Handicaps of Childhood

by H. Addington Bruce

An eminent neurologist had for a patient a young girl whose illness took the form of frenzied, almost maniacal, outbreaks. It was necessary at times to control her forcibly, and the fear of her family was that she was on the highway to insanity, if she were not already insane. The neurologist noticed that she became most violent when her mother approached her bed. She would then cry out, strike at her mother, and wildly order her to leave the room. The mother was in despair at this behaviour, assuring the neurologist that she could not account for it, as she had always treated her daughter most affectionately—a statement which other relatives corroborated.

To get to the bottom of this mystifying case, the neurologist determined to make use of what is known as the method of dream-analysis. This method has, as a fundamental principle, the theory that most dreams, especially the dreams of childhood, represent the imaginary fulfilment of wishes which cannot be, or have not been, realised in the waking life. In the present instance, the application of dream-analysis proved most helpful. It showed that, asleep no less than when awake, the girl's mind was occupied with ideas unfavourable to her mother, and was dominated by a wish that her mother were dead. This was indicated by a number of dreams, in some of which she saw herself and her sisters dressed in mourning, while in others she was attending the funeral of women who resembled her mother.

Quite evidently a mental conflict was in progress, the girl sufficiently appreciating the sinfulness of the death—wish to resist its full emergence into consciousness, even during sleep. But its presence and persistence, as revealed by the dreams, made it clear to the physician that he was dealing, not with actual insanity, but with a case of hysteria motivated by jealousy of the mother. Further analysis disclosed an abnormal fondness for the father, in whose affections the little daughter wished to reign alone.

Sometimes the hysteria traceable to jealousy presents symptoms ingeniously calculated to compel sympathetic attention from the parent who otherwise would continue to divide his or her affections in a manner displeasing to the jealous child. Thus, a small boy became subject to attacks of severe bodily pain, which came on, usually, at night, and were relieved only when his mother took him to bed with her, sending his father to sleep in another room. In this case, and in similar cases that have been studied by medical specialists, it is not a question of conscious deceit. The pain or other hysterical symptom is wholly the result of the sentiment of jealousy having so worked on the mind of a neurotically predisposed child as to cause a subconscious fabrication of symptoms certain to gain loving care.

Likewise, some children, and particularly children of an inferior mentality or those handicapped by physical defects responsible for a seeming or real neglect of them by parents and playmates, will, under the influence of jealousy, become so disturbed nervously as to indulge in eccentricities of conduct, having for their object the compelling of the attention they feel they have been denied. For example, jealousy often is at the root of the pathological lying of neurotic children, who, on occasion, do not hesitate to bring outrageous charges against innocent persons. Their purpose is not to injure these persons; they tell their morbid lies simply because they wish to become objects of interested and sympathetic attention. For the same reason, other jealousy-dominated children sometimes concoct elaborate deceptions, notably in the way of what are called "poltergeist" performances.

From time to time newspapers report stories of haunted houses, in which small articles of furniture and bric-à-brac are flung about by mischievous ghosts—hence the name "poltergeists"—that remain invisible. When investigation is made, the "ghost" usually turns out to be a small boy or girl, who frequently is regarded as being merely a naughty child, and is punished accordingly. This is a mistake. It is not naughtiness, but hysteria. And, not infrequently, it is hysteria brought on by jealousy.[7]

President Hall, of Clark University, who has made a special study of children's lies, fittingly comments:

"Without knowing it, these hysterical girls feel disinherited and robbed of their birthright. Their bourgeoning woman's instinct to be the centre of interest and admiration bursts all bounds, and they speak and act out things which with others would be only secret reverie. Thus they can not only be appreciated but wondered at; can almost become priestesses, pythonesses, maenads, and set their mates, neighbours, or even great savants agog and agape, while they have their fling at life, reckless of consequences. Thus they can be of consequence, respected, observed, envied, perhaps even studied. So they defy their fate and wreak their little souls upon experience with abandon and have their supreme satisfaction for a day, impelled to do so by blind instinct which their intellect is too undeveloped to restrain. And all this because their actual life is so dull and empty."[8]

Nor does the mischief done by jealousy in the case of nervously inclined children stop here. It is particularly important for parents to know that there may be a postponement of its evil effects. That is, though the jealous child, while a child, may not show more than a general nervousness and may seemingly outgrow his jealousy without ill effect, it is entirely possible that in later life mental or nervous troubles may appear as a result of the subconscious retention of the jealous notions that have long since vanished from conscious remembrance. I might cite a number of instances strikingly illustrative of this, but will be content with giving only one—the case of a man about thirty years old, who did not dare go outdoors because he was obsessed by a fear that he would kill the first person he met in the street.

"My life," he told the physician whose aid he sought, "is one long torment. There are days when I have myself locked in my room, as I cannot venture on the street with the murderous longings that fill my mind. I spend much of my time planning alibis to escape the consequences of the murder I feel sure I shall commit. Is there any hope for me, short of imprisonment in an asylum for the dangerously insane?"