The Nervous Housewife | Page 7

fears
and then proceeds to cure him by his own expensive and marvelous
course of treatment.
What has been sketched here is merely the outside of neurasthenia.
Back of it as causative are matters we shall deal with in detail later on
in relation to the housewife,--matters like innate temperament, bad
training, liability to worry, wounded pride, failure, desire for sympathy,
monotony of life, boredom, unhappiness, pessimism of outlook,
over-æsthetic tastes, unfulfilled and thwarted desires, secret jealousy,
passions and longings, fear of death, sex problems and difficulties and
doubt; matters like recent illness, childbirth, poverty, overwork, wrong
sex habits, lack of fresh air, etc.
Fundamentally neurasthenia is a deënergization. By this is meant that
either there is an actual reduction in the energy of the body (as after a
sickness, pregnancy, etc.) or else something impedes the discharge of
energy. This latter is usually an emotional matter, or arises from some
thought, some life situation of a depressing kind.
It is necessary and important that we consider these two aspects of our
subject a little closer, not so much as regards the housewife, but over
the wider field of the human being.
The human being, like every living thing, is an instrument for the

building up and discharge of energy. He takes in food, the food is
digested (made over into certain substances) and these are built up into
the tissues,--and then their energy is discharged as heat and as motion.
The heat is the body temperature, the motion is the movement of the
human body in all the marvelous variety of which it is capable. In other
words, the discharge of energy is the play of our childhood and of our
later years; it is the skill and strength of our arms, the cleverness of our
hands, the fleetness of our feet, the joyous vigor of our love-making,
the embrace; it is the noble purpose, the long, hard-fought battles of
any kind. It is all that is summed up in desire, purpose, and
achievement.
Now all these things may be impeded by actual reduction of energy, as
in tuberculosis, cancer, or in the lassitude of convalescence. In addition
there are emotions, feelings, thoughts that energize,--that create vigor
and strength of body and mind. Joy rouses the spirit; one dances, laughs,
sings, shouts; or the more quiet type of person takes up work with zeal
and renewed energy. Hope brings with it an eagerness for the battle, a
zest for work. The glow of pride that comes with praise is a stimulus of
great power and enlarges the scope of the personality. The feeling that
comes with successful effort, with rewarded effort, is a new birth of
purpose and will. And whatever arouses the fighting spirit, which in the
last analysis is based on anger, achieves the same end.
There are _deënergizing emotions and experiences_ as well, things that
suddenly rob the victim of strength and purpose. Fear of a certain type
is one of these things, as when one's knees knock together, the limbs
become as it were without the control of the will, the heart flutters, and
the voice is hoarse and weak. Fear of sickness, fear of death, either for
one's self or some beloved one, may completely deënergize the
strongest man. Then there is hope deferred, and disappointment, the
frustration of desire and purpose, helplessness before insult and
injustice, blame merited or unmerited, the feeling of failure and
inevitable disaster. There is the unhappy life situation,--the mistaken
marriage, the disillusionment of betrayed love, the dashing of parental
pride. The profoundest deënergization of life may come from a failure
of interest in one's work, a boredom due to monotony, a dropping out

of enthusiasm from the mere failure of new stimuli, as occurs with
loneliness. Any or all of these factors may bring about a neurasthenic,
deënergized state with lowering of the functions of mind and body. We
shall discover how this comes about farther on.
What part does a subconscious personality take in all this and in further
symptoms? Is there a subconsciousness, and what is it?
In answer, the majority of modern psychologists and
psychopathologists affirm the existence of a subconscious personality.
One needs only mention James, Janet, Ribot, McDougall, Freud, Prince,
out of a host of writers. Whether they are right or not, or whether we
now deal with a new fashion in mental science, this can be
affirmed--that every human being is a pot boiling with desires, passions,
lusts, wishes, purposes, ideas, and emotions, some of which he clearly
recognizes and clearly admits, and some of which he does not clearly
recognize and which he would deny.
These desires, passions, purposes, etc., are not in harmony one with
another; they are often irreconcilable and one has to be smothered for
the sake of the other.