When Symptoms Speak: How Neuroses Try to Protect Us
This piece began life as part of my Master’s degree, but its insights have stayed with me ever since. At its core, it’s an attempt to explore how psychological symptoms aren’t just signs of dysfunction, but deeply creative (if painful) efforts by the psyche to manage distress. If you’ve ever wondered what lies beneath anxiety, compulsions, or emotional overwhelm, this reflection may offer a different kind of understanding.
~7 min read • Reflections on Depth Psychology, Trauma & Healing
Trauma, in the psychoanalytic sense, isn’t reserved for catastrophes. It can arise from the subtle yet overwhelming forces of everyday life; from moments where the psyche feels pierced, exposed, or flooded by something too intense to process. These moments can be external (like an accident or assault), or internal (like an unbearable impulse, thought, or feeling). In either case, the result may be the same: a psychic system pushed to its edge.
As Freud came to understand through years of clinical listening, what we call “symptoms” are often our mind’s best attempt to cope—creative, if sometimes painful, solutions for preserving a sense of order in the face of psychic chaos.
What Is a Neurosis, Really?
In early psychoanalysis, Freud first saw neuroses as the aftershock of traumatic experiences, particularly those involving early seduction or abuse. But over time, his view evolved. He realised that what mattered wasn’t always the objective event, but the way the unconscious represented it.
Some memories became distorted, fictionalised, or forgotten, not because they were insignificant, but because they were too charged to hold in consciousness. What emerged instead were symptoms: compulsions, phobias, anxiety, bodily conversions. These were not arbitrary disturbances, but compromise formations —creative negotiations between the unconscious, the ego, and the demands of reality.
In this framework, symptoms aren’t failures. They are communications. As Freud put it, they are “formations of compromise” between what is forbidden and what still insists on expression.
The Ego, the Id, and the Fight for Psychic Balance
To understand this dynamic, Freud built what he called the metapsychological model of the mind: a psychic apparatus shaped by drives (the Id), mediating forces (the Ego), and internalised rules (the Superego). Each element has its role in managing instinctual tension.
The Ego, in particular, acts as the psychic mediator. It tries to negotiate between what we want, what we’re afraid of, and what we believe is right. When the Ego is overwhelmed, either by internal pressure (like unconscious desire) or external threat (like danger or loss), it deploys defence mechanisms to maintain stability.
Sometimes, this system works beautifully. Other times, the defences become rigid or costly. The result is what psychoanalysis calls a psychoneurosis, a structured, symbolic symptom that speaks on behalf of a repressed conflict.
Psychoneurosis: Avoiding Trauma Through Symbolic Expression
According to psychoanalytic theory, psychoneuroses (such as hysteria, obsession, or phobia) arise not from trauma itself, but as defences against the anticipation of trauma.
In this case, the Ego detects an emerging threat (often from within, such as an unacceptable impulse) and creates a symptom to symbolically manage it. For example, an intrusive thought might be transformed into a compulsive ritual; an unbearable emotion might be converted into a physical sensation.
These symptoms may limit the person’s freedom, but they also protect the Ego from a more profound psychic collapse. As Bailly (2012) suggests, “neuroses are not the clinical manifestation of trauma, but pathological solutions to avoid trauma.” In this light, symptoms are protective —not because they prevent danger, but because they hold the tension in place when other options feel too dangerous.
Traumatic Neurosis: When the Psyche Is Caught Off Guard
In contrast, traumatic neuroses occur when an overwhelming external event floods the psyche with excitation it cannot manage. The protective barrier of the mind (something like a “psychic shield”) fails to hold, and the Ego is struck by an unprocessed reality it cannot symbolise.
Rather than repression, here we see psychic shock, a collapse of the mind’s usual defences. The result is symptoms like flashbacks, nightmares, dissociation, or emotional numbing. The trauma is not transformed or disguised; it returns again and again, in raw and intrusive form.
Unlike psychoneurosis, there is no symbolic substitution, only repetition. The psyche, unable to integrate what happened, replays it as if trying to grasp meaning retroactively.
Two Strategies for the Same Goal
Despite their differences, psychoneurosis and traumatic neurosis share something essential: both are attempts by the mind to protect itself.
The psychoneurotic avoids what is feared through symbol and substitution. The traumatised psyche cannot avoid or symbolise, and so becomes stuck in a loop of repetition.
What sets them apart is representation. In psychoneurosis, the threat is registered and worked around before it strikes. In traumatic neurosis, the event strikes before the Ego has a chance to make sense of it.
Working Through and Moving Forward
Treatment for each follows a different path. In trauma-focused work, the task is to help the psyche build a symbolic framework where none exists, to give form to the formless. In psychoneurosis, the goal is to make the unconscious conscious, to loosen the grip of the symptom and find meaning in its message.
And while Freud initially considered trauma to have a better prognosis than neurosis, both pathways demand the same deep work: to help the person reclaim their agency and restore the Ego’s capacity to think, feel, and act with coherence.
Final Reflections
Neuroses are not just disorders. They are stories encoded in symptom, defended by silence, begging for understanding. They are the mind’s attempt to speak what has been unspeakable.
Whether the wound comes from outside or inside, therapy offers a space for that speech to emerge. And in doing so, the psyche doesn’t just recover, it reorganises, reclaims, and, slowly, becomes more whole.
Curious about how your symptoms might be speaking on your behalf?
Therapy can offer a space to listen, understand, and begin to transform.
