For ordinary therapeutic purposes, the physician may be content to know only the physical signs and symptoms of his patient's affection. For psychotherapeutics, he must, if he would be successful, know every possible source of worry and annoyance and, as nearly as may be ascertained, every slight phase of physical fatigue that may be a disturbing factor in his patient's life. It is surprising how many things the physician will find to correct when he carefully goes over all the actions of the day and ascertains all the possible sources of worry and anxiety his patient may have. It may happen that in many cases he will be unable immediately to remove these sources of worry. But there is relief in telling them, and then, even when they cannot be completely eradicated, they can often be modified. Every improvement of this kind, however slight, is a fountain of favorable suggestion which makes the patient look on the brighter side of life. From every amelioration, however trivial, there is a reaction on the feelings that gives more and more confidence. {186} SECTION IV _GENERAL PSYCHOTHERAPEUTICS_ CHAPTER I GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOTHERAPY In formal, deliberate psychotherapeutics the first and most important principle is the treatment of the individual patient, and not of his disease. It is much more important to know the kind of an individual who has pneumonia, as a rule, than to be able to tell the amount of pulmonary involvement. If heart, kidneys or lungs are affected when the disease declares itself, the outlook is extremely unfavorable. Similar conditions are true of the patient's mind. If he is of the worrying kind, the outlook is serious. If, on the contrary, he faces it bravely, and without after-thought except that of responding to medical treatment, he will probably get well. Pneumonia is only one example of the part the individual plays in therapeutics. In the popular mind it is supposed that for each disease there is a definite remedy, and that when the physician gives that remedy the patient gets well. This idea of specific remedies has come to the people from the physician, but only the quack now pretends to cure disease, the physician helps the patient to overcome the affection from which he is suffering.