_Imperative idea_: An idea that, however malapropos it may be,
keeps mounting into consciousness.
_Obsession_: An imperative idea that compels appropriate action.
_Phobias_: Unconscious fears, often acquired in early infancy,
which may ruin a man’s whole life for him. There are many
different kinds of “phobia” of which syphilophobia is probably
the most common.
These three are all signs of:
_Psychasthenia_: A weird half-sister of neurasthenia, generally
the result of heredity, combined with abnormal education in
early youth. In the psychasthenic state the patient may be
subject to all manner of imperative ideas, obsessions and
phobias. Sometimes he stammers, sometimes he is compelled by
his “unconscious” to jerk his limbs about in quaint antics;
sometimes he is afflicted with awful doubts and scruples.[1]
All the other medical terms are, I think, explained in the text as they
arise.