One of my patients, a puny being of mediocre intelligence, writes: “I have always, from the earliest childhood, felt that I was different from those about me; and I must acknowledge that it was not alone a feeling of inferiority on account of poor control, but a feeling that I understood more than they. I was, however, of a delicate constitution and suffered from ill health.”
Psychopathic patients subscribe to the “cheerful” effusions of “New Thought,” and plaster the walls of their rooms with elevating “Rules for Health and Happiness.” Psychoanalysis and Christian Science are the rage. The victims hide behind the veil of sickly, psychopathic “Love.”
The writings and accounts of the patients are full of introspection about health, and about the minutiae of their feelings in the various parts of their body. Some of the patients with a literary turn keep on writing volumes about the most minute symptoms of their troubles to which they happen at any moment to be subject. I have numbers of manuscripts, biographies, autobiographies, all telling the same old story of “blighted lives” due to ill health, drugs, and treatment, all describing with the over-scrupulous exactness of microscopic anatomy the different symptoms that plague them by night and by day. The patients tell of their talents and remarkable abilities, superior to the average run, of their ill luck and failures, due to their unfortunate state of ill health.
In quoting from some of the accounts given to me by the patients themselves I wish to attract attention to this side of the patient’s mental condition, the expression of the impulse of self-preservation, manifested in the general panic of health, or fear of disease, whether nervous or physical.
A patient of mine, a clerk of mediocre intelligence, with hardly any ability, but with plenty of selfishness, introspection, and immeasurable conceit, writes about his ideals in life:
“I would ask that this manuscript be considered in connection with my other two writings. I have already partially covered this ground in my autobiography. I should be glad to have my general outlook on life considered, and to receive suggestions relative to vocations and avocations, since my anxieties regarding these are inseparably intermingled with my thoughts of physical and mental health.
“Of course since childhood my ideals have undergone a gradual modification. First, there was the religious motive of life: I wanted to be a soldier of the cross and assist in the regeneration of souls and their preparation for the life beyond.... I began to meditate upon ethical theories.... It appears that in doing the world’s work the tendency is to specialize.... In the matter of choosing my employment my own interest is identical with the interest of society. At different times of my life I have fancied I had a liking for one calling or another.... My lines of thought have gradually drifted into the philosophical (patient means the various occult scribblings about ‘health metaphysics’). I now ask myself why I should be a lawyer, a physician, a minister, a philanthropist or any other special thing? I conceive that a man’s life is largely what circumstances make it, and it may be, therefore, that I shall always be a clerk in an office, trying to be useful in a small way; but now we are talking of influencing such matters as far as we can by choice. I imagine that perhaps my field is in the line of ethics, philosophy, or whatever words may be used to signify the general principles governing human affairs. My reasons for thinking so are as follows: First, I feel a strong interest in those principles comparing to no other interest in my life. Second, I find very few people who seem to feel any such interest in such matters. Third, I believe such principles to be of supreme importance. The question is,—Is my position in regard to general truths so peculiar that I should regard it my mission to give those subjects more attention in study and expression than do other men?
“The question I want to settle is,—Do other men feel this same philosophical interest, realize the broad field of human obligation, and come down to special occupations, not because they are more interesting to them than the general field, but because they realize they must specialize in order to properly assist in carrying on the world’s work? If this be so then I am mistaken in thinking I should give particular attention to general principles. But my observations have gone to show that the average physician, lawyer, merchant or politician is not interested in the broad questions of life, but only in medicine, law, business, or politics, caring little for the relation of his vocation to other vocations except as he makes his bread by it. Why then if the various departments of human activity must be correlated, and if the individuals making up those respective departments have no disposition to do the correlating,—should it not be done by those who are interested in the general field?”
It means that such work could be and should be done by the patient, by the philosophical clerk, interested in the general “metaphysics” of health.