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
By injecting a keen sense of disapprobation and skepticism into the
hitherto placidly accepted state of disability, by flashing a mirror
on the physical and moral attitudes which she was assuming, I was able
to rob the pathological complex of its (altogether unconscious)
pleasurable feeling-tone, and to restore to its former strength and
poise a personality of exceptional native worth and beauty. After a
few weeks at my house she was able to walk like a normal person and
went back to her work, for good.
We have already learned enough about the inner self to see in a faint
way how it works out its ideas. Since the subconscious mind runs the
bodily machinery, since it regulates digestion, the building up of
tissue, circulation, respiration, glandular secretion, muscular tonus,
and every other process pertaining to nutrition and growth, it is not
difficult to see how an idea about any of these matters can work
itself out into a fact. A thought can furnish the mental machinery
needed to fulfil the thought. Some one catches the suggestion:
"Concentration is hard on the brain. It soon brings on brain-fag and
headache." Not knowing facts to the contrary, the suggestible mind
accepts the proposition. Then one day, after a little concentration,
the idea begins to work. Whereupon the autonomic nervous system
tightens up the blood-vessels that regulate the local blood supply,
too much blood stays in the head, and lo, it aches! The next time, the
suggestion comes with greater force, and soon the habit is
formed,--all the result of an idea. It is a good thing to remember
that constant thought about any part of the body never fails to send
an over-supply of blood to that part; of course that means congestion
and pain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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