Outwitting Our Nerves: A Primer of PsychotherapyJackson, Josephine A. (Josephine Agnes)
Science
Outwitting Our Nerves: A Primer of Psychotherapy
Jackson, Josephine A. (Josephine Agnes)
Nervous system -- Diseases; Psychoanalysis; Therapeutics, Suggestive
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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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