
Affiliation:
Clinical Research Unit for Anxiety Disorders, University of New South Wales
Allen Morris-Yates
Affiliation:
Clinical Research Unit for Anxiety Disorders, University of New South Wales
Phoebe Holt
Affiliation:
Clinical Research Unit for Anxiety Disorders, University of New South Wales
Scott Henderson
Affiliation:
Social Psychiatry Research Unit, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2606, Australia
*
∗Correspondence
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Neurotic syndromes are defined by characteristic patterns of symptoms, but the validity of the distinction between one syndrome and another depends on associations between the syndromes and clinical history, or treatment response factors that are independent of the defining phenomena. In both a group of twin volunteers and a group of patients with panic disorder/agoraphobia, the lifetime experience of more than one diagnosis of a neurotic syndrome was common but there was no evidence of patterns of co-occurrence of diagnoses being associated with particular syndromes. Receiving a diagnosis was associated with abnormal scores on measures of neuroticism and locus of control, the extent of the abnormality increasing with the number of different diagnoses satisfied. It is argued that the concept of a general neurotic syndrome depends in part on the presence of such predisposing personality factors, and that reduction in this predisposition to neurosis should be the focus of treatment.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 157 , Issue 1 , July 1990 , pp. 6 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andrews, G. (1988) Stressful life events and anxiety. In Handbook of Anxiety, Vol. 2: Classification, Etiological Factors and Associated Disorders (eds G. Burrows, R. Noyes & M. Roth). Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Andrews, G. & Moran, C. (1988) The treatment of agoraphobia with panic attacks: are drugs essential? In Panic and Phobias II. Treatments and Variables Affecting Course and Outcome (eds I. Hand & H.-U. Wittchen). Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Andrews, G., Pollock, C. & Stewart, G. W. (1989) The determination of defense style by questionnaire. Archives of General Psychiatry, 46, 455–460.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Andrews, G., Stewart, G. W., Allen, R., et al (1990) The genetics of six neurotic disorders: a twin study. Journal of Affective Disorders (in press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, J. H., Burke, J. D., Gruenberg, E., et al (1984) Exclusion criteria of DSM–III. A study of co-occurrence of hierarchy-free syndromes. Archives of General Psychiatry, 41, 983–989.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Christensen, H., Hadzi-Pavlovic, D., Andrews, G., et al (1987) Behavior therapy and tricyclic medication in the treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder: a quantitative review. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55, 701–711.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cloninger, C. R., Miller, J. P., Wette, R., et al (1979) The evaluation of diagnostic concordance in follow-up studies: I. A general model of causal analysis and a methodological critique. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 15, 85–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, A., Franklin, J. & Andrews, G. (1984) A scale to measure locus of control of behaviour. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 57, 173–180.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crowe, R. R., Noyes, R., Wilson, A. F., et al (1987) A linkage study of panic disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry, 44, 933–937.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eysenck, H. J. & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1964) Manual of the Eysenck Personality Inventory. London: University of London Press.Google Scholar
Eysenck, H. J. & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1975) Personality Questionnaire (Junior and Adult). Essex: Hodder & Stoughton.Google Scholar
Helzer, J. E., Robins, L. N., McEvoy, L. T., et al (1985) A comparison of clinical and diagnostic interview schedule diagnoses. Physician reexamination of lay-interviewed cases in the general population. Archives of General Psychiatry, 42, 657–666.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hickey, A., Andrews, G. & Wilken, D. (1983) The independence of mitral valve prolapse and neurosis. British Heart Journal, 50, 333–336.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holt, P. E. & Andrews, G. (1989) Provocation of panic: a comparison of three elements of the panic reaction in four anxiety disorders. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 27, 253–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holt, P. E. & Andrews, G. (1989) Associations between hyperventilation and anxiety in panic disorder, social phobia, GAD and normal controls. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 27, 453–460.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joreskog, K. G. & Sorbom, D. (1988a) Prelis: a Preprocessor for Lisrel. Mooresville, Indiana: Scientific Software.Google Scholar
Joreskog, K. G. & Sorbom, D. (1988b) Lisrel 7: A Guide to the Program and Applications. Chicago: SPSS Inc.Google Scholar
Kendler, K. S., Heath, A. C., Martin, N. G., et al (1987) Symptoms of anxiety and symptoms of depression. Same genes, different environments? Archives of General Psychiatry, 122, 451–457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, D. F. (1964) Delineation of two drug-responsive anxiety syndromes. Psychopharmacologica, 5, 397–408.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Margraf, J., Ehlers, A. & Roth, W. T. (1986) Biological models of panic disorder and agoraphobia: a review. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 24, 553–567.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martin, N. G., Andrews, G., Jardine, R., et al (1988) Anxiety disorders: are there genetic factors specific to panic? Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 77, 698–706.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moran, C. & Andrews, G. (1985) The familial occurrence of agoraphobia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 146, 262–267.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Noyes, R., Crowe, R. R., Harris, E. L., et al (1986) Relationship between panic disorder and agoraphobia: a family study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 43, 227–232.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pitts, F. & McClure, J. (1967) Lactate metabolism in anxiety neurosis. New England Journal of Medicine, 277, 1329–1336.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Quality Assurance Project (1985) Treatment outlines for the management of anxiety states. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 19, 138–151.Google Scholar
Sturt, E. (1981) Hierarchical patterns in the distribution of psychiatric symptoms. Psychological Medicine, 11, 783–794.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tyrer, P. (1985) Neurosis divisible? Lancet, i, 685–688.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyrer, P., Alexander, J., Remington, M., et al (1987) Relationship between neurotic symptoms and neurotic diagnosis: a longitudinal study. Journal of Affective Disorders, 13, 13–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tyrer, P., Murphy, S., Kingdon, D., et al (1988) The Nottingham study of neurotic disorder: comparison of drug and psychological treatments. Lancet, ii, 235–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.