Two Kinds of Mental Illness

Someone afflicted by mental illness is neurotic if he sees his symptoms as symptoms and psychotic if does not. A neurosis is therefore an 'ego-dystonic' mental illness, meaning that the viewpoint embodied in one's symptoms is not the viewpoint of the ego of the afflicted party. And a psychosis is therefore an 'ego-syntonic' illness, meaning that the viewpoint embodied in the symptoms coincides with that of the afflicted party's ego. Whereas ego-syntonic illnesses are unqualifiedly debilitat...