Quite apart, however, from the military aspects of the case, the physician, without really investigating the history of a patient, may label his trouble “hysteria” and forthwith adopt a course of “firmness.” He may assume the attitude of doubting the genuineness of symptoms which are very real to the sufferer. Under the plea of helping to cure the patient the officer may assure him that there is nothing much the matter with him and that if he tries he will soon be all right. Such advice may be justifiable if based on a real insight into the state of the individual sufferer, but this knowledge can be gained only by a patient investigation of the cause of his trouble. If the advice is given without this insight, it is a mere shot in the dark. The fact that the device succeeds in a certain number of cases is no excuse for its general adoption. And when it “misfires” no one realises the fact more quickly than the patient himself. He realises that the officer does not appreciate his condition and his confidence is thereby destroyed. It is useful, too, to consider for a moment the nature of treatment by “sympathy.” When we used the phrase “sympathetic firmness” we intended to indicate the insistence upon a strict observance of such methods of treatment as a real insight into the patient’s condition may suggest. The word “sympathy” was used in its literal sense of “feeling with” the sufferer. But there is no class of patients upon whom sympathy of the injudicious kind is more prone to work serious harm than the psychoneurotic. The knowledge of this fact is often the excuse for the adoption of the opposite attitude and the prescription of “firmness” which, as we have seen, may be equally unintelligent and injudicious. But sympathy of the injudicious kind is not _real_ sympathy. For unless the sympathiser has a true appreciation of the patient’s condition, and can look at things from his point of view, he cannot really feel _with_ the sufferer. The latter may arouse in the would-be sympathiser tender emotions and sympathetic “pain,” but unless the sympathiser have insight, the pain, to put it crudely, is not likely to be “in the same place” as that of the patient. Such misplaced emotion and false sympathy, whether on the part of the doctor, the nurse, or the patient’s relations, may do much harm. In mild cases of mental trouble, however, where the patient still retains a goodly portion of self-confidence and self-respect, this “petting” variety of sympathy may sometimes be effective. Such a patient may be cheered up by the presence of people sufficiently interested in him to be sorry for his condition; and it may help him to look on the brighter side of things and to forget his worries and anxieties. But often it is apt, by suggestion, to aggravate his troubles or even to discourage him from trying to recover.[26] Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that such treatment gives him no inducement to get better.