Outwitting Our Nerves | Page 6

no
attention to the findings of science, but which emphasize a realization
of man's spiritual nature. Many of these cults, founded largely on
untruth or half-falsehood, have succeeded in cases where careful
science has failed. Despite fearful blunders and execrable lack of
discrimination in attempting to cure all the ills that flesh is heir to by
methods that apply only to functional troubles, ignorant enthusiasts and
quacks have sometimes cured nervous troubles where the conscientious
medical man has had to acknowledge defeat.
=The Whole Man.= But thinking people are not willing to desert
science for cults that ignore the existence of these physical bodies. If
they have found it unsatisfactory to be treated as if they were all body,
they have also been unwilling to be treated as if they were all mind.
They have been in a dilemma between two half-truths, even if they
have not realized the dilemma. It has remained for modern
psychotherapy to strike the balance--to treat the whole man. Solidly
planted on the rock of the physical sciences, with its laboratories,
physiological and psychological, and with a long record of
investigation and treatment of pathological cases, it resembles the mind
cure of earlier days or the assertions of Christian Science about as
much as modern medicine resembles the old bloodletting, leeching
practices of our forefathers.
For the last quarter-century there have been scattered groups of
physicians,--brilliant, patient pioneers,--who, recognizing man as spirit
inhabiting body, have explored the realm of man's mind and charted its
paths. These pioneers, beginning with Charcot, have been men of
acknowledged scientific training and spirit, whose word must be
respected and whose success in treating functional troubles stands out
in sharp contrast to the fumblings of the average practitioner in this
field. The results of their work have been positive, not negative. They
have not merely asserted that nervous disorders are not physical; they

have discovered what the trouble is and have found it to be
discoverable and removable in almost every case, provided only that
the right method is used.
=Ourselves and Our Bodies.= If the statement that "nervous troubles
are neither physical nor imaginary but a disease of the personality,"
sounds rather mystifying to the average person, it is only because the
average person is not very conversant with his own inner life. We shall
hope, later on, to find some definite guide-posts and landmarks which
will help us feel more at home in this fascinating realm. At present, we
are not attempting anything more than a suggestion of the itinerary
which we shall follow. A book on physical hygiene can presuppose at
least a rudimentary knowledge of heart and lungs and circulation, but a
book on mental hygiene must begin at the beginning, and even before
the beginning must clear away misconceptions and make clear certain
fundamental principles. But the gist of the whole matter is this: in a
neurosis, certain forces of the personality--instincts and their
accompanying emotions--which ought to work harmoniously, having
become tangled up with some erroneous ideas, have lost their power of
coöperation and are working at cross purposes, leaving the individual
mis-adapted to his environment, the prey of all sorts of mental and
physical disturbances.
The fact that the cause is mental while the result is often physical,
should cause no surprise. In the physiological realm we are used to the
idea that cause and effect are often widely separated. A headache may
be caused by faulty eyes, or it may result from trouble in the intestines.
In the same way, we should not be too much surprised if the cause of
nervous troubles is found to be even more remote, provided there is
some connecting link between cause and effect. The difficulty in this
case is the apparent gulf between the realm of the spirit and the realm
of the body. It is hard to see how an intangible thing like a thought can
produce a pain in the arm or nausea in the stomach. Philosophers are
still arguing concerning the nature of the relation between mind and
body, but no one denies that the closest relation does exist. Every year
science is learning that ideas count and that they count physically, as
well as spiritually.

=Such Stuff as "Nerves" are Made Of.= Dr. Tom A. Williams in the
little composite volume "Psychotherapeutics" says that the neuroses are
based not on inherently weak nervous constitutions but on ignorance
and on false ideas. What, then, are some of these erroneous ideas, these
misconceptions, that cause so much trouble? We shall want to examine
them more carefully in later chapters, but we might glance now at a few
examples of these popular bugaboos that need to be slain by the sword
of cold, hard fact.
=Popular Misconceptions about the Body.=
1 "Eight hours' sleep is essential