Freud diagnosed his condition as neurasthenia and anxiety neurosis and traced both disturbances to an accumulation of sexual tension. In his earlier writings he had suggested that neurasthenia in males resulted from masturbation and that anxiety neurosis in males arose from abnormal sexual practices such as coitus interruptus and abstinence, which characterized his own life. By describing his symptoms as neurasthenia and anxiety neurosis, "his personal life was thus deeply involved in this particular theory, since with its help he was trying to interpret and solve his own problems Freud's theory of actual neurosis is thus a theory of his own neurotic symptoms (Krull, 1986, pp. 14, 20)