PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

Between the two extremes of the cases which need a real analysis and
those which are cured by simple explanation, I have found the great
bulk of nervous cases. To simple explanation with its highly useful
information, I therefore add what might be called psychological
explanation, a re-education which makes use of all that illuminating
material unearthed by the explorations of hypnosis and especially of
psycho-analysis. Along with correct ideas about such matters as
digestion, sleep, and fatigue, I give, so far as the patient is able
to understand, a comprehension of the rights of the denied instincts,
the ways of the subconscious, the fettering hold of unfortunate
childish habits, the various mental mechanisms by which we fool
ourselves, and the ways by which we may make better adaptations.

=According to the Patient.= The treatment varies according to the
nature of the trouble, and is somewhat dependent on the mentality of
the patient. There are many people who would only be confused by being
forced into a study of mental phenomena. Not being students, they
would be more bewildered than helped by the details of their inner
mechanisms. Others, of studious habits and inquiring minds, are
encouraged to browse at will in a library of psychotherapy and to
learn all that they can from the best authorities.

In any case, I give the patients as much as they are able to take of
my own understanding of the subject. There are no secrets in this
method. The patient is treated as a rational human being who has
nothing to lose and everything to gain by the fullest knowledge that
he is able to acquire. Without forcing him to plunge in over his
depth, I encourage him to understand himself to the fullest possible
extent. Besides individual private conferences, we have twice a day an
informal gathering of all the patients in my household--"the family"
as we like to call ourselves--for a reading or talk on the various
ways of the body and the mind, which need to be understood for normal
living and for the cure of nerves. Very often people of only average
education, long without the opportunity of study, gain in a
surprisingly short time enough insight to make new adaptations and
cure themselves. For this, a college education is not nearly so
important as an open mind. It is because of the success of this method
that I have been encouraged to reach a larger number of people by
means of a book, based on the s