The story of the recognition and treatment of those peculiarities of the personality known as neuroses, or psychoneuroses, is one in which a good deal of charlatanism has acconipanied much genuine investigation. Differing from actual insanity, these states of mind are so varied in their expression and causes, that it was a long time before any very clear conception of their nature and origin was reached. That they are now generally recognized as having to a great extent a psychological rather than a physical basis is due to the labours of the Viennese psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, who by his special technique of psychoanalysis gave a different complexion to this branch of psychological medicine.

The interest in this study begins with the rise of mesmerism and hypnotism. Soniewhere about the year 1760, Mesmer, a young Austrian student of medicine, happened to see some cures obtained by the use of magnetised plates, and being attracted by this new mode of treatment, discovered that the human hand could be just as effective a means of magnetising as a metal plate. The human body was then thought to possess a magnetic influence, which came to be known as animal magnetism. Mesmer eventually settled in Paris, where he became famous! whilst ‘mesmerism,’ as it was called, spread rapidly throughout Europe. This aroused at the same time much opposition, commissions being appointed to investigate the alleged cures, the upshot of which was the denial of magnetism of any kind as a cause of the cures, which, though admitted to be real, were thought to proceed, like the illness itself, from imagination.