Handicaps of Childhood

by H. Addington Bruce

"No, I am sorry to say I can't. I only know that it began while I was a boy."

Nevertheless, by the aid of a method of psychoanalysis, or psychological mind-tunnelling, it was ascertained that, subconsciously, he did know exactly when his bashfulness began, and also was well aware of its cause. From among the forgotten, or only vaguely remembered, episodes of his boyhood there emerged, with exceptional vividness, a memory-picture of the time when he first went to work. He recalled with painful intensity the figure of his employer, a stern, cold, hard man, with piercing eyes.

"Those eyes seemed to be on me everywhere I went. They seemed to be watching for the least mistake I might make. I began to wonder what would happen to me if I did make mistakes. Then I began to feel incompetent and to fear that he would notice my incompetency. I grew nervous, awkward, timid. Whenever he spoke to me, I jumped, I blushed, I trembled. After a time I did the same when anybody spoke to me."

"And sometimes you still think of that first employer who frightened you so much?"

"I try not to, but I know I do."

To the neurologist the cause of his patient's bashfulness was now evident. The fear, the anxiety, the over-conscientiousness engendered by the employer's attitude, working in the mind of an ultra-impressionable boy, were quite enough to initiate a habit of abnormal diffidence. Tactfully, the physician made this clear to the patient; earnestly he impressed on him the idea that the unpleasant experience of which he spoke was a thing of the past, and was nothing of which he now need stand in dread; and tirelessly he reiterated the suggestion that the patient had it in his own power to exorcise the demon of bashfulness created by the painful subconscious memory-image of those early days. In the end he had the satisfaction of sending him on his way rejoicing in a perfect cure.

Strikingly different in its inception is a case that came under the observation of Doctor Bechterew. In this instance the patient was a young woman of excellent family and most attractive appearance. The symptom of which she chiefly complained was an abnormal blushing. When with the members of her own family, no less than with strangers, she would, at the least provocation, feel the blood suffusing her face and would turn distressingly red. To avoid this, she kept much to herself, and led a lonely, miserable life.

Questioned by Doctor Bechterew as to the length of time she had been thus afflicted, and any prior occurrences which might have given her a real and urgent reason for embarrassment and blushing, her answers at first were wholly unenlightening. But little by little, probing with the skill of the trained psychological cross-examiner, he drew from her the details of a pathetic experience.

At the age of seventeen, it appeared, she had been thrown much into the company of a married man old enough to be her father. A friendship had sprung up between them, but, on her part, there had certainly been no thought of anything beyond friendship, until one evening at a garden party he asked her to walk with him in a secluded part of the grounds.

"While we were talking together," she confided to Doctor Bechterew, "he suddenly asked me if I cared for him—if I cared enough to leave home and spend the rest of my life with him. His avowal of love shocked and shamed me. I hastily left him and, with burning cheeks, rejoined the other guests.