it into entirely disproportionate
suffering.

A great problem of nervous education is what the mind will do with
discomfort or pain. Will it put all its attention there and respond with
nervousness, irritability, demand for sympathy; or will it relegate all
the minor pains to their own little places, accepted as facts but to be
disregarded except in so far as actual treatment is needed? Will it turn
to attend to the host of other more desirable objects? Or in case of
acute suffering, will it take it as a challenge to endurance? Will it
use it as a means to strengthen volition, as a stepping-stone to
self-mastery?

Realizing the force of the law--no neurosis without a psychosis--the
nurse will try to eliminate unnecessary irritations to physical comfort,
while she helps the patient to adjust himself to the ones which are
inevitable. It is the doctor's problem rather than hers, except as she
carefully fulfils orders, to eliminate the toxic causes of psychosis. It
is hers to help the patient to meet adequately the effects of the
infections or toxins, and to prevent as far as possible the surrender to
uncontrolled nervousness. Her object is to have him face the psychosis
as one of the simple facts of science, then turn the sick mind's
attention to more important things; she would encourage _will_ to force
endurance; she would stimulate the feeling life to the forward look of
confidence and faith, or to acceptance of life's suffering as a
challenge. The nurse knows that pains beyond the power of endurance the
doctor will lighten. And the patient's reaction to discomfort and
suffering, the understanding nurse, without any preaching, can very
largely influence.

THE POWER OF SUGGESTION

One almost universal condition found in illness is
_hypersuggestability_. Here is the nurse's despair and her hope.
Suggestion may come from without or from within. When from within, we
call it autosuggestion.

Many of the sick are temporarily resting their reasoning faculties and
their judgment. The sick body is causing a feeling of "jangling nerves,"
and the mind, too, is strongly tempted to be sick. So every harsh sound,
every jolt, almost every sentence spoken in their hearing suggests
immediate nervous reactions. The mind does not wait to weigh them. The
nervous system reacts to them the second the impression is registered.
The whole self is oversensitive, and the very inflection of a voice has
enormous significance. Let the nurse