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
=Later Developments.= Little by little, the scientific world came to
see that this wild theorizer had facts on his side; that not only had
he formulated a theory, but he had discovered a cure, and that he was
able to free people from obsessions, fears, and physical symptoms
before which other methods were powerless. One by one the open-minded
men of science were converted by the overpowering logic of the
evidence, until to-day we find not only a "Freudian school," counting
among its members many of the eminent scientists of the day, but we
find in medical schools and universities courses based on Freudian
principles, with text-books by acknowledged authorities in medicine
and psychology. We find magazines devoted entirely to psycho-analytic
subjects,[34] besides articles in medical journals and even numerous
articles in popular magazines. Not only is the treatment of nervous
disorders revolutionized by these principles but floods of light are
thrown on such widely different fields of study as ancient myths and
folk lore, the theory of wit, methods of child training, and the
little slips of the tongue and everyday "breaks" that have until
recently been considered the meaningless results of chance.
[Footnote 34: _The Psychoanalytic Review_ and the _International
Journal of Psychoanalysis._]
=A Searching Question.= We find, then, that when we ask, "What makes
people nervous?" we are really asking: "What is man like, inside and
out, up and down? What makes him think, feel, and act as he does every
hour of every day?" We are asking for the source of human motives, the
science of human behavior, the charting of the human mind. It is hard
to-day to understand how so much reproach and ridicule could have been
aroused by the statement that the ultimate cause of nervousness is a
disturbance of the sex-life. There has already been a change in the
public attitude toward things sexual.
Training-courses for mothers and teachers, elementary teaching in the
schools, lectures and magazine articles have done much to show the
fallacy of our old hypersensitive attitude. Since the war, some of us
know, too, with what success the army has used the Freudian principles
in treating war-neurosis, which was mistakenly called shell-shock by
the first observers. We know, too, more about the constitution of
man's mind than the public knew ten years ago. When we remember the
insistent character of the instincts and the repressive method used by
society in restraining the most obstreperous impulse, when we remember
the pain of such conflict and the depressing physical effects of
painful emotions, we cannot wonder that this most sharply repressed
instinct should cause mental and physical trouble.
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