Obsessional neurosis involves intrusive, involuntary thoughts and ritualistic compulsions that serve as defensive attempts to manage overwhelming anxiety and past trauma, often causing dissociation and detachment from the body and reality. Historical and theoretical perspectives (Freud, Winnicott, Lacan) link obsessions to early trauma, ambivalence between love and hate, and a need to symbolically ‘undo’ the past; obsessions can function like addictions by providing a controllable internal structure. Clinically, obsessions are complex, multilayered, past-focused, and debilitating—producing guilt, isolation, and impaired functioning—while rituals temporarily reduce anxiety but ultimately perpetuate paralysis. Why You Can’t Stop Thinking: Obsessional Neurosis