Psychotherapy: Including the History of the Use of Mental Influence, Directly and Indirectly, in Healing and the Principles for the Application of Energies Derived from the Mind to the Treatment of DiseaseWalsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Science
Psychotherapy: Including the History of the Use of Mental Influence, Directly and Indirectly, in Healing and the Principles for the Application of Energies Derived from the Mind to the Treatment of Disease
Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Mental healing
Disease Groups and Suggestion.--Labeling groups of ailments with a
single term gives rise to many unfortunate conclusions and dreads with
regard to what a particular condition really is. The word
"indigestion" is commonly used for any stomach discomfort or
disturbance, especially that occurring after eating, from the slight
distress because too much has been eaten, or the uncomfortable feeling
of fullness because too much liquid has been taken, or the discomfort
due to an unsuitable mixture of food materials, to such serious
conditions as develop when there is motor insufficiency of the
stomach, followed by dilatation, with delay of the food for long
periods and with consequent fermentation, distress and bad breath.
Whenever the word "indigestion" is mentioned, the patient may think of
the worst cases that he has seen or heard of with this label, and
concludes that while his ailment may not be very serious just now, it
is only a question of time until it becomes so, and that unless he can
get rid of his uncomfortable feeling he is destined to have one of the
forms of "indigestion" that are productive of such serious discomfort,
with probably ever increasing torment, until some fatal complication
develops. The initial symptoms of gastric ulcer and cancer have been
labeled indigestion, and people, often recalling the serious
consequences that followed in such cases, fear for themselves.
_Fearing the Worst_.--This looseness of terms is noted with regard to
many other forms of disease. Rheumatism calls up the picture of
advanced arthritis deformans, with the awful deformed joints and
bed-riddenness, which should not bear the term rheumatism at all, but
which the patient has heard called so. Catarrh is the simplest of
inflammatory processes, meaning merely an increase of secretion,
functional in character and without any serious disturbance of an
organic character beneath it, but many people have heard the
foul-smelling ozena called catarrh, at least popularly, and so the
mental picture of such a repulsive progressive process as beginning in
them is suggested. It is important, therefore, when using words that
have such wide connotation as these, to explain exactly what is meant,
and perhaps, better still, not to use the words, but to employ some
more specific term that does not carry a cloud of dreads with it.
Indigestion can be a very simple passing set of symptoms, but once
certain people get the notion that they are troubled with indigestion,
their minds dwell on it to such an extent that they are likely to
limit their eating more than they should, and to disturb digestive
processes by thinking about them and using up in worry nervous energy
that should be allowed to flow down to actuate digestion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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