The science of life : fully illustrated in tone and line and including many diagrams

BOOK 8

When the nervous system with all its complexity is involved, symptoms can shift about in an extraordinary way. For instance, symptoms of eye-strain can manifest themselves as pain in the eye; as headache ; as general tiredness ; or in the form of dyspepsia or other bodily disorders. The last is usually the case in men of strong powers of will and concentration; they refuse, as it were, to allow themselves to grow tired and headachy—but the strain continues, and throws the nervous control of the intestines or blood-vessels out of gear.

In the present section we will consider certain problems of neurotic disorder in general, paying attention more to the causes than to the various resulting symptoms ; and here we hope to unearth ideas of value not only as regards nervous disease, but in the conduct of everyday life.

The centre of our interest will be the initiating conflict. Conflict is always there, but the conflicting impulses will differ from case to case. Sex trouble in one form or another is in peace-time at the bottom of most neurotic cases, as it is the basis of most peace-time novels and plays. The crude sex-impulse may be in conflict with romantic idealism, or with morality ; mature passion may be fighting convention and the desire to keep on good terms with the world; the lack of outlet for a normal instinct may warp the old maid or the old bachelor; every nuance of complexity may be touched in an unhappy marriage, where hate and love, physical attraction and repulsion, remorse and hope, selfish and social motives, the claims of personal life and of parental love and parental duty may all be mingled in a shifting battle.

But any other powerful impulse may be in conflict with its opposites. In war, repressed fear was at the root of most neurotic cases. In peace-time the purely egoistic desires for success and prosperity may come into collision with the social impulses of altruism. The resulting conflict may be very severe ;

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an outlet from it which is not infrequently taken advantage of, especially by sensitive and high-minded young men, is the cutting loose from the world and its claims provided by a religious vocation.

So, too, the will-to-power may come into Opposition with the rest of the self. And one impulse may be mixed or seasoned with another in every degree and every combination. The struggle that leads to a religious vocation is usually not with worldliness alone, but with sex as well. The willto-power may take sides in a sexual conflict,

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THE SCIENCE OF LIFE

CHAPTER 7

or fear and idealism may be blended with remorse.

If the conflict stays unresolved and causes neurotic symptoms, then the more the sufferer is of the hysterical type and inclined to dissociation, the more likely are definite, specific physical defects to be substituted for mental discomfort; while if he is of the neurasthenic type, the existence of the conflict (in addition to causing diffuse physical symptoms like weariness and irritability, giddiness, sweating, queer sensations in the pit of the stomach, or irregularities of heart-beat) will issue chiefly in mental symptoms such as sense of guilt, fear of sin, feelings of self-disgust and inferiority, of depression and lack of energy, of gloomy, helpless struggle and humiliation.

In general, psychologists agree that the more an unresolved conflict is shoved out of sight into the Unconscious, the more serious are its resultant symptoms likely to be. The skeleton, when put away in the cupboard, comes to life and acquires new power. The reason is not far to seek. By being made unconscious, the conflicting impulses are debarred from access to the higher conscious levels of mind, cut off from reflection and deliberation, from rational purpose and will. But they are still seeking an issue ; and as they are cut off from reason, they adopt the more violent and more primitive methods of the irrational, which resemble those of the animal or the child much more than those of the adult human being.

We have already seen how the Unconscious of hysterical types seizes swiftly and cunningly on chance accidents and turns them to its own ends ; and we have also seen how unsatisfactory in the long run are the solutions thus brought about. We will give one or two further instances of neurotic symptoms to show how a repressed conflict may work out.

A common symptom is irrational fear of particular situations—what the psychologist calls a phobia. It may be a fear of enclosed spaces or, precisely the opposite, a fear of open spaces or of getting away from a wall into the open; a fear of water, of loud noises, of everything connected with the physical side of sex, of large animals, of cats. In practically every case, such uncontrollable and irrational fears can be traced back to some incident, usually in early life, the memory of which has been repressed. W. H. Rivers gives an account of an interesting case of his. A doctor in the early prime of life suffered occasionally