The historical evolution of the concept of neurosis can be traced from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries where Piñero details its dependence upon fundamental medical concepts such as cause, function and regulation. This book gives a clear view of the meaning of the term neurosis historically and in modern times, and shows how the concept has been created and modified in response to the theoretical developments that have occurred in medicine over two centuries. It will be of great use to psychiatrists, neurologists, psychologists, and historians of medicine and science, and to general historians.