Social Work; Essays on the Meeting Ground of Doctor and Social WorkerCabot, Richard C. (Richard Clarke)
Science
Social Work; Essays on the Meeting Ground of Doctor and Social Worker
Cabot, Richard C. (Richard Clarke)
Charities, Medical; Friendly visiting; Medical social work -- United States; Social service
Instability is much less important in the adolescent stage. Many a
parent has been in despair over his adolescent children. "Nothing good
ever can come out of that boy. He is too unstable," the parent is apt to
say. Yet great good often does come out of such a boy, simply because he
grows older. Such a boy is generally between thirteen and nineteen.
Tremendous physical changes are going on, which are rather more than he
can manage. Hence he becomes for a time unreliable, capricious, moody.
There is almost no degree of mental instability and unsatisfactory
conduct which may not wholly disappear as we get past the adolescent
stage.
On the other hand, the older a person is the more serious the outlook in
a case of instability. A woman in the vicinity of sixty drifted into my
hands some years ago, after having been the round of doctors whose
diagnosis was essentially instability. Although I labored very long and
prayerfully with that individual, I cannot say that I produced any
considerable effect.
Remember always the possibility that such instability is due to drugs.
Among the most unstable people are the morphine-takers, and because that
has among other symptoms concealment and lying, it does not easily come
to light. In the evening the morphine-taker is full of prowess, is full
of hope, ready to make engagements for nine o'clock the next morning.
But he almost never turns up for that engagement the next morning. This
morning depression is common also in many other diseases, such as
neurasthenia and that rare disease, anemia. The anemic patient has a
hard time getting up in the morning, but it is the fault of his red
corpuscles and not of his character.
Another phase of instability is _abnormal suggestibility_, abnormal
openness to influence or "suggestion" in the psychological sense. I
cannot count the number of fond but foolish mothers who have said to me
about a child, "John is a good boy, only he is weak. He gets led astray
by his companions." Everybody is and ought to be somewhat suggestible,
normally suggestible. The man who is not suggestible is the person with
a monomania, who can see nothing but his own view, is stupidly attached
to one set of ideas and so cannot learn. But one can easily be too
suggestible. Over-suggestible people run after every craze, are
impressed with each new religion, or are tremendously excited with each
new friend and think of each new experience: "Ah! This is what I have
been looking for all my life. Nothing else matters." This is especially
common at the adolescent age, but it is a danger for all of us, men and
women of every age. We get carried away by popular crazes, by
influences, by suggestions, so that we cannot remember the good that
there was in our previous beliefs and interests. If so we are mentally
unstable in this respect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account