Page:The Modern Treatment of Mental and Nervous Disorders.djvu/21

— 19 — of the war he goes the other way, and he seeks constantly to occupy his mind with other things, so that there shall be no room in it for the spectres he dreads. Much of his activity is spent in the endeavour to push away the offending memories, to thrust them into the back of his mind, and to keep them off the stage of his thoughts. Now it is evident that these memories are constituents of his mind, that they jar and jangle with other constituents, that one force tends to drag them into the full light of consciousness while another seeks to thrust them into oblivion, and that here there is no harmony, but only a constant conflict.

We may, moreover, utilise this example to illustrate how the internal conflict generates some of the symptoms familiar in nervous disorder. When the patient goes to bed and composes himself for sleep, the stage of his consciousness is no longer crowded with thoughts of other things, the memories surge on to it, and he is once more filled with fears and apprehensions. Sleep becomes almost impossible, and there results the symptom of insomnia. Even if the patient should succeed in falling asleep, the memories, no longer controlled by the ban of waking consciousness, take undisputed possession of the stage, the patient dreams of trenches and battles, and wakes with all the horrors of nightmare. Moreover, in his waking state the constant conflict saps his available energy, so that he cannot concentrate his attention, nor carry out any sustained occupation, while the memories, ever present on the fringe of consciousness, engender in him a state of extreme