With the former historical conception of neurosis, we thought we understood clearly why a neurotic person, with his powerful parent-complex, had such great difficulty in adapting himself to life. Now that we know that normal persons have the same complex, and in principle have to pass through just the same psychological development as a neurotic, we can no longer explain neurosis as a certain development of phantasy-systems. The really illuminating way to put the problem is a prospective one. We do not ask any longer if the patient has a father- or a mother-complex, or unconscious incest-phantasies which worry him. To-day, we know that every one has such things. The belief that only neurotics had these complexes was an error. We ask now: What is the task which the patient does not wish to fulfil? From which necessary difficulties of life does the patient try to withdraw himself? When people try always to adapt themselves to the conditions of life, the libido is employed rightly and adequately. When this is not the case, the libido is stored up and produces regressive symptoms. The inadequate adaptation, that is to say, the abnormal indecision of neurotics in face of difficulties, is easily accounted for by their strong subjection to their phantasies, in consequence of which reality seems to them, wholly or partly, more unreal, valueless and uninteresting than to normal people. These heightened phantasies are the results of innumerable regressions. The ultimate and deepest root is the innate sensitiveness, which causes difficulties even to the infant at the mother’s breast, in the form of unnecessary irritation and resistances. Call it sensitiveness or whatever you like, this unknown element of predisposition is in every case of neurosis. The Etiological Significance of Phantasy Criticized