Our Jewess uses her emotions for effect, which means that she has
become theatrical. Though there is reality in her emotional
display, time and the advantages she has gained have brought
enough finish and restraint to her manifestations to gain the
designation artistic. True, it is a crude artistry, for
intelligence does not sufficiently guide it, and her art is used
sometimes indiscriminately and inopportunely. As she grows older
the value of her tears is less, and she is becoming that prime
nuisance, the elderly scold.
Among the emotional types well recognized by the neurologist is
that known as the cyclothymic. In the individuals of this group
there is a periodicity to mood (rather than to emotions). There
is a definitely pathological trend to the cyclothymic, and in its
most marked form one sees the recurring depressions and
excitement of Manic Depressive Insanity.
Aside from these pathological forms, there are persons who show
curious periodic changes in mood. They become depressed for no
especial reason, are "blue" for day after day and then quickly
return to their normal. Sometimes these blue spells alternate
with periods of exaltation and happiness, but in my experience
this is far less common than periodic blue spells, a kind of
recurrent anhedonia.
L. D. is ordinarily what is known as a vivacious person. Bright,
talkative, keen in her discriminations, she has all her life been
at the mercy of strange alterations in mood, alterations which
come and go without what seems to others adequate reason.
As a child L. D. was sick a great deal. She showed an unusual
susceptibility to infection, and it was not until she was nine
years of age that she attended school regularly. Her illnesses
made it impossible to discipline her, and so she has always been
a bit "spoiled," though her kind and generous nature makes her a
charming person. But more important than the fact that she could
not be disciplined is the lowering of energy that these
sicknesses produced, a lowering marked mainly by a liability to
fatigue and depression.
Let there come a sickness, and this woman's stock of hopeful mood
goes and there results a loss of interest in life, a loss of zest
and joyousness.
A digression,--and a return to the theme of the first chapter of
this book. The dependence of the mental life on bodily structure,
equally true in the both sexes, is exquisitely demonstrated in
woman. In many women there occurs an extraordinary increase of
sex desire just before the menstrual period and in some to the
point where it causes great internal conflict. Others show
moderate depression and even confusion at this time, and to the
majority of women some mood and thought change is taken for
granted. At the menopause mental difficulties to the point of
insanity are witnessed, and in some cases the change is
permanent. Back of mood is the entire organic life of the
organism, and back of the nature of our thoughts and deeds is
mood.
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