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
Disposition and Digestion.--The relation of the body to the mind in
many other besides the purely animal digestive functions has always
been realized. It has always been felt that the disposition of an
individual depended to a great extent on his nutrition. Men were not
usually approached for favors before their meals, and especially after
a long fast, but, as far as possible, requests were made shortly after
meals. It has always been recognized that the best time for men to get
together in council is, at least so far as amiability goes, shortly
after meals. Tiredness was also felt to be an important element in
affecting the mind. The tired man, even though he may be hungry, can
only eat a hearty meal at the risk of serious disturbance of
digestion, for, as a consequence of the fatigue of the body being
communicated to the mind, the mental influence which predisposes to
good digestion is lacking, and it is easy for serious digestive
disturbances to be set up. In a word, body and mind are inextricably
involved in all that concerns not only health but good feeling, and
these two terms are practically convertible.
Feeling and Expression.--In nothing is the influence of the body on
the mind more clear than in the influence of expression upon the
disposition. Actors know that if they want to well express a certain
feeling, they must arouse that feeling deeply, and the easiest, surest
and most direct method of doing so is to fix the features in the
expressions that would ordinarily indicate the presence within of
these feelings. If we insist on putting our features into the shape
which ordinarily expresses sadness, that will be reflected internally,
and we shall become as sad as our expression. On the other hand, if
the features are drawn, even by force of will, into the state that
ordinarily expresses joy or lightness of heart, we shall be tempted
more and more to feel that way, until at last even internal melancholy
may be dissipated. In the oldest book in the world, "The Instruction
of Ptah Hotep," written about 3,000 years before Christ, the old
father giving advice to his sons says: "Let thy face be bright what
time thou livest," and the literature of every time since then
emphasizes the same idea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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