Pretension

“ Hence it happens that if an individual is placed 464permanently in conditions which demand more action of a special kind than has before been requisite, or than is natural to him—if the pressure of the painful feelings which these conditions entail when disregarded, impels him to perform this action to a greater extent—if by every more frequent or more lengthened performance of it under such pressure, the resistance is somewhat diminished ”

“ It is naturally of great value for the progress of the analysis to carry our point with the patient, otherwise we have to depend on what he thinks is proper to impart. It, therefore, will be pleasant to hear that the pressure procedure never failed except in a single case which I shall discuss later, but which I can now characterize by the fact that there was a special motive for the resistance. ”

“ But we feel, in all hard cases of volition, as if the line taken, when the rarer and more ideal motives prevail, were the line of greater resistance, and as if the line of coarser motivation were the more pervious and easy one, even at the very moment when we refuse to follow it. He who under the surgeon's knife represses cries of pain, or he who exposes himself to social obloquy for duty's sake, feels as if he were following the line of greatest temporary resistance. ”

“ In some cases faith and suggestion, reeducation and sharing troubles with another, undoubtedly form the chief agents in the removal or amendment of the symptoms of neurosis, but in the cases I have recorded there can be little doubt that they contributed only in a minor degree to the success which attended the giving up of repression. ”

“ I shall above all, still linger at "the urging." One cannot go very far with such simple assurances as, "You do know it, just say it," or "It will soon come to your mind." After a few sentences the thread breaks, even in the patient who is in a state of concentration. We must not however, forget that we deal everywhere here with a quantitative comparison, with the struggle between motives of diverse force and intensity. ”

“ And with that strange passivity of the nerves which nature mercifully sends to those who have learned submission to suffering, to those whose strength is the strength, not of resistance, but of endurance, she felt that as long as she sat there, relaxed and motionless, she had in a way withdrawn herself from the struggle to live. ”

“ Lack of force may account for the wretched feeling of the hypochondriac and the hysterical, for the mental pain which many feel when they are below par: and a proneness to part with force, to convert it into action, may be the condition of the centres of those who are excitable and impulsive, a condition analogous to that brought about in certain centres by such drugs as strychnia, by such diseases as epilepsy and convulsions, or evidenced by such an affection as stammering.—Fortnightly Review. ”

“ It was the commonplace story of the man working at high pressure, often under stimulants, who has had the grippe to weaken him, so that when the strain comes there is no resistance, no reserve. He snaps like a sapped reed.... ”

“ This particular responsibility you were speaking of still rests upon you?"
"Yes, it does."
"You have not yet completed the course of action on which you have decided?"
"Not yet."
"You feel bound to carry it through?"
"Oh, yes—I can't back out of it now."
"No. You are expecting further strain?"
"A certain amount."
"Do you expect it to last much longer?"
"Very little longer now."
"Ah! Your nerves are not all they should be."
"No?"
"No. Nothing to be alarmed about, but you must exercise care while undergoing this strain, and afterwards you should take a complete rest. ”

“ When such distressing, if not terrible, symptoms disappear or alter in character as soon as repression ceases, it is natural to conclude that the two processes stand to one another in the relation of cause and effect, but so great is the complexity of the conditions with which we are dealing in the medicine of the mind that it is necessary to consider certain alternative explanations. ”

“ The gentle pressure of one sensitive body upon another produces counter-pressure, a resistance that is positively [59] pleasurable, whereby the impenetrability of matter becomes a delightful instead of a frightful revelation to the mind of the Immutable Reality of the loving Creator, as the complement of our own changeful individuality! ”

“ When we use the will forcibly to resist or to repress, we are simply straining our nerves and muscles, and are exerting ourselves in a way which must eventually be weakening, not only to them, but to the will itself. We are using the will normally when, without repression or unnecessary effort, we are directing the muscles and nerves in useful work. We want "training and not straining" as much for the will as for the body, and only in that way does the will get its strength. ”

“ When he awoke and lay moaning, while his little body shook with the long stifling gasps that struggled between his lips, she held him tightly clasped in her arms, with a woman's pathetic faith in the power of a physical pressure to withstand the immaterial forces of death. ”

“ The jaded, overworked, faithful heart will bear no more; it has run its course, and, the governor of the blood-streams broken, the current either overflows into the tissues, gradually damming up the courses, or under some slight shock or excess of motion, ceases wholly at the centre. ”

“ The temptation which comes to us out of the accumulation of anæsthetic agents is one which every tender-hearted man can understand. The temptations which it presents to the suffering they only know who have suffered. To this all that I have said leads up. To most women, even to strong women, there comes a time when pain is a grim presence in their lives. If brief, the wise physician calls upon them for that endurance, of the value of which I have spoken. ”

“ Among the intellectual motives employed for the overcoming of the resistance one can hardly dispense with one affective moment, that is, the personal equation of the doctor, and in a number of cases this alone will be able to break the resistance. ”

“ Quickened by the emotions there aroused, the blood sped exultingly through the arteries, abolishing introspection, clearing the heart of all bitterness, and enabling one to think with tolerance, if not with tenderness, on the most relentless and unreasonable foe. ”

“ On me also much human blood is weighing, much pain, many tears—I, too, when it was a question of the Order and when I saw that I could not succeed through strength alone, had no hesitation in seeking other methods ”

“ Great distress and trouble supposed: My flesh and my heart fail. Note, Others have experienced and we must expect, the failing both of flesh and heart. The body will fail by sickness, age, and death; and that which touches the bone and the flesh touches us in a tender part, that part of ourselves which we have been but too fond of; when the flesh fails the heart is ready to fail too; the conduct, courage, and comfort fail. [2.] Sovereign relief provided in this distress: But God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever. ”

“ Cut a nerve, and the evidence of paralysis, or of insensibility, is the same in the two cases; apply pressure to the brain, or administer a narcotic, and the signs of intelligence disappear in the one as in the other. ”

“ But these motives are not so violently forbidden and repressed as the sexual impulse, and therefore, because of that repressive force and the strength of the impulse he considers this primary in its influence upon the human being. ”

“ The voluntary muscles indicate their participation in this energy, and, indeed, the whole organism is exalted by the influence of the mental faculties. They oppose the tendencies of Feebleness, Relaxation, and Derangement, and modify their proclivities to Disease. The will is the servant of the intellect, emotions, and propensities, and the executive agent of all the faculties. When the volitive faculties are in excess, they may overdo the other functions, prematurely break down the bodily organs, and, by overtaxing the system, subject it to pain and disorder. ”

“ And, to take what are more obviously habits, the success with which a 'weaning' treatment can often be applied to the victims of unhealthy indulgence of passion, or of mere complaining or irascible disposition, shows us how much the morbid manifestations themselves were due to the mere inertia of the nervous organs, when once launched on a false career. ”

“ Now it must be observed that the sensitive appetite differs from the intellective appetite, which is called the will, in the fact that the sensitive appetite is a power of a corporeal organ, whereas the will is not. Again, every act of a power that uses a corporeal organ, depends not only on a power of the soul, but also on the disposition of that corporeal organ: thus the act of vision depends on the power of sight, and on the condition of the eye, which condition is a help or a hindrance to that act. ”

“ When action is greater than strength, whatever has the tendency to raise the power above irritability should be used: the object of this practice consists in bringing the strength of the constitution and parts as near upon a par with the action as possible, by which means, a kindly resolution, or suppuration may take place, according as the parts are capable of acting. ”

“ When you have yielded to someone in carnal intercourse, do not count merely this one defeat, but count also the fact that you have fed your incontinence, you have given it additional strength. For it is inevitable that some habits and faculties should, in consequence of the corresponding actions, spring up, though they did not exist before, and that others which were already there should be intensified and made strong. ”

“ If it was true that the associations discovered by me were kept from the knowledge of the patient by inner affective resistances, then this resistance must manifest itself also in normal persons as soon as the repressed material is conveyed to them from the outside. ”

“ Every Physician of any reasonable amount of practice frequently has cases of weakness, mental and physical, demanding the exhibition of peculiar tonic stimulants and aphrodisiacs, that shall be certain in effect, yet non-irritant or reactionary. ”

“ If he is very sensitive, or if he has seldom, if ever, spoken before, his pulse beats fast, his face flushes, and an indescribable feeling of faintness and fear thrills every nerve. He may wish himself anywhere else, but there is now no help for him. ”

“ BE OF GOOD CHEER AND COURAGE.—Recovery will be gradual, and not sudden; vital force is developed slowly from within. The object aimed at by medicine and counsel, is to aid and increase nervous and physical vigor, and give tone to the demoralized system. ”

“ Yes, that's just it, I suppose; but then we do not order our own constitutions; and I believe, Doctor, that you must kill a nerve before it ceases to hurt. One doesn't choose to worry, I think, any more than one chooses to lay bare a nerve. ”

“ The peculation and venality by which the official men of that age were in the habit of enriching themselves had excited in the public mind a feeling such as could not but vent itself, sooner or later, in some formidable explosion. ”

“ Supposing then the force of the Heart, and of the Muscular Coat of the Arteries, as likewise of the resistance, which they must overcome, to be computed with any degree of accuracy, there remains yet such a prodigious disproportion to be accounted for, as requires some more powerful Agent, than any yet assign'd, to make up the deficiency. ”

“ Enumeration of Instincts in Man.—Professor Preyer, in his careful little work, 'Die Seele des Kindes,' says "instinctive acts are in man few in number, and, apart from those connected with the sexual passion, difficult to recognize after early youth is past." ”

“ By induction we have discovered two of the principal laws by which living bodies are governed; the first is, that when the ordinary powers which support life have been suspended, or their action lessened for a time, the excitability, or vital principle accumulates, or becomes more fit to receive their actions; and secondly, when these powers have been acted upon violently, or for a considerable time, the excitability is exhausted, or becomes less fit to receive their actions. ”

“ Still the pressure upon the brain continued, and with the weight half lifted, she would drop off into a state of insensibility, from which even the lash in the hand of a strong man could not rouse her. ”

“ They have got our blood in their veins, and have these qualities gone with the blood? It is of little avail either to us or to the truth that we can show some difference between our position and their position which may seem to be in our favour. ”

“ By constantly overcoming the resistance, one pushes his way into the inner strata, gaining knowledge concerning the accumulative themes and passing threads found in this layer; one examines as far as he can advance with the means at hand, and by means of the pressure procedure he gains first information concerning the content of the next stratum. ”

“ Nervous Attacks.—What we call, for want of a better name, "nerve force," or "nerve action," is at any one time a definite quantity. In health it is distributed to all the sets of nerves equally, so that all work in harmony. ”

“ Yet impotence is, at the most, an infirmity, whether due to some congenital anatomical defect or to a disturbance of nervous balance in the delicate sexual mechanism, such as is apt to occur in men of abnormally sensitive temperament. ”