But these symptoms had one by one disappeared during his five-weeks stay with me. He had done good stiff work in the garden, carried a heavy sack of grapefruit a mile in the hot sun, and was generally his old self again. Now he was back in the harness, hard at work as of old. Suddenly, as he sat reading in his home one evening, all his old symptoms swept over him,—the pains in his head and legs, the pounding of the heart, the "all-gone" sensations as though he were going to die on the spot. He became almost completely dissociated, but through it all he clung to the idea which he had learned,—namely that this experience was not really physical as it seemed but was the result of some idea, and would pass. He did not tell any one of the attack, ignored it as much as possible, and waited. In a few minutes he was himself again. Then he looked for the cause and realized that the article he was reading was one he had read several months previous, when suffering most severely from the whole train of symptoms. When the familiar words had again gone into his mind, they had pressed the button for the whole physiological experience which had once before been associated with them. This is the same mechanism as that involved in Prince's case, Miss Beauchamp, who became completely dissociated at one time when a breeze swept across her face. When Dr. Prince looked for the cause, he found that once before she had experienced certain distressing emotions while a breeze was fanning her cheek. The recurrence of the physical stimulation had been sufficient to bring back in its entirety the former emotional complex.

Another Kind of Association. One of my women patients illustrates another kind of association-mechanism, based not on proximity in time but proximity of position in the body. This woman had complained for years of "bladder trouble" although no physical examination had been able to reveal any organic difficulty. She referred to a constant distress in the region of the bladder and was never without a certain red blanket which she wrapped around her every time she sat down. During psycho-analysis she recounted an experience of years before which she had never mentioned to anybody. During a professional consultation her physician, a married man, had suddenly seized her and exclaimed, "I love you! I love you!" In spite of herself, the woman felt a certain appeal, followed by a great sense of guilt. In the conflict between the physiological reflex and her moral repugnance, she had shunted out of consciousness the real sex-sensation and had replaced it with a sensation which had become associated in her subconscious mind with the original temptation. Since the nerves from the genital region and from the bladder connect with the same segment of the spinal cord, she had unconsciously chosen to mix her messages, and to cling to the substitute sensation without being in the least Conscious of the cause. As soon as she had described the scene to me and had discerned its connection with her symptoms, the bladder trouble disappeared.

Afraid of the Cold. Patients who are sensitive to cold are very numerous. Mr. G.—he of the prunes and bran biscuits—was so afraid of a draft that he could detect the air current if a window was opened a few inches anywhere in a two-story house. He always wore two suits of underwear, but despite his precautions he had a swollen red throat much of the time. His prescription was a cold bath every morning, a source of delight to the other men patients, who made him stay in the water while they counted five. He was required to dress and live like other folks and of course his sensitiveness and his sore throat disappeared.

Dr. B——, when he came to me, was the most wrapped-up man I had ever met. He had on two suits of underwear, a sweater, a vest and suit coat, an overcoat, a bear-skin coat and a Jaeger scarf—all in Pasadena in May!

Besides this fear of cold, he was suffering from a hypersensitiveness of several other varieties. So sensitive was his skin that he had his clothes all made several sizes too big for him so that they would not make pressure. He was so aware of the muscles of the neck that he believed himself unable to hold up his head, and either propped it with his hands or leaned it against the back of a chair.

He had been working on the eighth edition of his book, a scientific treatise of nation-wide importance, but his eyes were so sensitive that he could not possibly use them and had to keep them shaded from the glare. He was so conscious of the messages of fatigue that he was unable to walk at all, and he suffered from the usual trouble with constipation. All these symptoms of course belonged together and were the direct result of a wrong state of mind. When he had changed his mind, he took off his extra clothes, walked a mile and a half at the first try, gave up his constipation, and went back to work. Later on I had a letter from him saying that his favorite seat was an overturned nail-keg in the garden and that he was thinking of sawing the backs off his chairs.

Miss Y—— had worn cotton in her ears for a year or two because she had once had an inflammation of the middle ear, and believed the membrane still sensitive to cold. There was Miss E——, whose underwear always reached to her throat and wrists and who spent her time following the sun; and Dr. I——, who never forgot her heavy sweater or her shawl over her knees, even in front of the fire. The procession of "cold ones" is almost endless, but always they find that their sensitiveness is of their own making and that it disappears when they choose to ignore it.

Fear of Light. Fear of cold is no more common than fear of light. Nervous folk with half-shut eyes are very frequent indeed. From one woman I took at least seven pairs of dark glasses before she learned that her eye was made for light. A good example is furnished by a woman who was not a patient of mine at all, but merely the sister of a patient. After my patient had been cured of a number of distressing symptoms—pain in the spine, sore heels, a severe nervous cough, indigestion and other typical complaints,—she began to scheme to get her sister to come to me.

This sister, the wife of a minister in the Middle West, had a constant pain in her eyes, compelling her to hold them half-shut all the time. When she was approached about coming to me, she said indignantly, "If that doctor thinks that my trouble is nervous, she is much mistaken," and then proceeded to get well. Once the subconscious mind gets the idea that its game is recognized, it is very apt to give it up, and it can do this without loss of time if it really wants to.

Pain at the Base of the Brain. Of all nervous pains, that in the back of the neck is by all odds the most common. It is rare indeed to find a nervous patient without this complaint, and among supposedly well folk it is only too frequent. Indeed, it almost seems that in some quarters such a pain stands as a badge of the fervor and zeal of one's work.

But work is never responsible for this sense of discomfort. Only an over-sensitiveness to feelings or a false emotionalism can produce a pain of this kind, unless it should happen to be caused by some poison circulating in the blood. The trouble is not with the nerves or with the spine, despite the fad about misplaced vertebrae. When a doctor examines a sensitive spine, marking the sore spots with a blue pencil, and a few minutes later repeats the process, he finds almost invariably that the spots have shifted. They are not true physical pains and they rarely remain long in the same place.

Pain in the spine and neck is an example of exaggerated sensibility or over-awareness. Since all messages from every part of trunk and limb must go through the spinal cord, and since very many of them enter the cord in the region of the neck and shoulder blades, it is only natural that an over-feeling of these messages should be especially noticed in this zone.

Sometimes a false emotionalism adds to the discomfort by tensing the whole muscular system and making the messages more intense. When a social worker or a business man gets tense over his work or ties himself into knots over a committee meeting, he not only foolishly wastes his energy but makes his nerves carry messages that are more urgent than usual. Then if he is on the look-out for sensations, he all the more easily becomes aware of the central station in the spine where the messages are received. By centering his attention on this station and tightening up his back-muscles, he increases this over-awareness and easily gets himself into the clutch of a vicious habit.

Sometimes a tenseness of the body is the result, not of a false attitude toward one's work, but of a lack of satisfaction in other directions. If the love-force is not getting what it wants, it may keep the body in a state of tension, with all the undesirable results of such tension. The person who keeps himself tense, whether because of his work or because of tension in other directions, has not really learned how to throw himself into his job and to forget himself, his emotions, and his body.

Various Pains. Tender spots may appear in almost any part of the body. There was the girl with the sore scalp, who was frequently so sensitive that she could not bear to have a single hair touched at its farthermost end, and who could not think of brushing her hair at such a time. There was the man whose wrists and ankles were so painful that the slightest touch was excruciating; the woman with the false sciatica; the man with the so-called appendicitis pains; and the man with the false neuritis, who always wore jersey coats several sizes too large. Each one of these false pains was removed by the process of re-education.

Low Thresholds to Fatigue. Mr. H. was habitually so overcome by fatigue that he could not make himself carry through the slightest piece of work, even when necessity demanded it. On Sunday night, when there was no one else to milk the cow, he had had to stop in the middle of the process and go into the house to lie down. To carry the milk was impossible, so low were his thresholds to the slightest message of fatigue. It turned out that things were not going right in the reproductive life. His threshold was low in this direction, and it carried down with it all other thresholds. After a general revaluation of values, he found himself able to keep his thresholds at the normal level.

A fine, efficient missionary from the Orient had been so overcome with fatigue that he was forced to give up all work and return to this country. He had been with me for a while and was again ready to go to work. He came one day with a radiant face to bid me good-by. "Why are you so joyous?" I asked. "Because," he answered, "before I came home I was so fatigued that it used me up completely just to see the native servants pack our luggage. Now we are taking back twice as much, and I not only packed it all myself but made the boxes with my own hands. No more fatigue for me!"

A charming young girl who in many ways was an inspiration to all her associates fell into the habit of over-feeling her fatigue. "You know, Doctor," she said, "that I give out too much of myself; everybody tells me so." That was just the trouble. Everybody had told her so, and the suggestion had worked. It did not take her long to learn that in scattering abroad she was enriching herself, and that her "giving out" was not exhausting to her but rather the truest kind of self-expression. It is only when a "giving out" is accompanied by a "looking in" that it can ever deplete. The "See how much I am giving," and "How tired I shall be," attitude could hardly fail to exhaust, but a real self-expression and the fulfilment of a real desire to give are never anything else than exhilarating. There is something wrong with the minister who is used up after his Sunday sermons. If his message and not himself is his real concern, he will have only a normal amount of fatigue, accompanied by a general sense of accomplishment and well-being, after he has fed his flock. To be sure, I have never been a minister, but I have had a goodly number among my patients and I speak from a fairly close acquaintance with their problems.

Stopping Our Ears. Roosters seem to be a perpetual source of annoyance to the folk whose thresholds are not under proper control. But as roosters seem to be necessary to an egg-eating nation, it seems simpler to change the threshold than to abolish the roosters. There was one woman who complained especially about being disturbed by early-morning Chanticleers. I explained that the crowing called for no action on her part, and that therefore she should not allow it to come into consciousness. "Do you mean," she said, "that I could keep from hearing them?" As it happened, she was sitting under the clock, which had just struck seven. "Did you hear the clock strike?" I asked. "No," she said; "did it strike?"

This poor little woman, who suffered from a very painful back and other distressing symptoms, had been married at sixteen to a roue of forty; and, without experiencing any of the psychic feelings of sex, had been immediately plunged into the physical sex-relations. Since sex is psycho-physical and since any attempt to separate the two elements is both desecrating and unsatisfactory; it is not surprising that misery, and finally divorce, had been her portion. Another equally unpleasant experience had followed, and the poor woman in the strain and disappointment of her love-life, and in the lowering of the thresholds pertaining to this thwarted instinct, had unconsciously lowered the thresholds to all physical stimuli, until she was no longer master of herself in any line. When she saw the reason for her exaggerated reactions, she was able to gain control of herself, and to find outlet in other ways.

Too many persons fall into the way of being disturbed by noises which are no concern of theirs. As nurses learn to sleep through all sounds but the call of their own patients, so any one may learn to ignore all sounds but those which he needs to hear. Connection with the outside world can be severed by a mental attitude in much the same way as this is accomplished by the physical effect of an anaesthetic. Then the usual noises, those which the subconscious recognizes as without significance, will be without power to disturb. The well-known New York publisher who spent his last days on his private yacht, on which everything was rubber-heeled and velvet-cushioned, thought that he couldn't stand noises; but how much more fun he would have had, if some one had only told him about thresholds!

SUMMARY

There are two kinds of people in the world,—masters and puppets. There is the man in control of his thresholds, at leisure from himself and master of circumstance, free to use his energy in fruitful ways; and there is the over-sensitive soul, wondering where the barometer stands and whether people are going to be quiet, feeling his feelings and worrying because no one else feels them, forever wasting his energy in exaggerated reactions to normal situations.

This "ticklish" person is not better equipped than his neighbor, but more poorly equipped. True adjustment to the environment requires the faculty of putting out from consciousness all stimuli that do not require conscious attention. The nervous person is lacking in this faculty, but he usually fails to realize that this lack places him in the class of defectives. A paralyzed man is a cripple because he cannot run with the crowd; a nervous individual is a cripple, but only because he thinks that to run with the crowd lacks distinction. Something depends on the accident of birth, but far more depends on his own choice. Understanding, judicious neglect of symptoms, whole-souled absorption in other interests, and a good look in the mirror, are sure to put him back in the running with a wholesome delight in being once more "like folks."



CHAPTER XV

In which we learn discrimination

CHOOSING OUR EMOTIONS

LIKING THE TASTE

It was a summer evening by the seaside, and a group of us were sitting on the porch, having a sort of heart-to-heart talk about psychology,—which means, of course, that we were talking about ourselves. One by one the different members of the family spoke out the questions that had been troubling them, or brought up their various problems of character or of health. At length a splendid Red Cross nurse who had won medals for distinguished service in the early days of the war, broke out with the question: "Doctor, how can I get rid of my terrible temper? Sometimes it is very bad, and always it has been one of the trials of my life." She spoke earnestly and sincerely, but this was my answer: "You like your temper. Something in you enjoys it, else you would give it up." Her face was a study in astonishment. "I don't like it," she stammered; "always after I have had an outburst of anger I am in the depths of remorse. Many a time I have cried my eyes out over this very thing." "And you like that, too," I answered. "You are having an emotional spree, indulging yourself first in one kind of emotion and then in another. If you really hated it as much as you say you do, you would never allow yourself the indulgence, much less speak of it afterward." Her astonishment was still further increased when several of the group said they, too, had sensed her satisfaction with her moods.

Hard as it is to believe, we do choose our emotions. We like emotion as we do salt in our food, and too often we choose it because something in us likes the savor, and not because it leads to the character or the conduct that we know to be good.

THE POWER OF CHOICE

Whether we believe it or not, and whether we like it or not, the fact remains that we ourselves decide which of all the possible emotions we shall choose, or we decide not to press the button for any emotion at all.

To a very large extent man, if he knows how and really wishes, may select the emotion which is suitable in that it leads to the right conduct, has a beneficial effect on the body, adapts him to his social environment, and makes him the kind of man he wants to be.

The Test of Feeling. The psychologist to-day has a sure test of character. He says in substance: "Tell me what you feel and I will tell you what you are. Tell me what things you love, what things you fear, and what makes you angry and I will describe with a fair degree of accuracy your character, your conduct, and a good deal about the state of your physical health."

Since this test of emotion is fundamentally sound, it is not surprising that the nervous man is in a state of distress. Indigestion, fatigue, over-sensibility, sound like problems in physiology, but we cannot go far in the discussion of any of them without coming face to face with the emotions as the real factors in the case. When we turn to the mental characteristics of nervous folk, we even more quickly find ourselves in the midst of an emotional disturbance. Worried, fearful, anxious, self-pitying, excitable, or melancholy, the nervous person proves that whatever else a neurosis may be, it is, in essence, a riot of the emotions.

There is small wonder that a riot at the heart of the empire should lead to insurrection in every province of the personality. It is only for the purpose of discussion that we can separate feeling from thinking and doing. Every thought and every act has in it something of all three elements. An emotion is not an isolated phenomenon; it is bound up on the one hand with ideas and on the other with bodily states and conduct. Whoever runs amuck in his emotions runs amuck in his whole being. The nervous invalid with his exhausted and sensitive body, his upset mind and irrational conduct is a living illustration of the central place of the emotions in the realm of the personality.

But it is not the nervous person only who needs a better understanding of his emotional life. The well man also gets angry for childish reasons; he is prejudiced and envious, unhappy and suspicious for the very same reason as is the nervous man. Since the working-capital of energy is limited to a definite amount, the control of the emotions becomes a central problem in any life,—a deciding factor in the output and the outcome, as well as in comfort and happiness by the way.

Nothing is harder for the average man to believe than this fact that he really has the power to choose his emotions. He has been dissatisfied with himself in his past reactions, and yet he has not known how to change them. His anger or his depression has appeared so undesirable to his best judgment and to his conscious reason that it has seemed to be not a part of himself at all but an invasion from without which has swept over him without his consent and quite beyond control.

A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF

Most of the confusion comes from the fact that we know only a part of ourselves. What we do not consciously enjoy we believe we do not enjoy at all. What we do not consciously choose we believe to be beyond our power of choice,—the work of the evil one, or the natural depravity of human nature, perhaps; but certainly not anything of our choosing.

The point is that a human being is so constituted that he can, without knowing it, entertain at the same time two diametrically opposite desires. The average person is not so unified as he believes, but is, in fact, "a house divided against itself."

The words of the apostle Paul express for most of us the truth about ourselves: "For what I would, that I do not; but what I hate that I do." What Paul calls the law of his members warring against the law of his mind is simply what we call to-day the instinctive desires coming into conflict with our conscious ideal.

Hidden Desires. Although we choose our emotions, we choose in many cases in response to a buried part of ourselves of which we are wholly unaware, or only half-aware. When we do not like what we have chosen, it is because the conscious part of us is out of harmony with another part and that part is doing the choosing. If the emotions which we choose are not those that the whole of us—or at least the conscious—would desire, it is because we are choosing in response to hidden desires, and giving satisfaction to cravings which we have not recognized. Repeated indulgence of such desires is responsible for the emotional habits which we are too likely to consider an inevitable part of our personality, inherited from ancestors who are not on hand to defend themselves. When we form the habit of being afraid of things that other people do not fear, or of being irritated or depressed, or of giving way to fits of temper, it is because these habit-reactions satisfy the inner cravings that in the circumstances can get satisfaction in no better way.

These hidden desires are of several different kinds, when squarely looked at. Some of the cravings are found to be childish, and so out of keeping with our real characters that we could not possibly hold on to them as conscious desires. Others turn out to be so natural and so inevitable that we wonder how we could ever have imagined that they ought to be repressed. Still others, legitimate in themselves, but denied because of outer circumstances, are found to be easily satisfied in indirect ways which bear no resemblance to their old unfortunate forms of outlet.

WHEN KNOWLEDGE HELPS

The way to get rid of an undesirable emotion is not by working at the emotion itself, but by realizing that this is merely an offshoot of a deeper root, hidden below the surface. The great point is to recognize this deeper root.

Childish Anger. It helps to know that uncalled-for anger is a defense reaction—a sort of camouflage or smoke cloud which we throw out to hide from ourselves and others the fact that we are being worsted in an argument, or being shown up in an undesirable light. Better than any amount of weeping over a hot temper is an understanding of the fact that when we fly into unseemly rage we are usually giving indulgence to a childhood desire to run away from unpleasant facts and to cover up our own faults.

Enjoying the Blues. It helps to know that the easiest way to fight the blues is by realizing that they are a deliberate, if unconscious, attempt to gain the pity of ourselves and others. There seems to be in undeveloped human nature something that really enjoys being pitied, and if we cannot get the commiseration of other people, we can, without much trouble, work up a case of self-pity. Most of us would have to acknowledge that we seldom find tears in our eyes except when our own woes are under consideration. "Whatever else the blues accomplish, they certainly afford us a chance to submerge ourselves in a sea of self-engrossment."[63]

[Footnote 63: Putnam: Human Motives.]

The Chip on the Shoulder. It helps to know that irritability and over-sensitiveness are usually the result of tension from unsatisfied desires which must find some kind of outlet. If a person is secretly restive under the fact that he cannot have the kind of clothes he wants, cannot shine in society, or secure a college education or a large fortune,—all of which minister to our insistent and rarely satisfied instinct of self-assertion,—or if he is secretly yearning for the satisfaction of the marriage relation, or for the sense of completion in parenthood; then the tension from these unsatisfied desires shows itself in a hundred little everyday instances of lack of self-control. These mystify him and his friends, but they are understandable when the whole truth is known.

Anxiety and Fear. Nowhere is understanding more valuable than when we approach the subject of anxiety and fear. Whenever a person falls into a state of abnormal fear, his friends and his physician spend a good deal of time in attempting to prove to him that there is no cause for apprehension, and in exhorting him to use his reason and give up his fear. But how can a person help himself when he is fighting in the dark? How can he free himself when the thing he thinks he fears is merely a symbol of what he really fears? The woman who was afraid she would choke her child had been several months in the hands of Christian Scientists, and had earnestly tried to replace fear with courage. But in the circumstances, and without further knowledge, this was as impossible as it is for a man to lift himself by his own boot-straps. She had no point of contact with her real fear, as the man has no leverage contact with the earth from which he wishes to lift himself.

To be sure there are many cases in which an assumed cheerfulness and courage do have a mighty effect on the inner man. The forces of the personality are not set, but plastic, and are constantly acting and interacting upon one another. Surface habits do influence the forces below the surface. William James's advice, "Square your shoulders, speak in a major key, smile, and turn a compliment," is good for most occasions, but sometimes even a little understanding of the cause is far more effective.

It helps to know that persistent anxiety, lacking obvious cause, is found to be the anxiety of the thwarted instinct of reproduction. When the sex-instinct is repeatedly stimulated and then checked it sets in motion some of the same glands that are activated in fear. What comes up into consciousness is therefore very naturally a fear or dread of impending disaster, very like the poignant anxiety that one feels when stepping up in the dark to a step that is not there.

Simultaneous with the fear lest these repressed desires should not be satisfied, there is an intense fear lest they should. The more insistent the repressed desire, and the more it seems likely to break through into consciousness, the keener the anguish of the ethical impulses. Abnormal fear, however it may seem to be externalized, always implies at the bottom a fear of something within. There is no truth which is harder to believe on first hearing but which grows more compelling with further knowledge, than this truth that an exaggerated fear always implies a desire which somehow offends the total personality. When we observe the various distressing phobias, such as the common fear of contamination, a woman's fear to undress at night, a fear that the gas was not turned off, or that one's clothing is out of order; fear lest the exact truth has not been told, or that the uttermost farthing of one's obligations has not been met,—then we may know that there is something in the fear situation which either directly or symbolically refers to some hidden desire; a desire which the individual would not for the world acknowledge to himself, but which is too keen to be altogether repressed.

The close connection between fear and desire is often shown in the unfounded fear of having committed a crime. Both doctors and lawyers in their professional work occasionally come upon individuals who believe that they have committed some heinous crime of which they are really innocent, and who insist upon their guilt despite all evidence to the contrary. A quiet, gentle youth who at the age of twenty was under my medical care, is still not sure in his own whether he, at twelve years of age, was the burglar who broke into the village store and killed the owner. It is difficult for the normally self-satisfied individual to understand the appeal of heroics to a person whose starved instinct of self-assertion makes him choose to be known as a villain rather than not to be known at all.

Breaking the Spell. When once we bring up into consciousness these hidden desires that manifest themselves in such troublesome ways, we find that we have robbed them of much of their power over our lives. Sometimes, it is true, a detailed and thorough exploration by psycho-analysis is necessary, but in many cases it is sufficient just to know that there are underlying causes. To know these things is far from excusing ourselves because of them. Even though emotions are determined by forces that are deep in the subconscious, we may still choose in opposition to those forces, if we but know that we can do so. The fact that some of the roots of our bad habits reach down into the subconscious is no excuse for not digging them up. As Dr. Putnam says, "It is the whole of us that acts, and we are as responsible for the supervision of the unseen as for the obvious factors that are at work. The moon may be only half illumined and half visible, but the invisible half goes on, none the less, exerting its full share of influence on the motion of the tides and earth."[64]

[Footnote 64: Putnam: Freud's Psychoanalytic Method and Its Evolution, p. 34.]

THE HIGHEST KIND OF CHOICE

There is no easier way to enliven any conversation than by dropping the remark that a human being always does what he wants to do. Simple as the statement seems, it is quite enough to quicken the dullest table-talk and loosen the most reticent tongue.

"I don't do what I want to do," says the college student. "I want to play tennis every afternoon; but what I do is to sit in a stuffy room and study."

"I don't do what I want to do," says the mother of a family. "At night I want to sit down and read the latest magazine, but what I do is to darn stockings by the hour."

Nevertheless we shall see that, even in cases like these, each of us is acting in accordance with his strongest desire. There may be—there often is—a bitter conflict, but in the end the desire that is really stronger always conquers and works itself out into action.

It is possible to imagine a situation in which a man would be physically unable to do what he wanted to do. Bound by physical cords, held by prison walls, or weakened by illness, he might be actually unable to carry out his desires. But apart from physical restraint, it is hard to imagine a situation in real life in which a person does not actually do what he wants to do; that is, what in the circumstances he wants to do. This is simply saying in another way that we act in accordance with the emotion which is at the moment strongest.

Will Is Choice. Just here we can imagine an earnest protest: "But why do you ignore the human will? Why do you try to make man the creature of feeling? A high-grade man does—not what he wants to do but what he thinks he ought to do. In any person worthy of the adjective 'civilized' it is conscience, not desire, which is the motive power of his life."

It is true: in the better kind of man the will is of central importance; but what is "will"? Let us imagine a raw soldier in the trenches just before a charge into No-Man's Land. He is afraid, but the word of command comes, and instantly he is a new creature. His fear drops away and, energized by the lust of battle, he rushes forward, obviously driven by the stronger emotion. He goes ahead because he really wants to, and we say that he does not have to use his will.

Imagine another soldier in the same situation; with him fear seems uppermost. His knees shake and his legs want to carry him in the wrong direction, but he still goes forward. And he goes forward, not so much because there is no other possibility as because, in the circumstances, he really wants to. All his life, and especially during his military training, he has been filled with ideals of loyalty and courage. More than he fears the guns of the enemy or of his firing-squad does he fear the loss of his own self-respect and the respect of his comrades. Greater than his "will to live" is his desire to play the man. There is conflict, and the desire which seems at the moment weaker is given the victory because it is reinforced by that other permanent desire to be a worthy man, brave, and dependable in a crisis. He goes forward, because in the circumstances, he really wants to, but in this case we say that he had to use his will.

Is it not apparent that will itself is choice,—the selection by the whole personality of the emotion and the action which best fit into its ideals? Will is choice by the part of us which has ideals. McDougall points out that will is the reinforcement of the weaker desire by the master desire to be a certain kind of a character.[65]

[Footnote 65: "The essential mark of volition is that the personality as a whole, or the central feature or nucleus of the personality, the man himself, is thrown upon the side of the weaker motive."—McDougall: Introduction to Social Psychology, p. 240.]

Each human being as he goes through life acquires a number of moral ideals and sentiments which he adopts as his own. They become linked with the instinct of self-assertion, which henceforth acts as the motive power behind them, and attempts to drive from the field any emotion which happens to conflict.

Men, like the lower animals, are ruled by desire, but, as G.A. Coe says, "Men mold themselves. They form desires not merely to have this or that object, but to be this or that kind of a man."[66]

[Footnote 66: Coe: Psychology of Religion.]

If a man be worthy of the name, he is not swayed by the emotion which happens for the moment to be strongest. He has the power to reinforce and make dominant those impulses which fit into the ideal he has built for himself. In other words, he has the power to choose between his desires, and this power depends largely upon the ideals which he has incorporated into his life by the complexes and sentiments which compose his personality.

Ideas and Ideals. If emotion is the heart of humanity, ideas are its head. In our emphasis on emotion, we must not forget that as emotion controls action, so ideas control emotion. But ideas, of themselves, are not enough. Everybody has seen weaklings who were full of pious platitudes. Ideas do control life, but only when linked up with some strong emotion. No moral sentiment is strong enough to withstand an intense instinctive desire. If ideas are to be dynamic factors in a life, they must become ideals and be really desired. They must be backed up by the impulse of self-assertion, incorporated with the sentiment of self-regard, and so made a permanent part of the central personality.

Parents and teachers who try to "break a child's will" and to punish every evidence of independence and self-assertion little know that they are undermining the foundations of morality itself, and doing their utmost to leave the child at the mercy of his chance whims and emotions. There can be no strength of character without self-regard, and self-regard is built on the instinctive desire of self-assertion.

Education and Religion. It is easy to see how important education is in this process of giving the right content to the self-regarding sentiment. The child trained to regard "temper" as a disgrace, self-pity as a vice, over-sensitiveness as a sign of selfishness, and all forms of exaggerated emotionalism as a token of weakness, has acquired a powerful weapon against temptation in later life. Indulgence in any of these forms of gratification he will regard as unworthy and out of keeping with his personality.

It is easy, too, to see how central a place a vital religious faith has in enriching and ennobling the ego-ideal, and in giving it driving-power. A force which makes a high ideal seem both imperative and possible of achievement could hardly fail to be a deciding factor. Every student of human nature knows in how many countless lives the Christian religion has made all the difference between mere good intentions and the power to realize those intentions; how many times it has furnished the motive power which nothing else seemed able to supply. Moral sentiments which have been merely sentiments become, through the magic of a new faith, incorporated into conscience and endowed with new power.

Just here lies the value of any great love, or any intense devotion to a cause. As Royce says: "To have a conscience, then, is to have a cause; to unify your life by means of an ideal determined by this cause, and to compare this ideal and the life."[67]

[Footnote 67: Royce: Philosophy of Loyalty, p. 175.]

Avoiding the Strain. It seems that a human being is to a large extent controlled by will, and that will is in itself the highest kind of choice. But too often will is crippled because it does not speak for the whole personality. Knowledge helps a person to relate conscience with hitherto hidden parts of himself, to assert his will, and to choose only those emotions and outlets which the connected-up, the unified personality wants. Sometimes, indeed, a little knowledge makes the exercise of the will power unnecessary. Using will power is, after all, likely to be a strenuous business. It implies the presence of conflict, and the strain of defeating the desire which has to be denied.[68] Why struggle to subdue emotional bad habits when a little insight dispels the desire back of them, and makes them melt away as if by magic? For example, why use our will to keep down fear or anger when a little understanding dissipates these emotions without effort?

[Footnote 68: Freud: Introduction to Psychoanalysis, p. 42.]

Whatever we do with difficulty we are not doing well. When it requires effort to do our duty this means that a great part of us does not want to do it. When we get rid of our hidden resistances we work with ease. As a strong wind, applied in the right way, drives the ship without effort, just so the forces in our lives, if they are adjusted to one another, will without strain or stress easily and naturally work together to carry us in the direction we have chosen. When we get rid of blind conflicts, even the business of ruling our spirits becomes feasible.

SUMMARY

Various "Sprees." The human animal has a constitutional dislike for dullness and will seize upon almost any device which promises to lift him out of what he considers the monotony of daily grind. An elaborate essay might be written on the means which human beings have taken to create the sense of aliveness which they so much crave. Some of them—we call them savages—have found satisfactory certain wild orgies in primitive war-dances; others—we shall soon call them "out of date"—have found simpler a bottle of whisky or a glass of champagne; still others find a cold shower more invigorating, or a brisk walk or a good stiff job which sets them aglow with the sense of accomplishment. But there are always those who, for one reason or another, find most satisfactory of all a chronic emotional tippling, or a good old-fashioned emotional spree. Persons who would be shocked at the idea of whisky or champagne allow themselves this other kind of indulgence without in the least knowing why.

Nor is the connection between alcoholism and emotionalism so far-fetched as it seems. Psycho-analytic investigations have repeatedly revealed the fact that both are indulged in because they remove inhibitions, give vent to repressed desires, and bring a sense of life and power which has somehow been lost in the normal living. Both kinds of spree are followed by the inevitable "morning after" with its proverbial headache, remorse, and vows of repentance but despite all this, both are clung to because the satisfaction they bring is too deep to be easily relinquished.

Whenever an emotion quite out of keeping with conscious desire is allowed to become habitual, we may know that it is being chosen by a part of the personality which needs to be uncovered and squarely faced. Nervous symptoms and exaggerated emotionalism are alike evidence of the fact that the wrong part of us is doing the choosing and that the will needs to be enlightened on what is taking place in the outer edge of its domain. In the choice between emotionalism and equanimity, the selection of the former can only be in response to unrecognized desire.

A nervous person is invariably an emotional person, and as a rule lays the blame for his condition upon past experiences. But experience is what happens to us plus the way we take it. We cannot always ward off the blow, but we can decide upon our reaction. "Even if the conduct of others has been the cause of our emotion, it is really we ourselves who have created it by the way in which we have reacted."[69]

[Footnote 69: DuBois: Psychic Treatment of Nervous Disorders, p. 155.]

One ship drives east, another drives west, While the self-same breezes blow; 'Tis the set of the sail, and not the gale That bids them where to go. Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate, As we journey along through life; 'Tis the set of the soul that decides the goal, And not the calm or the strife. REBECCA R. WILLIAMS.



CHAPTER XVI

In which we find new use for our steam

FINDING VENT IN SUBLIMATION

THE RE-DIRECTION OF ENERGY

A child pent up on a rainy day is a troublesome child. His energy keeps piling up, but there is no opportunity for him to expend it. The nervous person is just such a pent-up child. A portion of his personality is developing steam which goes astray in its search for vent; this portion is found to be the psychic side of his sex-life. Something has blocked the satisfactory achievement of instinctive ends and turned his interest in on himself.

Perhaps he does not come into complete psychic satisfaction of his love-life because his wife is out of sympathy or is held back by her own childish repressions. Perhaps his love-instinct is baffled by finding itself thwarted in its purpose of creating children, restrained by the social ban and the desire for a luxurious standard of living. Perhaps he is jealous of his chief, or of an older relative whose business stride he cannot equal.

Jung has pointed out how frequently introversion or turning in of the life-force is brought about by the painfulness of present reality and by the lack of the power of adaptation to things as they are. But this lack always has its roots in childhood. The woman who is shocked at the thought of sex is the little girl who reacted too strongly to early impressions. The man of forty who is disgruntled because he is not made manager of a business created by others is the little boy who was jealous of his father and wanted to usurp his place of power. The man who suffers from a sense of inferiority because his friend has a handsomer or more intellectual wife is the same little boy who strove with his father for possession of the mother, the most desired object in his childish environment. The measure of escape from these childish attitudes means the measure of success in life.

Fortunately for society, the average person achieves this success. The normal person in his childhood learned how to switch the energy of his primitive desires into channels approved by society. Stored away in his subconscious, this acquired faculty carries him without conscious effort through all the necessary adjustments in maturity. The nervous person, less well equipped in childhood, may fortunately acquire the faculty in all its completeness, although at the cost of genuine effort and patient self-study.

Sublimation the Key Word. In the prevention and in the cure of nervous disorders there is one factor of central importance, and that factor is sublimation—or the freeing of sex-energy for socially useful, non-sexual ends. To sublimate is to find vent for oneself and to serve society as well; for sublimation opens up new channels for pent-up energy, utilizing all the surplus of the sex-instinct in substitute activities. When the dynamic of this impulse is turned outward, not inward, it proves to be one of man's greatest possessions, a valuable contribution of energy to creative activities and personal relationships of every kind.

The Failure to Sublimate. A neurosis is nonconstructive use of one's surplus steam. The trouble with a nervous person is that his love-force is turned in on himself instead of out into the world of reality. This is what his friends mean when they say that he is self-absorbed; and this is what the psychologists mean when they say that a neurotic is introverted. A person, in so far as he is nervous, does not see other people at all—that is, he does not see them as real persons, but only as auditors who may be made to listen to the tale of his woes. His own problems loom so large that he becomes especially afflicted with what Cabot calls "the sin of impersonality"; or to use President King's words, he lacks that "reverence for personality" which enables one to see people vividly as real persons and not as street-car conductors or servants or merely as members of one's family. To be sure, many a so-called normal individual is afflicted with this same kind of blindness; here as elsewhere the neurotic simply exaggerates. Engrossed in his own mental conflicts and physical symptoms, he is likely to find his interest withdrawing more and more from other people and centering upon himself.

Sublimation and Religion. We do not need psychology to tell us that engrossment in self is a disastrous condition. When the psycho-analyst says that the life-force must be turned out, not in, he is approaching from a new angle the truth as it is found in the gospel,—"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart," and "thy neighbor as thyself." Religion provides the love-object in the Creator; altruism provides it in the "neighbor." Christianity and psychology agree that as soon as love ceases to be an outgoing force, just so soon does the individual become an incomplete and disrupted personality.[70]

[Footnote 70: For emphasis on religion as a means to sublimation, see Freud, Putnam, Pfister, James, and DuBois.]

Carlyle's Doctrine of Work. "Produce! produce! produce!" Life for a social being involves not only rich personal relationships, but absorbing, creative work. No nervous person is cured until he is willing to take and to keep a "man-size job." A good piece of work is not only the sign of a cure; it is the final step without which no cure is complete.

Along Nature's Lines. If the psychologist is asked what kind of task this is to be, he answers that each person must decide for himself his own life-work. An individual may not know why, but he does know that there are certain things which he most likes to do. Sublimation is more readily accomplished if his energy is directed toward self-chosen interests. Parents or teachers or physicians who try to force another person into any definite plan of action are making a grievous blunder. Help may be given toward self-knowledge and the understanding of general principles, but advice should never be specific.

Taken in the large, it is found that men and women choose different ways of sublimation. Man and woman differ in the psychic components of the sex-life even as they differ in the physical. Sublimation to be successful must follow the lines laid down by nature. The urge of the average man is toward construction, domination, mastery. The urge of the average woman is toward mothering, protection, nurture. The masculine characteristics find ready sublimation in a career; the man builds bridges, digs canals, harnesses mountain streams, conquers pests, overcomes gravity, brings the ends of the earth together by "wireless" or by rail; he provides for the weak and the helpless—his own progeny—or, incarnated in the body of a Hoover, he gives life to the children of the world.

In woman, the dominant force is the nurturing instinct. Child and man of her own come first, but when these are lacking, to paraphrase Kipling, in default of closer ties, she is wedded to convictions; Heaven help him who denies! Only as a career opens up full vent for this nurturing instinct, will it provide satisfactory substitute in sublimation. Its natural trend can be seen in the recent tidal wave of social legislation—for prohibition, child-labor laws, sanitation, recognition and control of venereal disease, acknowledgment of paternity to the illegitimate child.

Since the women of the day, in numbers up to the million, have been compelled to sacrifice both man and unformed babe to the grim Juggernaut of war, this nurturing urge may press hard against many of the social and business barriers now impeding its flow. But if society understands and readjusts these barriers, making it possible for its citizens—women as well as men—to approximate the natural instinctive bent, it will not only save itself much unrest but will also go far toward preventing the spread of nervous invalidism.

SUMMARY

That which a nervous invalid most needs is a redirection of energy. Since, in spite of appearances, there is never any real lack of energy, no time is needed for the making of strength, and a cure can take place just as soon as the inner forces allow the energy to flow out in the right direction. Sometimes, indeed, an outer change may start the inner process. Often the "work cure" does cure; occasionally the sudden necessity to earn one's living or to mother a little child frees the life-force from its old preoccupation and forces it into other channels. In most cases, however, the nervous invalid is suffering not from lack of opportunities for outside interest but from an inner inability to meet the opportunities which present themselves. The great change that has to be made is not in external conditions and habits but in the hidden corners of the mind; a change that can be accomplished only by self-knowledge and re-education.

But if self-knowledge is the first step in any cure, so self-giving must be the final step. Sooner or later in the life of every nervous invalid there comes a time when nothing will serve to unify his disorganized forces but steady and unswerving responsibility for a good stiff piece of work. Happy for him that this is so and that he is living in a day when science no longer tells him to fold his hands and wait.



GLOSSARY

Autonomic nervous system: The vegetative nervous system which controls vital functions,—as digestion, respiration, circulation.

Censor: A hypothetical faculty of the fore-conscious mind which resists the emergence into consciousness of questionable desires.

Common path: In physiology, the final route over which response is made to physical stimulation; similarly in psychology, the one outlet for the finally dominant impulse.

Compensation: Exaggerated manifestation of one character-trend as a defense against its opposite which is painfully repressed; relief in substitute symptom formation.

Complex: A group of ideas held together by emotion (usually referring to a group which is wholly or in part unconscious).

Compulsion: A persistent compelling impulse to perform some seemingly unreasonable (but really substitute or symbolic) act, or to hold some irrational fear or idea; an emotional force which has been separated from the original idea.

Conflict: (Special) Struggle between instincts (unconscious).

Conversion: (Special) The process by which a repressed mental complex expresses itself through a physical symptom.

Displacement: 1. Transposition of an emotion from its original idea to one more acceptable to the personality. 2. The shifting of emphasis, in dreams, from essential to less significant elements.

Dissociation: 1. The state of being shut out from taking active part (applied to a group of ideas), as in normal forgetfulness. 2. (Abnormal) An exaggerated degree of separation of groups of ideas, with loss to the personality of the forces or memories which these groups contain, as in double personality.

Fixation: Establishment in childhood of over-strong habit-reactions.

Free Association: A device for uncovering buried complexes by letting the mind wander without conscious direction.

Homo-sexual: The quality of being more attracted by an individual of the same sex (abnormal) than by one of the opposite sex (hetero-sexual, normal).

Hysteria: That form of functional nervous disorder which manifests itself in physical symptoms; an attempt to dramatize unconscious repressed desires.

Inhibition: Restraint (Special) limitation of function, physical or ideational, due to unconscious emotional attitudes.

Libido: Life-force, elan vital, or (restricted) the energy of the sex-instinct.

Neurosis: Used loosely for psycho-neurosis or nervous disorder.

Obsession: A compulsive idea inaccessible to reason.

Oedipus Complex: Over-strong bond between mother and son, or (more loosely) between father and daughter.

Over-determined: Used of an impulse made over-strong by lack of discharge, with accumulation of emotional tension from added factors.

Phobia: A persistent, unreasoning fear of some object or situation.

Psycho-neurosis: "A perversion of normal (psychic) reactions," (Prince); a general term for functional dissociation of the personality, resulting in: psychasthenia—disturbed ideation; neurasthenia—disturbed emotions; hysteria—disturbed motor or sensory activity.

Psychotherapy: Treatment by psychic or mental measures.

Rationalization: The process of substituting a plausible, false explanation for a repressed, unconscious desire.

Repression: Expulsion from consciousness of a pain-provoking mental process.

Resistance: The force which impedes the return of a repressed complex to consciousness.

Subconscious: That part of the mind of which one is unaware; the storehouse of memories ancestral and personal.

Sublimation: The act of freeing sex-energy from definitely sexual aims; utilization of sex-energy for nonsexual ends.

Suggestion: The process by which any idea, true or false, takes hold of one; the idea may enter the mind consciously or unconsciously, through reason or through impulse.

Symbol: An object or an attitude which stands for an ides or a quality; (Special) that which stands for or represents some unconscious mental process.

Threshold (door-sill): A figure which represents the level of the barrier erected by the mind against the perception of an idea or sensation.

Transference: Unconscious identification of a present personal relationship with an earlier one, with conveyance of the earlier emotional attitudes (hostile or affectionate) to the present relationship.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS ON THE GENERAL LAWS OF BODY AND MIND

Cannon, Walter B: Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage.

Crile, George W.: The Origin and Nature of the Emotions.

Coe, George Albert: The Psychology of Religion.

Hudson, Thomas Jay: The Law of Psychic Phenomena.

Janet, Pierre: The Major Symptoms of Hysteria; The Mental State of Hystericals.

James, William: Psychology; Talks to Teachers on Psychology; Varieties of Religious Experience.

Jastrow, Joseph: The Subconscious.

Kempf, Edward J.: The Tonus of Autonomic Segments in Psychopathology.

Long, Constance: Psychology of Fantasy.

McDougall, William: Social Psychology.

Mosher, Clelia Duel: Health and the Woman Movement.

Phillips, D. E.: Elementary Psychology.

Prince, Morton: The Unconscious; The Dissociation of a Personality; My Life as a Dissociated Personality.

Sherrington, Charles L.: The Integrative Action of the Nervous System.

Sidis, Boris: The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology; Psychopathological Researches.

Tansley, A. G.: The New Psychology.

Thomson, William Hanna: Brain and Personality.

White, William A.: Principles of Mental Hygiene; The Mental Hygiene of Childhood.

Proceedings of the International Conference of Women Physicians. (National Board, Y.W.C.A., 600 Lexington Avenue, New York City.)

BOOKS ON MENTAL HYGIENE

Brown, Charles R.: Faith and Health.

Bruce, H. Addington: Scientific Mental Healing.

Cabot, Richard: What Men Live By; Social Service and the Art of Healing.

DuBois, Paul: The Psychic Treatment of Nervous Disorders.

Huckel, Oliver: Mental Medicine.

James, William: Vital Reserves.

Prince, Morton, and others: Psychotherapeutics.

Sadler, William S.: The Physiology of Faith and Fear.

Worcester, Elwood } McComb, Samuel } Religion and Medicine. Coriat, Isador H. }

BOOKS ON PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

Brill, A. A.: Fundamentals of Psychoanalysis.

Emerson, L. E.: Nervousness.

Freud, Sigmund: The Interpretation of Dreams; The Psychopathology of Everyday Life; Wit and the Unconscious; Selected Papers and Sexual Theory; A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis.

Frink, H. W.: Morbid Fears and Compulsions.

Hitschmann, E.: Freud's Theories of the Neuroses.

Holt, E. B.: The Freudian Wish.

Jung, Carl G.: The Psychology of the Unconscious; Analytical Psychology.

Jones, Ernest: Psycho-analysis; Treatment of the Neuroses, Including Psychoneuroses—in Modern Treatment of Nervous and Mental Diseases—White and Jelliffe.

Pfister, Oskar: The Psychoanalytic Method.

Putnam, James Jackson: Addresses on Psychoanalysis—Human Motives.

Tridon, Andre: Psychoanalysis.

White, William A.: The Mechanisms of Character Formation.

JOURNALS DEVOTED TO THE SUBJECT OF NERVOUS DISORDERS

Journal of Abnormal Psychology, published in Boston.

Psychoanalytic Review, published in Washington, D.C.

International Journal of Psychoanalysis, published in London.



INDEX

A

Acid and Milk, 21, 257

Acidosis, 285

Adjustment a neurosis an effort at, 169 to new conditions causes consciousness, 82 of the race, in subconscious, 78 to the social whole, 164, 216, 380

Adolescence, 59

Adrenal Secretion, 42, 48, 133, 229, 270

Alcoholism, relation to unconscious desires, 377

Alvarez, W.D., 284

Ames, Thaddeus Hoyt, 170

Amnesia, 113

Anaemia, buttermilk in, 282

Anger, 47 ff.

Anxiety and Fear, 366, 367, 368

Anxiety Neurosis, 7, 109

Anxious thought in conversion hysteria, 277

Appetite, symbolic loss of, 276

Association accidental, 341 a chain of, 191 free, 101, 191 making new, 329, 330 of ideas, 106 subconscious, 346 word test, 197, 198

Audience, secured in a neurosis, 169

Auto-eroticism, 57

Auto-intoxication, 279, 282

Automatic writing, 96, 97

Autonomic nervous system, 86, 126, 319

Auto-suggestion, 129, 210

B

Bacteria, in anaemia, sciatica, rheumatism, 281

Bashfulness, 46

Bergson, 90

Biliousness, 268

Birth-Theories, 158, 160, 161

Blocking, in word association, 198

Bodily Response to Emotional States, 134

Brain, diseased in insanity, sound in neurosis, 13 fag, 125, 241 records, 89

Bran fad, 291

Breuer, Joseph, 142

Brill, A.A., 58, 69, 201, 202

Bruce, H. Addington, 200, 201

Burrow, Trigant, 173, 203

Buttermilk in anaemia, 282

C

Cabot, Richard, 27, 381

Canfield, Dorothy, 231

Cannon, Walter B., 49, 134

Capitalizing an Illness, 170

Catechism, 247

Cathartics, 283 and acidosis, 286 and bacterial infection, 282 and child birth, 285, 286 and operations, 284

Causes of Nerves, 146, 164

Censor, psychic, 104, 195

Change of life, 314

Character and health, 24, 25, 362

Chemistry, 61, 190, 224, 225, 230, 247, 306, 315, 317, 324

Child, birth-theories of, 158 father to the man, 90 habit-fixation of, 150 love-life, four periods 54, 55 questions, 158 too much bossing of, 154 too much petting of, 57 training, 160

Childhood, bonds too strong, 72 determines future character, 91, 148 experiences, 149 reactions, 148

Choosing our Emotions, 360 a neurosis, 122, 169, 216 our Sensations, 339

Christian religion, 74, 374

Coe, George A., 71, 373

Colon, function of, 279, 280

Common Path, 52

Compensation, 168, 340

Complex, against marriage, 204 and conditioned reflex, 108 and personality, 105 breaking up of, 109, 186 buried, 187, 192, 197, 201, 202, 215 chance signs of, 198 definition, 107 dissociated, 111 emotional, 198, 345 father-mother, 152 feeling-tone of, 130 formation of, 129 forming a resistance, 159 making over, 187, 190 mother-son, 185 physiological, 108 repressed, 112, 157, 190 unconscious, 108

Compromise, 163, 164, 165

Compulsion neuroses, 7, 109, 156

Conditioned reflex, 108

Conduct, kind of, 168, 191, 360

Conflict, 59, 64, 112, 145, 154, 164, 178, 200, 218, 313, 372, 376

Conscience, 164, 173, 177, 196, 376

Consciousness, displaced threshold of, 91 relation to the subconscious, 82 rise of, 82

Constipation, 277 ff. and food, 289, 290 cure of, 294 due to suggestion, 294 purpose of, 288

Conversion-hysteria, 174, 236, 237, 238, 245, 277, 302

Crile, George W., 41, 44

Curiosity, child's concerning sex, 58 displacement over to scientific investigation, 45

D

Day-dreaming, 162, 325, 326

Defence-reaction, 365

Desire energy of, 78 in dreams, 194 in emotional habits, 364 in nervous disorders, 167 instinctive, 38 instinctive and ideals, 363 tensions of, 196

Diarrhoea, bacterial, 281

Dietetics, essence of, 254

Digestion, 86, 133, 250, 251

Disease, of the ego, 15 physical, 12, 13, 28 psychic, 12, 13, 14, 28

Disorders, functional and organic, 13

Displacement, 109, 110, 165, 174

Dissociation, 111 abnormal, 189 an example of, 92, 347 in hypnosis, 123 in hysteria, 111, 123 in neurasthenia, 111 increases suggestibility, 122 normal, 111 of a "Personality," 113 of memory picture of walking, 125 of power of sight, 170

Dreams, 193 ff. Freud's dictum, 193 latent content, 195 manifest content, 195 purpose of, 195 work of, 196

DuBois, Paul, 4, 127, 246, 327, 382

E

Education, 202, 218 in Emotional Control, 374

Emotion, 35, 360 ff. and complexes, 108 and fatigue, 229, 247 and instincts, 40 ff. and muscle tone, 137 blood-pressure in, 136 bodily response to, 133 feeling tones in, 130 precocious, 150 repressed (see repression) secretions in, 132 the strongest cement, 107 tonic and poisonous, 131 unrecognized desire in, 364

Energy, adaptable, 67 creative, 34, 69, 71 inhibited, 235 libido, 36, 252 misdirected, 28, 379 new level of, 221 physiological reserve, 117 redirection of, 385 releasers of, 245 three uses of, 23 utilization of, 68, 165

"Energies of Men", 221

Environment, 33, 96, 149, 334

Evolution, 73

Exhaustion, nervous, 216, 224, 243, 246

Explanation vs Suggestion, 206 ff.

F

Fads-dynamogenic, 252

Faith, 118

Family complex, 153

Fatigue, 219 ff. a Matter of Chemistry, 225 and insomnia, 326, 327 and moral tension, 166 and sex-repression, 235, 244 true and false, 223

Fear, 40 ff. exaggerated, 368 externalized, 368 of cold, 348 of fatigue, 219, 354 of food, 133, 251 of heat, 237 of noise, 355 physical effects of, 41 purpose of, 41 symbolic of desire, 368

Feeling our Feelings, 333 ff.

Feeling-tones, 130, 206, 213, 229

Fermentation, 264

Finding New Vents, 379

Fixation of Habits, 150, 151, 162

Flat-foot, 138

Food, 254 ff. and constipation, 289, 290 for the children, 256 idiosyncrasies, 258 mixtures, 255 variety essential, 255

Foreconscious, 79

Free Association, 101, 191, 195

Freud, Sigmund, 69, 74, 83, 84, 104, 142, 149, 153, 163, 185, 188, 193, 210, 342, 376, 382

Freudian principles, 143, 144, 147 misconceptions concerning, 184, 185

Frink, H.W., 89, 107, 158, 162, 171, 195, 218

G

Gall-stones, 269

Gas on the stomach, 264

Gastric juice, 86, 134

Gastritis, 266

Genius, 116

Girard-Mangin, Dr., 231

Goitre, 239

H

Habit, defined, 150 dissociation, 189 dreaming, 162 fixation of, 150, 152 of insomnia, 322 of loving, 150, 164 of rebelling, 150, 164 of repressing normal instincts, 151 reactions, 364

Heredity, 148

Hidden desires, 363, 368

Hinkle, Bertha M., 154

Holt, E.B., 213

Homosexuality, 184

Hoover, Herbert A., 384

Hormone, 305, 319

Hudson, J.W., 91, 95

Hydrochloric Acid, 267

Hygiene, laws of, 127 moral, 206

Hygienic conditions, 222, 230

Hypersensitiveness, 342

Hypnosis, 84 ff. aid to diagnosis, 187 its drawbacks, 188 suggestibility in, 189

Hysteria, 7, 111

Hysterical pains, 353

Hysterical pregnancy, (case), 127

I

Ideas, and emotions, 23 ascetic, 253 contagion of, 120 dynamogenic, 253 not surgical, 262

Idiosyncrasies, physical, 258

Identification, 110

Imagination, 162

Incantation, 211

Indigestion; 211, 250

Inferiority complex, 340, 380

Inhibition, 188, 245, 293, 306, 330, 377

Insomnia, 322 ff.

Instincts and their Emotions, 33 ff., 51 ff.

Instincts, beneficent, 85 energy releasers, 233 race-inheritance, 85 repressed, 28, 103, 147, 169, 172 sex (see under sex) thwarted, 235, 244, 340, 356, 367, 379

Internal Secretion, of ovary, 316, 317 (see Adrenal) (see Thyroid)

Introspection, 26

Introversion, 380, 381

J

James, William, 49, 221, 227, 243, 253, 347, 382

Janet, Pierre, 188

Jealousy, 154, 380

Jelliffe, Smith Ely, 98, 114, 153, 163

Jones, Ernest, 69

Judicious neglect, 127

Jung, C.G., 8, 64, 69, 163, 197, 380

K

Kempf, Edward J., 86

Kinaesthetic sensations, 336

L

Latency period, 60

Libido, 36, 147, 252

Liver trouble, 268

M

Masturbation, 184

McDougall, Wm., 49, 122, 372

Memories, 84 ff.

Menopause, 314

Menstruation, 306

Mind (see Consciousness and Subconscious)

Misconceptions, about the body, 21, 22 about theory of sex, 184

Mixtures, fear of, 257

Monogamy, 63

Moral hygiene, 206

Mosher, Clelia Duel, 308

Muscle-tone, 137, 244

Myth, 146

N

Narcissus, 55, 152, 340

Nausea, 101, 177, 275 of pregnancy, 319

Nerves, attitude toward, 3 causes of, 28, 148 drama of, 10, 29 medical schools and, 16 not physical, 14 prevention of, 385

Neurasthenia, 111, 246

Neuritis, 14, 244

Neurosis, a compromise, 167 a confidence game, 179 a failure of sublimation, 381 a flight from reality, 170 an ethical struggle, 177 an introversion, 381 and shell-shock, 147 and suggestion, 129 anxiety, 7, 109 awkwardness of, 213 compulsion, 109 caused by buried complexes, 108, 190 definition 112 origin in childhood, 149, 157, 217 purpose of, 167 root-complex of, 153

O

Obsession, 7, 204

Oedipus Complex, 154

Organic trouble, 11, 12, 251

Ouija Board, 97

Over-awareness, 352

Over-compensation, 67

Over-determined, 148

P

Pain, at base of the brain, 351 chronic hysterical, 341 menstrual, 306

Personality, alterations of, 7, 15, 20 and emotions, 362, 369 and will, 372 choice by, 216 complexes and, 107 disrupted, 382 multiple, 111, 131 nervousness a disorder of, 15 reverence for, 383 unified, 375

Persuasion, 206

Pfister, Oskar, 153, 166, 382

Phantasy, 153, 163

Phobia, 7, 368

Plagiarism, 98

Popular Misconceptions, 21

Prince, Morton, 79, 84, 89, 95, 97, 112, 132, 188, 347

Psycho-analysis, 189 ff.

Psychological explanation, 208

Psychology, 25, 27, 94

Psycho-neurosis, 144, 147, 163, 169 (see also neurosis)

Psycho-therapy, 74, 187, 216

Ptosis, 139, 251

Putnam, James J., 3, 34, 69, 215, 366, 370, 382

R

Race-memories, 84

Rationalization, 90, 155, 168, 317

Reaction and over-reaction, 149, 198, 202, 238, 335

Reality, flight from, 164, 379

Re-education, 183 ff.

Reflex, conditioned, 108 physiological, 349

Regression to infantile state, 163, 164 case of, 92

Religion, 74, 89, 374, 382

Reminiscences, hysteric suffers from, 7

Repression, 104, 156, 160, 162, 235, 245, 304

Resistance, 160, 188, 192, 202, 211

Rest-cure, 246

Rheumatism, buttermilk treatment of, 282

Rixford, Emmet L., 283

Royce, Josiah, 375

S

Sadler, Wm., 126, 136

School, four grade, 54

Second wind, 221

Self-abuse, 184, 238

Self-pity, 365

Self-regard, 45, 103, 157, 374

Sensations, lowered threshold to, 333 ff.

Sensitiveness, 333, 340

Sex, and artistic creation, 379 and "Nerves," 141 ff. glands, secretion of, 305, 314, 316 instinct organically aroused, 65 instinct thwarted, 161, 367, 379 instruction, 160 license, 184 life, 143, 146, 157 perversion, 152 phantasy, 163 psychic component of, 185, 356, 379, 383 repressed, 104 sublimation of, 233, 379

Shell-shock, (see foreword) also 145, 147

Sherrington, Chas., 39

Sick-headache, 270

Sidis, Boris, 24, 84, 188, 222, 337, 341

Slips of tongue, etc., 199

Slogan, of psychoanalytic school, 215 woman's, 314

Social code, 184

Soda, misuse of, 266

"Sour-stomach," 260, 266

Sprees, 376

Stammering, 200

Standard, double, 66 single, 62

Stomach, 133 and conversion hysteria, 250 ff. fads, 252 gas on, 252

Subconscious mind, 77 ff. amenable to control by suggestion, emotion, 119 functions of, 85, 335, 337 habits of, 105, 259 physical expression of, 245 playing confidence game, 311 store-house of memories, 84, 89 tireless, 325

Sublimation, 379 ff. a synthesis, 164 and religion, 74, 382 definition (Freud), 69, 70 failure of, 71, 147, 381 in a career, 385 in artistic creation, 68 natural trends of, 383 of energy, 178, 238, 309

Success, measure of, 380

Sugar in urine, 133

Suggestion, a method of psychotherapy, 208 constipation the result of, 289, 298 definition, 121 false, 302 in child training, 121 in hypnosis, 99, 188 in sleep, 99 inconvenient forms of, 296 power of, 45 unhealthy, 310

Suggestibility, 122, 189, 206

Superman, 339

Symbolism, 171, 176, 275, 342

Symptoms, purpose of, 168

T

Taboos, dietary, 250 ff. interest in, 289

Tensions, psychic, 69, 85, 353, 366

Thresholds, psychic, 337 ff.

Thyroid secretion, 42, 133, 185, 270

Transference, 109, 193, 264

Trotter, W., 46

U

Unconscious, (see subconscious)

V

Venereal disease, 304, 317

Vitamins, 255

W

White, Wm. A., 69, 82, 83, 98

Will, 371

Williams, Tom A., 21, 213

Wish fulfilment, 171, 194, 200, 214

Word-association test, 197

Work-cure, 385



ILLUSTRATIONS FROM CASES

A

Adolescence and depression, 312, 313

Anger and circulation, 136

Angina pectoris, false, 129

Anxiety-neurosis, 175

B

Bearing children, 318

Brain fag, 241

Bran crackers and prunes, 258

C

Cathartics, abuse of, 284

Childhood sex-reactions, 203

Constipation and lacerations in labor, 296

Constipation and Mineral Oil, 295

Constipation, recovery from, (some cases), 294

Contamination, fear of, 159

Conversion of moral distress to physical, 348

D

Danger-signals and the railroad man, 344

Dissociated state, memories in, 92

E

Emotion and sick-headache, 273

"Enjoying" poor health, 213, 345

"Exhaustion," 243

Eye-strain, twenty-five years, 274

F

Fatigue, 228, 234, (two cases), 239

Fatigue and emotion, (three cases), 354

Fear, 237, of heat, 237

Fear of air, 348, 349

Fear of cold, (three cases), 348, 349

Fear of light, (two cases), 350

Fear complicating labor, 320

"Flat-foot," 137

Forgetting and repressed wish, 200

Free-love, chemical cause of, 317

G

Gall-stones, 269

I

Idiosyncrasy for eggs, 212

Insomnia and attention, 329

Insomnia and point of view, 328

Insomnia and wrong associations, 330

Insomnia, chronic, 328

L

Library, child fear of, 100

Locomotor Ataxia, exaggeration of symptoms, 128

M

Menstrual pain, unnecessary, 220

Muscle-tumors, phantom, 127, 128

N

Nausea, in sex-repression, 101, 177

Nervous indigestion, 211

"Neuritis," 174, false, 244

Noise, fear of, 355

O

Obsession against marriage, 204

P

Paralysis, fear of, 345, 346

Physical illness mistaken for functional, 252

Plagiarism, 98

R

Recovering lost word, 80

Repression and disgust, 199

S

Sick-headache, 271, 274

Skim-milk diet, 262

"Sour stomach" and two Tyrolese, 260

T

Temper, an indulgence, 359

The "Repeater" gains in weight, 263

Thyroid disturbance, fatigue in, 239, 240

U

Unconscious Association and symptoms, 346

W

Walking, lost power of, 124

Word Association test, 198

Transcriber's Notes

The following typographical errors were noted and corrected:

On page 146 of the book: Heading changed from "A Searching Queston" to "A Searching Question". On page 152, "Narcisstic" changed to "Narcissistic". On page 276, "..the nausea disappearaed." changed to "disappeared". On page 294, "...Nature's functions re reestablished" changed to "be". On page 302, "...nor even of man's infringment..." changed to "infringement". On page 330, "I put my mouth up close to to her ear...", removed the duplicate "to". On page 346, for the paragraph starting "But these symptoms...", "disappeaared" changed to "disappeared". In the Index, page 401, "Thesholds" changed to "Thresholds".

THE END