It has been said of the neurasthenic with aptness and truth that he behaves like a child. But if a child, normal in its behaviour up to a certain day, suddenly manifests fear of being left alone for a moment in a room with closed doors, or in a street, do we rush for our “Liddell and Scott” and forthwith proceed to babble of claustrophobia or agoraphobia?[63] Do we follow this up by solemnly invoking complicated physico-chemical theories concerning the state of his blood or other bodily fluids? Finally, do we brand him as “insane” or at least “neuropathic?” What we do in this case, if we have any sense, is carefully to investigate the causes of the emotional outbreak. We try sympathetically to understand and re-educate the child to meet such situations without fear. In other words, we use a method precisely similar to that which proves to be of such great use in treating the psychoneuroses. The analogy—if it be an analogy and not perhaps an identity—between the two cases goes still farther. The child who manifests extreme fear at “inadequate” causes, such as we have described, not infrequently agonises his mother—perhaps soon after his outburst of fright—by an exhibition of foolhardiness which, if we did not know of the previous sign of weakness, would cause one to look upon him as fearless. In short, the child’s fear is restricted to one or two special situations. So it is with many neurasthenics. Some, for example, may be driven through traffic in a fast motor car without experiencing the slightest fear, though they cannot bring themselves to enter an ordinary slow suburban train; others may surprise us not only by their exhibition of anger at what we should consider an absurdly slight provocation, but by their tolerance and self-control in other (to us) much more annoying situations. Their exaggerated emotional reactions are excited not by general but by specific stimuli; and a little tact, insight and patience on the part of the physician often reveals in their past experience, psychological factors which explain the tremendous personal importance and overweighting of these stimuli. If for neuropathic we write: “unduly hampered by instinct and emotion”—and this is all we have the right to do[64]—we represent the matter more truthfully.