[New proposals for the development of the concepts of neurotic anxiety, major depression and panic attack].

An accumulation of research results, laboratory and clinic, leads to revise the classification of disorders of anxious nature (anxiety disorders according to the DSM-III). An empirical confirmation allows to separate anxious states from panic attack and phobic behavior constituting a component separated from generalized anxiety, exaggerated emotional reactions to stress agents and obsessive-compulsive disorders. The response to pharmacotherapeutic agents and the important number of anxiety depression and mixed depression tends to make permeable the separating line between the nosological entities anxiety and depression. The observations of subjects suffering from endogenous anxiety obliges to revise the classification by introducing three varieties of neurotic anxiety: phobic endogenous anxiety, endogenous anxiety without phobic formation, and exogenous anxiety. Endogenous anxiety is close to the concept of anxious thymopathy. By its pragmatic conception, modifications obtained by psychoactive agents are used (antidepressants of the group imipramine and IMAO, classical benzodiazepines and alprazolam, provocation controlled in laboratory) in order to strengthen innovating hypotheses and allow to elaborate useful treatment strategies for neuroses.