Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/70

66 related to or responsible for the one afflicted. On the contrary, every attempt on the part of these latter to assume or restrict his proper functions, or to cover up that which should be told, or to interpose with their own cross purposes and perverting schemes, will only serve to embarrass him, and to hinder his patient's recovery. This needs to be said everywhere and repeatedly; for it has not even yet come to pass that such a necessary harmony of opinion and action is always to be relied upon. In general, it should always be remembered that the problem presented by instances of a mind diseased is really so complex, and often so unresolvable at best, that the intuitions, the careful watching, the knowledge and the devoted skill of every one concerned, are none too much for obtaining the best possible results.

With respect to all the "newer" and promisingly better methods of management of a mind diseased, with respect to its own especial needs—those that have been devised by more recent investigators—it may be said, in a word, that they all seek to be based upon strictly scientific methods, and so to become more and more reliable and eventually trustworthy to an extent heretofore unknown. The first thing one notes is that it seems settled beyond question that in all these cases there shall be secured at once a most complete and searching, yet of course judicious, "scientific confession," or more properly scientific riddance through confession, of all the deeply hidden harmful feelings, thoughts and habits, that so often are really the basis of the painful mental superstructure which has supervened. In almost all this class of sufferers some such kind of revealing of the underlying sinful, or shocking, or stressful life, is found to be the best method of preparing the way for the subsequent, constructive measures which may then seem necessary. Hence, for this purpose, much attention is now given, for instance, to invoking the recollection of all the startling and harassing dreams which so often give darkness and pain to the easily impressed mind, and then to their true interpretation as affecting the waking life. Likewise, even though it be through hypnotic and allied means, it is often sought thoroughly to recall and expunge from the uttermost depths of being any and every other sort of earlier experience, whether these may have been sinful, accidentally shocking, or freighted with some kind of awful stress, in order that the sufferer shall no longer remain the unconscious victim of these "subliminal," most vicious enemies, as sorely as before. In fact, the "new method" implies that most of these cases have, to begin with, profound need of what may well be termed a "drastic psychical catharsis"; and considerable experience shows that, once having secured this, such people are, at least for the time being, very apt to be relieved from their pain, begin to be noticeably ambitious and vigorous, beget new hopes and