r
tact seemed able to remove it. She simply would not let it go, and she
never got really well.

Now, see the contrast. Another young woman had a similar burglar
experience, and for several nights after she woke with a start at the
same hour. For the first two or three nights she lay and shivered until
she shivered herself to sleep.

Then she noticed how tightened up she was in every muscle when she
woke, and she bethought herself that she would put her mind on relaxing
her muscles and getting rid of the tension in her nerves. She did this
persistently, so that when she woke with the burglar fright it was at
once a reminder to relax.

After a little she got the impression that she woke in order to relax
and it was only a very little while before she succeeded so well that
she did not wake until it was time to get up in the morning.

The burglar impression not only left her entirely, but left her with
the habit of dropping all contractions before she went to sleep, and
her nerves are stronger and more normal in consequence.

The two girls had each a very sensitive, nervous temperament, and the
contrast in their behavior was simply a matter of intelligence.

This same nerve specialist received a patient once who was positively
blatant in her complaint of a nervous shock. "Doctor, I have had a
horrible nervous shock. It was horrible. I do not see how I can ever
get over it."

Then she told it and brought the horrors out in weird, over-vivid
colors. It was horrible, but she was increasing the horrors by the way
in which she dwelt on it.

Finally, when she paused long enough to give the doctor an opportunity
to speak, he said, very quietly: "Madam, will you kindly say to me, as
gently as you can, 'I have had a severe nervous shock.'" She looked at
him without a gleam of understanding and repeated the words quietly: "I
have had a severe nervous shock."

In spite of herself she felt the contrast in her own brain. The
habitual blatancy was slightly checked. The doctor then tried to
impress upon her the fact that she was constantly increasing the strain
of the shock by the way she spoke of it and the way she thought of it,
and that she was really keeping herself ill.

Gradually, as she learned to relax the nervous tension caused by the
shock, a true intelligence about it all dawned upon her; the over-vivid
colors faded, and she got well. She was surprised herself at the
rapidity with which she got well, but she seem