REGAINED ENERGY AND MENTAL HEALTH
The _principle of reserve energy_, developed independently by
Professor James and myself, is of the utmost importance to abnormal
psychology. The principle is based on a broad generalization
of facts--psychological, physiological and biological--namely,
that far less energy is utilized by the individual than there is
actually at his disposal. A comparatively small fraction of the
total amount of energy, possessed by the organism, is used in its
relation with the ordinary stimuli of its environment.
The energy in use may be regarded as _kinetic or circulating
energy_, while the energy stored away is _reserve energy_. There
must always be a supply of reserve energy requisite for unusual
reactions in emergency cases. Those organisms survive which have
the greatest amount of reserve energy, just as those countries are
strong and victorious which possess the largest amount of reserve
capital to draw upon in critical periods.
As life becomes more complex, inhibitions increase; the thresholds
of stimulations of a complex system rise in proportion to its
complexity. With the rise of evolution there is a tendency to
increase of inhibitions, with a consequent lock-up of energy
which becomes _reserve_. Now there are occasions in the life of
the individual, under the influence of training and emotional
trauma, when the inhibitions become unusually intense, tending to
smother the personality, which becomes weakened, impoverished in
its reactions, and is unable to respond freely to the stimuli of
its environment. The inhibited system becomes inactive and may be
regarded as _dissociated_ from the cycle of life.
In case of an emotional trauma there is often a breach in the
continuity of association. The affected system becomes dissociated
from the rest of the personality, and is like a splinter in the
flesh of the individuality. Its own threshold, when tapped,
may be very low, but it is not directly accessible through the
mediacy of other systems; hence its threshold appears unusually or
pathologically high. When the inhibitions are very high they must
be removed. This removal of inhibitions brings about an access
to the accumulated energy of the inhibited systems. In case of
disjunction or break of continuity we must stimulate the dormant
reserve energy of the systems, and thus assist the process of
repair and bridge the breach of associative continuity. A new,
fresh, active life opens to the patient. He becomes a “reformed”
personality, free and cheerful, with an overflow of energy.
The hypnoidal state is essentially a rest-state characterized
by anabolic activity. There is a restitution of spent energy;
inhibitions become removed, and access is gained to “dormant”
systems or complexes. The awakened “dormant” complex systems bring
with them a new feeling-tone, a fresh emotional energy resulting in
an almost complete transformation of personality.
As an illustration of the transformation effected I take at random
the following extracts from some of the letters written to me by
patients who have experienced this welling up of reserve energy:
“Indeed, were I to fill this entire sheet with expressions of the
gratitude which wells up from my inmost heart it would be only a
beginning of what I feel. Surely the darkness of the world has been
dispelled since this _new light_ has illuminated my soul, and _I
feel that this wondrous light will never fail me_. It were vain to
attempt to thank you for this wonderful transformation.”
A letter from a patient reads: “You will be glad to know that all
is well with me. Life is one happy day. I am a marvel to my friends
in the way of happiness and cheer. I have to confess that I feel
almost wicked to be so happy.”
Another letter runs as follows: “Next to the gladness in my own
restoration, I am rejoiced at the wonderful transformation that
has come to my dear friend T---- from your treatment. She writes
me most enthusiastically of her steady and sure progress toward
the goal of perfect health, of her strength to take up the home
duties which had been so burdensome, and she now finds a delight
in the doing of them, and of her husband’s and friends’ joy in the
transformation that has been wrought in her.”
A patient writes: “Your treatments cut a deep channel in my
subconscious life, one from which if I do happen to wander astray
is for only a short time; then I am carried right back in the
trend. In fact, there exists a deep indelible, happy and cheerful
impression incorporated in my subconscious life that it is
impossible to eradicate.... You have laid a concrete foundation
upon which I am building, little by little, a structure that some
day you will be proud of, and for which words are insufficient to
express my profound gratitude.”
Another patient writes: “The big result of your treatment was
restoring my faith and arousing my ambitions. I never think of
suicide. I only want to live and work and redeem myself. I have
never been so happy and I have never worked harder.... I feel the
most extraordinary eagerness; a strange, irrepressible enthusiasm;
and an absolute conviction of the truth and beauty of work, of my
work. I dare not think of failure, and yet success as I conceive
it is too wonderful ever to come. The brave will of life in me
permitting, I shall some day approximate my prayer, my dream, my
vision; and then I must let the earth know you are responsible.”
The following extract of a letter, written to me by a patient,
an experienced English surgeon, now in charge of a hospital in
England, whose case was severe and chronic, dating from early
childhood, is valuable, both on account of his medical training and
his mental abilities which make him an excellent judge as to the
fundamental change and cure effected:
“It is now exactly two years since I was undergoing treatment at
your kindly and sympathetic hands. I remember that you once told me
that the seed sown by you would probably take this length of time
to come to fruition. Therefore, it may not be without interest to
you to receive a supplement to many other letters in which I will
endeavor to summarize my progress--for the last time.
“I have no longer even the least lingering doubt that you can count
me among your most brilliantly successful cures. I say this after
many--too many--heart searchings which are probably characteristic
of my somewhat doubting temperament. At first, I was disappointed
with the whole business: I suppose I looked for strange and
dramatic events to occur which would change my whole personality
and temperament in a short time. Nothing so exciting happened; I
left Portsmouth still feeling that I owned the same name, and very
much the same ‘ego’ that I arrived with. I was unaware that any
profound psychological operation had taken place. To be candid, I
did not think it had--the beginnings, no doubt, were there--but no
more. But now when I carry my mind back to the type of obsession
which used to assail me--is there any change? Good God! I behold
a miracle, although it has come about so silently that I can only
realize the difference by comparing the present with the past.
In conclusion I can only send you my undying gratitude.... You
have saved me from what, I honestly believe, would have one day
resulted in deliberate suicide which I often contemplated as the
one solution of my trouble....”
These extracts are typical of many others, and clearly show the
enjoyment of new strength and powers until now unknown to the
patient. Fresh reservoirs of reserve energy have been tapped and
have become available in an hour of dire need. The patient has
light and strength where there were darkness and depression. We
are confronted here with the _important phenomenon of liberation
of dormant reserve energy_. The patient feels the flood of fresh
energies as a “marvelous transformation,” as a “new light,” as a
“new life,” as “a something worth more than life itself.”
The hypnoidal state helps us to reach the inaccessible regions
of dormant, reserve energy, helps to break down inhibitions,
to liberate reserve energies and to repair the breaches or
dissociation of mental life. The painful systems become
dissociated, disintegrated and again transformed, reformed, and
reintegrated into new systems, full of energy and joy of life.
The banishment of credulity, the cultivation of the upper,
critical consciousness, the rational control of the subconscious,
the moderation of the self-impulse, the regulation of the
fear-instinct, and the access to the vast stores of subconscious
reserve energy, all go to the formation of a strong, healthy-minded
personality, free from fear and psychopathic maladies.
INDEX
Affections, neurotic, 59
Aphonia, 234, 248
Aristotle, 320
Automatic writing, 258, 260, 262
Automatic state, 121
Bacon, 301
Bain, 39, 56
Bernheim, 306
Binet, 255
Bramwell, 112
Carlyle, 49, 314
Catalepsy, 212, 218, 234, 244
Cataplexy, 67, 96
Characteristics of morbid states, 73, 74
Charcot, 325
Civilization, 273, 274
Claperèdé, 95
Compayré, 40
Consciousness, 77
will-, 77
Conversion, 312, 319
Crile, 53
Dämmerzustände, 220, 221
Darwin, Ch., 47, 57, 274
Demoor, 131
Diathesis, psychopathic, 285
Differentiation of neurotic states, 113
Disturbances, neurotic, 58
Donley, John, 102, 103
Dormant systems, 371
Dostoevsky, 25
Egocentric, 366
Energy,
circulating, 369
dynamic, 335, 339
kinetic, 369
neuron, 333, 339, 354
organic, 335
reserve, 334, 354, 369
restitution of, 336
static, 334, 335
Epictetus, 320
Eugenics, 276, 285
Fear, attacks, 226
instincts, 23, 24, 26, 42, 48, 55, 128, 164, 325, 354, 364
stages of, 27
Fear suggestion, 324
symptoms and description, 57, 60
types of, 351
Frazer, 297
Functional psychosis, 42, 43
Galton, 74, 146, 310
Hall, Stanley, 70
Haller, 46
Hallucination, 250, 254, 255
hypnotic, 256
pseudo, 224
Health, 130
Hegel, 320
Heredity, 271, 278, 353
Hypnagogic state, 92
Hypnapagogic state, 92
Hypnoidal state, 66, 91, 93, 95, 98, 101, 102, 106, 109, 113, 176,
264, 328
Hypnoidization, 101, 102, 109, 110
Hypnosis, 93, 96
nature of, 95, 96
Individuality, struggle for, 21
James, William, 34, 320, 321
Janet, 355
Kirchner, 67
Kraepelin, 50
Liebault, 306
Life energy, 332
Maladies, 164
neurotic, 164
psychopathic, 58, 368
Meltzer, 334
Metaphysics, 312
Mitchell, T. W., 103, 106, 107
Minot, 334
Mosso, 46, 277, 326, 345
Münsterberg, 305
Mysticism, 75, 76, 139, 312, 319
Nerve cell organization, 77
inferior, 77
superior, 77
Neuropathies, 62, 63, 65
Neurosis, 42, 44, 60, 171, 178, 271, 276, 285
forms of, 61
Neurotic patients, 118, 130, 160
Neurotic states, 136
Organopathies, 61, 63, 65
Parasitism, neurotic, 131
Pascal, 274
Percept, nature of, 251
Perez, 33
Personality, 86, 89
Pfleiderer, 317
Plato, 320
Pollock, 352
Prayer, 312, 319, 329
Preyer, 33
Principle of contrast, 139
of differentiation, 143
of diminishing resistance, 143
dissociation, 142
dominance, 144
dynamogenesis, 144
embryonic psychogenesis, 137
fusion or synthesis, 138
inhibition, 144
irradiation or diffusion, 142
mental contest and discord, 145
modification, 148
proliferation and complication, 138
recession, 140
recurrence, 137
Psychoanalysis, 7, 9, 192, 330
Psychognosis, 120
Psycholepsy, 216
Psychopathic affections, 65, 115, 121, 130, 161, 284, 356
Psychosis, functional, 41, 44, 277
Ribakov, 171
Ribot, 33, 75, 340, 341
Romanes, 40
Routine, 121, 358
Royce, J., 320
Schopenhauer, 320
Self-preservation, 19, 23, 26, 128, 147, 164, 182, 311, 325, 368
Self, subwaking, 86, 89, 90
Seneca, 320
Sensory elements, 251
primary, 251
secondary, 251
Sex, instinct, 132
Sherrington, 52, 70
Sleep, 66, 95, 96, 110
Somatopsychosis, 64
Stammering, 234, 242
States
hypnagogic, 92
hypnapagogic, 92
recurrent, 223, 360
sleeping, 337
waking, 336
Struggle for individuality, 21
Subconscious, the, 77
Suggestibility, 79, 80, 85
abnormal, 81
laws of, 81, 82
normal, 81
Suggestion, 79
post-hypnotic, 259, 260
Sully, 41
Superstition, 38, 264, 305
Synæsthesia, 252, 254
Taboos, 281, 308, 311
apparition, 259
Trance states, 79
Weir-Mitchell, 160
rest treatment of, 165
Writing, automatic, 258, 260, 262
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
Pg 41: ‘In certain types of funtional psychosis’ replaced by
‘In certain types of functional psychosis’.
Pg 102: ‘Relaxtion of nervous’ replaced by ‘Relaxation of nervous’.
Pg 113: ‘to the crystillization’ replaced by ‘to the crystallization’.
Pg 123: ‘Phychoanalysis and Christian’ replaced by ‘Psychoanalysis
and Christian’.
Pg 157: ‘patient was aways’ replaced by ‘patient was always’.
Pg 166: ‘later life developd’ replaced by ‘later life developed’.
Pg 187: ‘who reasurred me’ replaced by ‘who reassured me’.
Pg 265: ‘process of matabolism’ replaced by ‘process of metabolism’.
Pg 281: ‘_the reductio ad absurdum_’ replaced by
‘the _reductio ad absurdum_’.
Pg 336: ‘Diagram IV’ was sideways, and has been rotated 90°.
Pg 351: ‘are in abeyanace’ replaced by ‘are in abeyance’.
Pg 375: ‘stores of subconscous’ replaced by ‘stores of subconscious’.
Index:
‘Münsterburg’ replaced by ‘Münsterberg’.