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
Such a statement need not shock the most sensitive conscience. The
very fact that a neurosis breaks out is proof that the phantasies are
repellent to the owners of them and are thrust down into the
subconscious as unworthy. In fact, every neurosis is witness to the
strength of the human conscience. No phantasy could cause illness. It
is the phantasy plus the repression of it that makes the trouble, or
rather it is the conflict between the forces back of the phantasy and
the repression. The neurosis, then, turns out to be a "flight from the
real," the result of a desire to run away from a difficulty. When a
problem presses or a disagreeable situation is to be faced, it is
easier to give up and fall ill than to see the thing through to the
end. Here again, we find that nervousness is a regression to the
irresponsible reactions of childhood.
=Maturity versus Immaturity.= We have been thinking of the main causes
of "nerves" and have found them to be infantile habits of loving,
rebelling, repressing, and dreaming. We have tried to show that these
habits are able to cause trouble because of their bearing on that
inevitable conflict between the ancient urge of the reproductive
instinct and the later ideals which society has acquired. If this
conflict be met in the light of the present, free from the backward
pull, of outgrown habits, an adjustment is possible which satisfies
both the individual and society. We call this adjustment sublimation.
This is rather a synthesis than a compromise, a union of the opposing
forces, a happy utilization of energy by displacement on more useful
ideas. But if the conflict has to be met with the mind hampered by
immature thinking and immature feeling; if the demands of the
here-and-now are met as if it were long ago; if unhealthy and untrue
complexes, old loves and hates complicate the situation; if to the
necessary conflict is added an unnecessary one; then something else
happens. Compromise of some kind must be made, but instead of a happy
union of the two forces a poor compromise is effected, gaining a
partial satisfaction for both sides, but a real one for neither. The
neurosis is this compromise.
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