We have discussed both the psychological theory and the practical work
of psychotherapy in a systematic order without any reference to personal
chance experience. After studying the fundamental principles, we have
sketched the whole field of disturbances in which psychotherapeutic
influence might be possible and all the methods available. It seems
natural that our next step should be an illustrating of such work by a
number of typical cases. Here it seems advisable to leave the track of
an objective system and to turn to the record of personal observation.
As this is not a handbook for the physician, dealing with the special
forms of disease, we emphasized before that we avoid even any attempt in
such a direction because it would have to introduce not only the
questions of diagnosis, but above all the highly important questions of
treatment by physical agencies. We saw that for us nothing else can be
desirable, but to show the way in which the various symptoms which
suggest mental treatment occur, and how they yield to the psychical
methods. We had also agreed beforehand that for a first survey we might
separate the mental from the bodily symptoms and group the mental ones
with reference to the predominance of ideational, emotional, and
volitional factors. And finally it may be said that we abstain from
everything which is exceptional or even unusual, and confine ourselves
to the routine observations with which the psychotherapist comes in
contact every day and the simplest country physician surely every week.
Thus I turn from systematic objectivity to my unsystematic reminiscences
of many years. Of course, they abound with eccentric abnormities and
startling phenomena. As I have devoted myself to psychotherapeutics,
always and only from scientific interest, as a part of my laboratory
studies and therefore have refused to spend any time on cases which
offered no special psychological interest to me, the striking and
sensational cases have prevailed in my practice even to an unusual
degree. Yet they are unessential for our purposes here, the more as
their interest lies mostly in the complex structure of the mental state
while the curative features are in the background. Our purpose of
demonstrating practical cases as they occur in every village, and as
they ought to be understood and treated by every doctor, thus rules out
just those experiences which would be prominent in a theoretical study
of abnormal psychology. We want to select only simple commonplace cases.
Only those who have not learned to see are unaware that such cases are
everywhere about them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account