CHAPTER XXXVII

REGAINED ENERGY AND MENTAL HEALTH

The _principle of reserve energy_, developed independently by Professor James and myself, is of the utmost importance to abnormal psychology. The principle is based on a broad generalization of facts--psychological, physiological and biological--namely, that far less energy is utilized by the individual than there is actually at his disposal. A comparatively small fraction of the total amount of energy, possessed by the organism, is used in its relation with the ordinary stimuli of its environment.

The energy in use may be regarded as _kinetic or circulating energy_, while the energy stored away is _reserve energy_. There must always be a supply of reserve energy requisite for unusual reactions in emergency cases. Those organisms survive which have the greatest amount of reserve energy, just as those countries are strong and victorious which possess the largest amount of reserve capital to draw upon in critical periods.

As life becomes more complex, inhibitions increase; the thresholds of stimulations of a complex system rise in proportion to its complexity. With the rise of evolution there is a tendency to increase of inhibitions, with a consequent lock-up of energy which becomes _reserve_. Now there are occasions in the life of the individual, under the influence of training and emotional trauma, when the inhibitions become unusually intense, tending to smother the personality, which becomes weakened, impoverished in its reactions, and is unable to respond freely to the stimuli of its environment. The inhibited system becomes inactive and may be regarded as _dissociated_ from the cycle of life.

In case of an emotional trauma there is often a breach in the continuity of association. The affected system becomes dissociated from the rest of the personality, and is like a splinter in the flesh of the individuality. Its own threshold, when tapped, may be very low, but it is not directly accessible through the mediacy of other systems; hence its threshold appears unusually or pathologically high. When the inhibitions are very high they must be removed. This removal of inhibitions brings about an access to the accumulated energy of the inhibited systems. In case of disjunction or break of continuity we must stimulate the dormant reserve energy of the systems, and thus assist the process of repair and bridge the breach of associative continuity. A new, fresh, active life opens to the patient. He becomes a “reformed” personality, free and cheerful, with an overflow of energy.

The hypnoidal state is essentially a rest-state characterized by anabolic activity. There is a restitution of spent energy; inhibitions become removed, and access is gained to “dormant” systems or complexes. The awakened “dormant” complex systems bring with them a new feeling-tone, a fresh emotional energy resulting in an almost complete transformation of personality.

As an illustration of the transformation effected I take at random the following extracts from some of the letters written to me by patients who have experienced this welling up of reserve energy: “Indeed, were I to fill this entire sheet with expressions of the gratitude which wells up from my inmost heart it would be only a beginning of what I feel. Surely the darkness of the world has been dispelled since this _new light_ has illuminated my soul, and _I feel that this wondrous light will never fail me_. It were vain to attempt to thank you for this wonderful transformation.”

A letter from a patient reads: “You will be glad to know that all is well with me. Life is one happy day. I am a marvel to my friends in the way of happiness and cheer. I have to confess that I feel almost wicked to be so happy.”

Another letter runs as follows: “Next to the gladness in my own restoration, I am rejoiced at the wonderful transformation that has come to my dear friend T---- from your treatment. She writes me most enthusiastically of her steady and sure progress toward the goal of perfect health, of her strength to take up the home duties which had been so burdensome, and she now finds a delight in the doing of them, and of her husband’s and friends’ joy in the transformation that has been wrought in her.”

A patient writes: “Your treatments cut a deep channel in my subconscious life, one from which if I do happen to wander astray is for only a short time; then I am carried right back in the trend. In fact, there exists a deep indelible, happy and cheerful impression incorporated in my subconscious life that it is impossible to eradicate.... You have laid a concrete foundation upon which I am building, little by little, a structure that some day you will be proud of, and for which words are insufficient to express my profound gratitude.”

Another patient writes: “The big result of your treatment was restoring my faith and arousing my ambitions. I never think of suicide. I only want to live and work and redeem myself. I have never been so happy and I have never worked harder.... I feel the most extraordinary eagerness; a strange, irrepressible enthusiasm; and an absolute conviction of the truth and beauty of work, of my work. I dare not think of failure, and yet success as I conceive it is too wonderful ever to come. The brave will of life in me permitting, I shall some day approximate my prayer, my dream, my vision; and then I must let the earth know you are responsible.”

The following extract of a letter, written to me by a patient, an experienced English surgeon, now in charge of a hospital in England, whose case was severe and chronic, dating from early childhood, is valuable, both on account of his medical training and his mental abilities which make him an excellent judge as to the fundamental change and cure effected:

“It is now exactly two years since I was undergoing treatment at your kindly and sympathetic hands. I remember that you once told me that the seed sown by you would probably take this length of time to come to fruition. Therefore, it may not be without interest to you to receive a supplement to many other letters in which I will endeavor to summarize my progress--for the last time.

“I have no longer even the least lingering doubt that you can count me among your most brilliantly successful cures. I say this after many--too many--heart searchings which are probably characteristic of my somewhat doubting temperament. At first, I was disappointed with the whole business: I suppose I looked for strange and dramatic events to occur which would change my whole personality and temperament in a short time. Nothing so exciting happened; I left Portsmouth still feeling that I owned the same name, and very much the same ‘ego’ that I arrived with. I was unaware that any profound psychological operation had taken place. To be candid, I did not think it had--the beginnings, no doubt, were there--but no more. But now when I carry my mind back to the type of obsession which used to assail me--is there any change? Good God! I behold a miracle, although it has come about so silently that I can only realize the difference by comparing the present with the past. In conclusion I can only send you my undying gratitude.... You have saved me from what, I honestly believe, would have one day resulted in deliberate suicide which I often contemplated as the one solution of my trouble....”

These extracts are typical of many others, and clearly show the enjoyment of new strength and powers until now unknown to the patient. Fresh reservoirs of reserve energy have been tapped and have become available in an hour of dire need. The patient has light and strength where there were darkness and depression. We are confronted here with the _important phenomenon of liberation of dormant reserve energy_. The patient feels the flood of fresh energies as a “marvelous transformation,” as a “new light,” as a “new life,” as “a something worth more than life itself.”

The hypnoidal state helps us to reach the inaccessible regions of dormant, reserve energy, helps to break down inhibitions, to liberate reserve energies and to repair the breaches or dissociation of mental life. The painful systems become dissociated, disintegrated and again transformed, reformed, and reintegrated into new systems, full of energy and joy of life.

The banishment of credulity, the cultivation of the upper, critical consciousness, the rational control of the subconscious, the moderation of the self-impulse, the regulation of the fear-instinct, and the access to the vast stores of subconscious reserve energy, all go to the formation of a strong, healthy-minded personality, free from fear and psychopathic maladies.

INDEX

Affections, neurotic, 59

Aphonia, 234, 248

Aristotle, 320

Automatic writing, 258, 260, 262

Automatic state, 121

Bacon, 301

Bain, 39, 56

Bernheim, 306

Binet, 255

Bramwell, 112

Carlyle, 49, 314

Catalepsy, 212, 218, 234, 244

Cataplexy, 67, 96

Characteristics of morbid states, 73, 74

Charcot, 325

Civilization, 273, 274

Claperèdé, 95

Compayré, 40

Consciousness, 77 will-, 77

Conversion, 312, 319

Crile, 53

Dämmerzustände, 220, 221

Darwin, Ch., 47, 57, 274

Demoor, 131

Diathesis, psychopathic, 285

Differentiation of neurotic states, 113

Disturbances, neurotic, 58

Donley, John, 102, 103

Dormant systems, 371

Dostoevsky, 25

Egocentric, 366

Energy, circulating, 369 dynamic, 335, 339 kinetic, 369 neuron, 333, 339, 354 organic, 335 reserve, 334, 354, 369 restitution of, 336 static, 334, 335

Epictetus, 320

Eugenics, 276, 285

Fear, attacks, 226 instincts, 23, 24, 26, 42, 48, 55, 128, 164, 325, 354, 364 stages of, 27

Fear suggestion, 324 symptoms and description, 57, 60 types of, 351

Frazer, 297

Functional psychosis, 42, 43

Galton, 74, 146, 310

Hall, Stanley, 70

Haller, 46

Hallucination, 250, 254, 255 hypnotic, 256 pseudo, 224

Health, 130

Hegel, 320

Heredity, 271, 278, 353

Hypnagogic state, 92

Hypnapagogic state, 92

Hypnoidal state, 66, 91, 93, 95, 98, 101, 102, 106, 109, 113, 176, 264, 328

Hypnoidization, 101, 102, 109, 110

Hypnosis, 93, 96 nature of, 95, 96

Individuality, struggle for, 21

James, William, 34, 320, 321

Janet, 355

Kirchner, 67

Kraepelin, 50

Liebault, 306

Life energy, 332

Maladies, 164 neurotic, 164 psychopathic, 58, 368

Meltzer, 334

Metaphysics, 312

Mitchell, T. W., 103, 106, 107

Minot, 334

Mosso, 46, 277, 326, 345

Münsterberg, 305

Mysticism, 75, 76, 139, 312, 319

Nerve cell organization, 77 inferior, 77 superior, 77

Neuropathies, 62, 63, 65

Neurosis, 42, 44, 60, 171, 178, 271, 276, 285 forms of, 61

Neurotic patients, 118, 130, 160

Neurotic states, 136

Organopathies, 61, 63, 65

Parasitism, neurotic, 131

Pascal, 274

Percept, nature of, 251

Perez, 33

Personality, 86, 89

Pfleiderer, 317

Plato, 320

Pollock, 352

Prayer, 312, 319, 329

Preyer, 33

Principle of contrast, 139 of differentiation, 143 of diminishing resistance, 143 dissociation, 142 dominance, 144 dynamogenesis, 144 embryonic psychogenesis, 137 fusion or synthesis, 138 inhibition, 144 irradiation or diffusion, 142 mental contest and discord, 145 modification, 148 proliferation and complication, 138 recession, 140 recurrence, 137

Psychoanalysis, 7, 9, 192, 330

Psychognosis, 120

Psycholepsy, 216

Psychopathic affections, 65, 115, 121, 130, 161, 284, 356

Psychosis, functional, 41, 44, 277

Ribakov, 171

Ribot, 33, 75, 340, 341

Romanes, 40

Routine, 121, 358

Royce, J., 320

Schopenhauer, 320

Self-preservation, 19, 23, 26, 128, 147, 164, 182, 311, 325, 368

Self, subwaking, 86, 89, 90

Seneca, 320

Sensory elements, 251 primary, 251 secondary, 251

Sex, instinct, 132

Sherrington, 52, 70

Sleep, 66, 95, 96, 110

Somatopsychosis, 64

Stammering, 234, 242

States hypnagogic, 92 hypnapagogic, 92 recurrent, 223, 360 sleeping, 337 waking, 336

Struggle for individuality, 21

Subconscious, the, 77

Suggestibility, 79, 80, 85 abnormal, 81 laws of, 81, 82 normal, 81

Suggestion, 79 post-hypnotic, 259, 260

Sully, 41

Superstition, 38, 264, 305

Synæsthesia, 252, 254

Taboos, 281, 308, 311 apparition, 259

Trance states, 79

Weir-Mitchell, 160 rest treatment of, 165

Writing, automatic, 258, 260, 262

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

Pg 41: ‘In certain types of funtional psychosis’ replaced by ‘In certain types of functional psychosis’. Pg 102: ‘Relaxtion of nervous’ replaced by ‘Relaxation of nervous’. Pg 113: ‘to the crystillization’ replaced by ‘to the crystallization’. Pg 123: ‘Phychoanalysis and Christian’ replaced by ‘Psychoanalysis and Christian’. Pg 157: ‘patient was aways’ replaced by ‘patient was always’. Pg 166: ‘later life developd’ replaced by ‘later life developed’. Pg 187: ‘who reasurred me’ replaced by ‘who reassured me’. Pg 265: ‘process of matabolism’ replaced by ‘process of metabolism’. Pg 281: ‘_the reductio ad absurdum_’ replaced by ‘the _reductio ad absurdum_’. Pg 336: ‘Diagram IV’ was sideways, and has been rotated 90°. Pg 351: ‘are in abeyanace’ replaced by ‘are in abeyance’. Pg 375: ‘stores of subconscous’ replaced by ‘stores of subconscious’.

Index: ‘Münsterburg’ replaced by ‘Münsterberg’.