Neurotic symptoms become legible only when interpreted as aiming at a final goal

Evidence

Try to understand the “meaning” and the direction of unhealthy manifestations, and you will immediately come face to face with a chaotic throng of tendencies, of impulses, of weaknesses and of anomalies, bound to discourage some and to arouse in others the rash resolve to penetrate the shadows at all costs, even at the risk of finding in the end that nothing has been gained, or that what has been gained is illusory. If, on the other hand, one accepts the hypothesis of a final goal or of a causal finality, one sees the shadows dissolve at once and we can read the soul of the patient like the pages of a book. — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 751

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces Adler’s concept of causal finality as the interpretive key to neurosis.
• XREF: connects to: Neurotic structure erupts from environment and the individual’s personal reactions combined.; Neurotic structure combines environmental pressures with the individual’s own mode of reacting to them — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 299; A performing life requires constant purposeful movement toward goals — Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening, 359 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Neurotic structure erupts from environment and the individual’s personal reactions combined. #expands (0.60)
• Neurotic structure combines environmental pressures with the individual’s own mode of reacting to them #expands (0.60) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 299
• A performing life requires constant purposeful movement toward goals #epitomizes (0.50) — Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening, 359