In neurosis we speak of an infantile attitude or the predominance of infantile phantasies and desires. In so far as infantile impressions and desires are of obvious importance in normal people they are equally influential in neurosis, but they have here no ætiological significance, they are reactions merely, being chiefly secondary and regressive phenomena. It is perfectly true, as Freud states, that infantile phantasies determine the form and further development of neurosis, but this is not ætiology. Even when we find perverted sexual phantasies of which we can prove the existence in childhood, we cannot consider them of ætiological significance. A neurosis is not really originated by infantile sexual phantasies and the same must be said of the sexualism of neurotic phantasy in general. It is not a primary phenomenon based upon a perverted sexual disposition, but merely secondary and a consequence of a failure to apply the stored-up libido in a suitable way. I realize that this is a very old view, but this does not prevent its being true. The fact that the patient himself very often believes that this infantile phantasy is the real cause of the neurosis, does not prove that he is right in his belief, or that a theory following the same belief is right either. It may look as if it were so, and I must confess that indeed very many cases do have that appearance. At all events, it is perfectly easy to understand how Freud came to this view. Every one having any psychoanalytic experience will agree with me here. To sum up: I cannot see the real ætiology of a neurosis in the various manifestations of infantile sexual development and their corresponding phantasies. The fact that they are exaggerated and put into the foreground in neurosis is a consequence of the stored-up energy or libido. The psychological trouble in neurosis, and neurosis itself, can be considered _as an act of adaptation that has failed_. This formulation might reconcile certain views of Janet's with Freud's view, that a neurosis is--under a certain aspect--an attempt at self-cure; a view which can be and has been applied to many diseases.