If the neurotic feels vulnerable in the face of the world he takes in, he reacts by criticizing himself to excess. He can’t endure himself or the isolation that his individuality plunges him into. On the other hand, he still needs to be a hero, still needs to earn immortality on the basis of his unique qualities, which means that he still must glorify himself in some ways. But he can glorify himself only in fantasy, as he cannot fashion a creative work that speaks on his behalf by virtue of its objective perfection, He is caught in a vicious circle because he experiences the unreality of fantasied self-glorification. There is really no conviction possible for man unless it comes from others or from outside himself in some way—at least not for long. One simply cannot justify his own heroism in his own inner symbolic fantasy, which is what leads the neurotic to feel more unworthy and inferior. This is pretty much the situation of the adolescent who has not discovered his inner gifts. The artist, on the other hand, overcomes his inferiority and glorifies himself because he has the talent to do so.19

• neurosis
• isolation
• immortality ideology
• authorization
• adolescent psychology
• work
• self
• virtue
• immortality
• heroism
• other
• situation

The absence in our culture of rites and institutions designed, like the rites of puberty, to smooth the adolescent's passage into the world is one reason for the incidence of neuroses in youth, common to all of which is the difficulty of facing up to the demands of life and of adapting to the collective and to one's partner.  The absence of rites at the climacteric works in the same way.  Common to the climacteric neuroses of the second half of life is the difficulty of freeing oneself from worldly attachments, as is necessary for a mellow old age and its tasks.  The causes of these neuroses are therefore quite different from, indeed the opposite of, those occurring in the first half of life.

• adaptation
• adolescent psychology
• collective
• culture
• life
• neurosis
• reason
• old age
• rites