d my effort entirely on suggestions which were to give
her new interest in life, and diminished the emotional character of
the voices without even trying to make them disappear. I proceeded
for several months. The young woman herself believed that the
fainting attacks came less frequently afterwards; yet I am inclined
to think that that is an illusion. But there was no doubt that her
whole personality became almost a different one with the new share
in the world. The epilepsy remained probably unchanged but all the
superadded emotions were annihilated and she felt an entirely new
courage which allowed her to control herself between her regular
attacks. She had been unable to undertake any regular work before
for a long while, but all that improved. More than a year
afterward, she wrote me: "I have really worked most of the time
this past winter and spring and I think I can see a steady though
slow gain. I am reading quite a little and doing it for the most
part easily. To be sure I have, after I have read, hard times with
the voices but their character is usually less determined and
fearful than formerly. Several times I have thought I must come
again to you but each time I have started again to fight it out for
myself, but now, as I am gaining, I can better estimate the great
help your influence was to me at a juncture when everything seemed
so hopeless and helpless."

Even in slight psychasthenic disturbances, the psychotherapeutic
influence is not always successful, especially if there is no time for
full treatment. But it is very interesting to see how even in such cases
the symptom is somehow changing, almost breaking to pieces. It becomes
clear that a protracted effort in the same direction would destroy the
trouble completely. Typical is a case like the following.

An elderly woman has been troubled her life long by a
disproportionate fear of thunderstorms with almost hysterical
symptoms. As she had no other complaint, I hardly found it worth
while to enter into a systematic treatment and could not expect
much of a change from a short treatment, considering that her
hysteric response had lasted through half a century. As she begged
for some treatment, I brought her into a drowsy state and told her
that she would in future enjoy the thunderstorms as noble
expression