Questions to prepare for classes and examination
• Basics of conditioning: conditioned and uncoditioned responses.
• Failure of the cortex functions as a pathological basis of experimental neurosis.
• Types of experimental neurosis: neurosis with domination excitation, neurosis with domination of inhibition, neurosis due to overexertion of the lability function.
• Neurosis in humans: definition of the concept, characteristic features, relation to experimental neurosis.
• The main causes, prevalence, and predisposing factors of neurosis in humans.
• Pathogenetic models of neuroses: biological, psychosocial, behavioral.
• The main types of neuroses: neurasthenia, hysteric neurosis, compulsory neurosis; their characteristic features and pathological basis.
N 142
A 29-year-old female patient C. has been admitted to hospital with complaints of poor appetite, depressive mood, episodes of the vision, hearing, and taste sense losses; occasionally, «loss of voice»; frequent headaches. According to her history in her childhood she was nervous, sensitive, capricious, cry-baby, lacked self-confidence. The symptoms presented on admission developed during the last year when she encountered serious life problems related to divorce and the need to find a new accomodation, faced conflicts at her work.
During her stay in hospital the patient was unduly exacting, required persistent care of the personnel, blamed the hospital and her doctor for poor attention to her personality. She occasionally developed vomiting during her meal or immediately after it, especially when she was being observed by the medical personnel. When she was taking her physiotherapy procedures (massage, shower), she lost her consciousness three times. This was accompanied by a temporary paresis of hands. Somatic status is unremarkable.