Page:The psychology of insanity (IA psychologyofinsa00hartiala).pdf/176

 individual who is afflicted with an organic disease, but who also has some other character which is strenuously desired by the patient. An hysterical patient of my own, for example, suffered from severe attacks of vertigo — analysis showed that his symptoms were entirely the result of identification with his father, who was the subject of chronic ear-disease, an affection often associated with vertigo.

Identification is intimately bound up with those day-dreaming processes which have been dealt with in the earlier portion of the present chapter. The day-dreamer who witnesses the triumphal progress of some popular hero through the streets lives himself into the part of the central figure, and marches with him through the cheering crowds. From this simple and well-known phenomenon a chain of allied manifestations leads finally to the chronie wards of the asylum, where we encounter a most distinguished assemblage of emperors, generals, and other representatives of the great.