Psychotherapy Part 29

Self-Denial.--Many thoughtful people are sure that what is needed to make a large number of our generation more happy, or at least less miserable, is training in self-denial and in self-control. The word self-denial has come to have a very distant sound for most of our generation. From early childhood anything that is unpleasant is shunned and anything that is difficult is likely to be shirked. The head-master of Eton College has recently insisted that too much is being done to please young folks and too little to stimulate them to activity. He declares that, as a rule, any undertaking begins to be useful just where it ceases to be simply pleasant. Unpleasantness is avoided to such a degree that the habit of thinking that it has no part in life comes to be a second nature. As a consequence, the reaction to any continued unpleasantness is likely to be exaggerated and make the subject very miserable, and sometimes disturbs and discourages, whereas it should have the effect of stimulating to reactive efforts, to bring out the best that is in us.

Hinton emphasizes the fact that an ingredient of pain is necessary to all health or pleasure. The fatigue and the hardship a.s.sociated with mountain climbing is a portion of the essence of the pleasure in it.

All healthy, pleasant exercise has an accompaniment of fatigue and some aches and pains. What is needed, then, in our time is the training to do things for the sake of doing them. We should be neglectful of the discomfort that may be a.s.sociated with them, or we should even consciously rejoice in the fact that this very discomfort is of itself a sign that functions are being used to such an extent, that their limits are being expanded, their limitations overcome.

It may well be said that it is not the physician who, as a rule, should do this; it should be accomplished in the early years by the teachers and trainers of the young. True enough. But physicians can at least help in reforming the tradition in this matter so as to neutralize the present state of mind which seems to look upon pain as an evil. Pain is always either a conservative sensation or an actual stimulus to function. Besides, many of the present generation who come to us, having had no training in the precious qualities of self-denial and self-control under difficulties and discomforts, must have this knowledge supplied for them as far as possible by suggestions of various kinds. It is more difficult to accomplish much in this matter for the adult, but even in apparently hopeless cases of over-attention to self and incapacity to bear discomfort, much can be accomplished by patience and persistence.

The common dread of suffering is quite unwarranted by what we know about the effect of pain. There are many motives that may be adduced to make it seem less terrifying than it now is to many people. The effect of pain upon character is always excellent. The difference between two brothers, as we have said, one of whom has had the discipline of pain or suffering and {239} the development of sympathy that comes with it, and the other who has not had the advantage of this great human experience, is likely to be marked. In the one there is a depth of human nature that enables him to appreciate and even to express the meaning of life better than his apparently more fortunate brother. Practically all the men who have ever got close to the heart of the mystery of life, and expressed it in poetry or other form of literature or art, have gone through suffering as a portion of their training. Even the suffering that comes from ill health is never wasted. Men have gone through it who have thought that the ecstasy of relief following it made the experience worth while.

Men are not deterred from action by the prospect of even severe pain.

Probably no greater physical suffering can possibly be invited than is sure to come to those who go on Arctic expeditions, or who undertake prospecting in Alaska. Of course, many of the prospectors find themselves in the bitter cold of the North without having realized what they would have to stand. But Arctic explorers, as a rule, know exactly what they have to expect. Most of of them have been through it all before, yet they deliberately choose to go again for rewards that, to an average man's eyes, seem trivial. The memory of past pain is rather pleasant. Virgil's "Perhaps it will be pleasant to recall these trials at some future time" is not poetic exaggeration.

_The Discipline of Pain_.--There is only one way to learn how to bear pain, and that is by practice in it. There might be no necessity for this in case life were arranged differently. But all men must die, and death inevitably involves a painful process. Suffering is practically unavoidable for the majority of men. Even in the midst of every possible material comfort, cancer may come with all its hideous connotations. It is important, then, that everyone should be prepared to stand some pain. Certain suggestions help in bearing special pains.

Pain Diffusion.--Pain along one nerve may readily become diffused.

This diffusion will sometimes cause discomfort, and even tenderness, at a distance from the original seat of the pain. Such diffusion tends to produce in the patient's mind the idea that the underlying pathological condition is spreading, though it is only a sign that the nervous system is becoming irritable and easily responding to sensory disturbance. Dr. Head's investigations ("Brain," 1893), should be known to physicians, and the conclusions that flow from them should be presented to patients who are sometimes suffering quite as much from their apprehension of the spread of pain, and its significance, as from the discomfort itself. Dr. Head says:

If I have an aching tooth, the pain is at first localized to the tooth affected. The longer the toothache continues the more I become worn out, and the pain is rapidly accentuated by a "neuralgia," that is, a pain in the face. The neuralgia is soon accompanied by distinct cutaneous tenderness over a definite area on the face corresponding to the tooth affected. If I am anemic, or if the pain remains untreated until my bodily health is affected, I no longer have a localized area of tenderness, but the pain, and with it the tenderness, spreads until the whole of one-half of the head and even the neck may be intensely tender. Thus at last the pain of an aching tooth has produced tenderness over areas which bear no relation to the affected organ.

As pain can be suppressed by diversion of mind, or concentration of thought on something that creates great preoccupation, it must not be {240} forgotten that pain may almost be created by concentration of attention on certain areas of the body, or certain nerve tracts.

Over-attention will actually make sensations intolerable that are at first quite indifferent, or at least very easy to bear. Sensitive people, in the ordinary meaning of that term, are those who are much given to paying attention to their sensations, and who therefore have much to complain of them. There is much in modern life that has the tendency to produce this sybaritic condition in which even slight discomforts become the sources of almost unbearable annoyance.

Even where there is no good physical reason for the occurrence of pain, thinking may produce discomfort. The one thing that Freud's work has made clear is that in neurotic persons the memory of a mental shock or strain may be transferred to some portion of the body related in some way to the shock, and then prove to be the source of hysterical pains and also of hysterical palsy. The case told by him in which the young woman ma.s.saging her father's limbs allows them always to rest on her own lap during the process, and after his death suffers from an hysterical, painful condition in this region, is a typical ill.u.s.tration. Her sympathy for her father, accentuated by his subsequent death, and her sorrow at a time when her nursing efforts made her particularly susceptible, led to an explosion of nervous energy along those nerves which had always felt the impress of his legs. The hysterical condition resulted. This is an extreme case. In milder forms it would be possible to explain many otherwise inexplicable pains and aches in sensitive young people along these same lines.

More than once I have seen young women, who had been asked to rub father or mother with liniment, complain of tingling pains in their fingers which were followed by some redness so that one would be tempted to think of Weir Mitch.e.l.l's disease, though evidently the pathological cause at work was the slight disturbance of the vasomotor system due to the liniment and the rubbing, emphasized by the sympathetic feelings, and by the over-attention which this brought about. Whenever women have, for a prolonged period, to nurse others in whom they are deeply interested, and have to perform some habitual action that is somewhat fatiguing for them, after the death of the patient there will not infrequently be the development of hysterical or neurotic over-sensitiveness in the parts employed. This may give rise even to an hysterical joint, or to severe neurotic pains. Once these cases are recognized, the attention can be diverted from themselves and they can be made to understand that their grief and sympathy are being concentrated on the part and by transfer are producing physical manifestations. The pain is not imaginary, but the condition will improve as soon as the mind is diverted from it.

Neurotic and Organic Pain.--The distinction between pain due to a neurosis and to a definite lesion is often difficult to make. If there is a definite localization of pain, it is almost surely not neurotic, but organic. If there are certain positions in which pain is felt while it disappears in others, there is some local inflammatory or congestive condition and not mere hypersensitiveness of nerves at the bottom of it. These positions of maximum pain are important. When pain radiates a great deal, even though there may be complaint of a particular region, it is usually neurotic. If patients are asked to tell exactly where their pain is, and they indicate its location by a wave of the hand, it is probable that the condition is neurotic. When there is a definite {241} localized point of tenderness with the pain, even though there may be radiations, usually the condition is based upon some organic trouble. It must not be forgotten, however, that slight local troubles may by concentration of mind on them, become exaggerated and that, in spite of the fact that there is or was at the beginning a definite localization of pain with some tenderness, the neurotic elements may, after a time, become manifest and prove to be much more important than the others.

Pain that is definitely influenced by motion, as by the jarring effect of walking, or by bending and stooping, is practically always organic.

The best differential diagnosis between neurotic abdominal conditions and organic trouble can be made by the help of information obtained in this way. If the appendix is inflamed, or the gall bladder infected, or contains a calculus, or if the kidney has a calculus, these are all made worse by movements, by jarring, by stooping as in tying the shoes, by riding on rough roads, and the like. If patients who suffer from obscure abdominal conditions a.s.sociated with pain of which they complain much, can, at certain times, indulge with impunity in these exercises and motions, it is probable that their attacks are neurotic in character. Especially is this true if the indulgence in these rides and motions is without effect when they are in pleasant, agreeable company, though there may be some complaints when they have to ride alone, or under conditions that are less pleasant. If a hint of this distinction by which the physician differentiates one form of pain from another is given a neurotic patient, the suggestion will serve the purpose of producing complaints whenever the opportunity presents itself. Such patients take such suggestions, as a rule, without wishing to deceive, but they become persuaded that their sufferings are of the character asked for.

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SPECIAL PSYCHOTHERAPY

SECTION VI

_THE DIGESTIVE TRACT_

CHAPTER I

INFLUENCE OF MIND ON FOOD DIGESTION

With the progress of biological chemistry, digestion came to be considered a purely chemical process. Now we realize that even more important than the chemical factors of digestion is the individual liking for particular kinds of food, and the mental att.i.tude of the patient toward digestion.

Not only may mental factors interrupt or hamper digestive processes generally but, as the investigations of Pawlow at the Imperial Inst.i.tute of St. Petersburg show, they may modify very materially the chemical processes within the stomach. If, for investigation purposes, a stomach pouch be experimentally segregated in a dog from the rest of the stomach, and the dog be fed food that he has a particular liking for, the gastric juice manufactured will be especially strong and effective. If the food given be less to the dog's liking, the gastric juice is not nearly so efficient in its activity. Finally, if food be consumed for which the dog does not care, but which he takes because hunger compels him, the gastric juice manufactured for its digestion is quite weak and the process of digestion is slow. If this is true for an animal like the dog, whose psyche is comparatively of much less importance than that of human beings, the corresponding influences in men and women will be even more emphasized. This is only what common experience has always shown us. The human stomach is not a test-tube in which mere chemical processes are carried on, but its vital activity is of great importance. That vital activity depends to a large extent on the state of mind, on the relish with which food is eaten, on the individual likes and dislikes, and on the emotional condition during digestion.

Prejudices and Digestion.--Perfectly good food materials may become difficult or impossible of digestion as the result of learning something about their mode of preparation. In the country this is often noted, with regard to b.u.t.ter, milk, and even eggs. The story of the farmer's wife who wanted to trade her own b.u.t.ter for an equivalent amount made by someone else ill.u.s.trates the influence of mind over relish for food. She was candid enough to say that the reason she wanted to exchange the b.u.t.ter was that a mouse had been seen in the cream, and her children could not, therefore, eat it. She took {243} back home with her exactly the same b.u.t.ter in another crock, and there was no further difficulty, though before this the children would have been actually sick if compelled to eat the b.u.t.ter. I once saw a family of three women who had vomited because they heard that the dishes had been washed in a slop pan, though this proved to be a mistake. Such occurrences emphasize the necessity for properly predisposing the mind, and for removing unfavorable suggestion, if digestion is to proceed properly.

Mental States and the Stomach.--The typical example of the influence of the mind on the digestive tract is to be found in the experiences of Flaubert, the French novelist, while writing "Madame Bovary." When he was writing the scene in which he describes the effects of the a.r.s.enic which Madame Bovary takes, he himself suffered from practically all the symptoms due to the drug. In order to describe it faithfully he had studied it carefully. He had the pains, the vomiting, the burning feeling and even the garlicky, metallic taste in his mouth. Such an incident is extremely exceptional, yet its possibility is recognized, and it ill.u.s.trates how sensitive some people are to the action of mental states upon the body, and how large a role a strongly excited imagination can play in producing definite physical symptoms. There are many more such realistic imaginations than we have, perhaps, been inclined to suspect. It is over these particularly that the psychotherapeutist can exert his influence by helping to modify the cause of their symptoms, the mental att.i.tude which exists, rather than by trying to change the symptoms which are only effects, for diseases must, as far as possible, be treated in their causes.

_Disgust and Disturbance of Digestion_.--Max Muller's story, told in his book on "Language," to show how language might have been a human invention from imitation of natural sounds, ill.u.s.trates the influence of an unfavorable state of mind in disturbing digestion. An Englishman, traveling in China, fearful lest he should not be able to obtain food that he cared for, because of his lack of knowledge of the language of the country, was rather surprised on his first day's journey into the interior, to be served with a stew made of some kind of dark meat that tasted very well indeed and with which he was so much pleased that he asked for a second helping. Just as he was about to eat the second portion, he thought it well to ask the waiter what sort of meat it was, as he wished to be able to obtain the same kind at other places. Calling the waiter to him, he said, pointing to the dish of meat with a questioning tone, "Quack, quack?" The waiter at once shook his head and said, "Ugh! bow wow!" The Englishman pushed the second portion away and got up from the table.

Tinder the same circ.u.mstances nearly everybody would feel the same qualmishness--at least all who had been brought up according to our Western notions. Reason has little or nothing to do with it. It is a question of feeling. The dog is much more cleanly in its habits than the hog, but we in the West are used to the idea of eating hog-meat just as they in the East are used to eating dog-meat. The objection, of course, might be urged that the difference between the hog and the dog is that we do not eat carnivorous but only herbivorous animals.

But the slop-fed hogs from the neighborhood of our large cities, const.i.tuting a goodly portion of those brought to market, eat meat quite ravenously. They certainly are not exclusively herbivorous.

There is no {244} principle behind our objection to dog meal then--only the unfamiliarity of the idea of eating it.

The treatment of patients with digestive disturbances requires a careful a.n.a.lysis of the conditions of mind towards foods. If prejudice exists with regard to certain foods, there will be no relish for them, and unless these prejudices can be removed, the foods either will not be taken, though they represent important nutritional elements, or else they must be taken in such small quant.i.ties and digested with so much consciousness of their presence and such difficulty as to be a disturbing factor for health. Persuasion, the custom of the country, habit, training, mean much for this modification of mental att.i.tude.

_Custom and Food_.--In recent years many parts of animals, not generally eaten before, have come to be consumed with a relish because of the removal of prejudices against them. It might be thought that organs like the kidney, the essential function of which is excretory, and through which so much of the offensive waste products of the body pa.s.s, could not be a relished article of food. But it has become quite a dainty. The liver, owing to the peculiar nature of its function, its very special flavor, and the staining with bile, might be expected to be objectionable. It is not, but, strange to say, a third organ of the abdominal cavity, the spleen, which has none of the external objectionable features of kidney or liver, is not yet eaten, and most people would probably find it rather difficult to eat it. This difficulty would result, not because of anything in the organic substance itself, but because of the lack of accustomedness to it.

There are a number of people who now have trained themselves to eat it. Such apparently impossible portions of the animal as the intestines, even those of the hog, are eaten with relish by a great many people, though there are others who have never been able to get used to them. The dainties of some peoples are utterly repulsive to others. The French like brains and other special portions of animals that are not much eaten by Anglo-Saxons. Fried brains in black b.u.t.ter sauce are enough to turn the stomach of some people by the very thought of it, though it is a highly prized dish in the south of France.

In Italy most visitors eat snail soup with relish before they know what it is. It seems to be a special kind of gumbo soup. Down at Ma.r.s.eilles, gourmets occasionally eat angle-worms and find them to be a very appetizing dish. In all of these things the question of relish and peaceful, happy digestion depends entirely on the att.i.tude of mind. The first men who ate eels must have been looked upon with considerable suspicion by their neighbors as viper eaters, and probably they themselves were not comfortable over the feat. It has been said that the first man who ever swallowed an oyster performed as great a feat as any of our important inventors or discoverers.

_Gastric Antipathies_.--To the great majority of mankind the idea of eating horseflesh is repulsive. Numbers of people in various parts of Europe have found, however, that after the initial repugnance is conquered, it is quite as pleasant to eat as cow's meat. To my taste, at least, it is much more palatable than venison or bear meat. At the beginning, its sweetish taste has a curious reflex effect. Taken in connection with the thought that this is horse meat, the taste is apt to produce a sensation of nausea. This is readily overcome, though the first time it is necessary to keep constantly inhibiting {245} the mind from acting unfavorably upon the stomach during the course of eating and digestion. Custom, I learned from many, soon made it quite as savory as beef.

_Food Varieties and the Mind_.--How easy it may be to overcome many prejudices in the matter of food digestion under the stress of necessity and the influence of example, was well ill.u.s.trated during the siege of Paris. The Parisians, though a most delicate people in the matter of eating, were able to accommodate themselves to the conditions, and practically every kind of animal was eaten with a relish. Before the siege, to most of them it would have seemed quite impossible, that they should sit down with complacency to the dishes which afterwards were so appetizing. At the beginning there was a definite attempt to conceal the eating of rats, mice, cats and dogs under various names, and by various modes of preparation. But it was not long before there was an end of this pretense. The animals in the zoological garden proved a veritable life-saving store of meat. Every one of them was eaten, people were glad to get them, and paid high prices for them. Camel steaks, elephant cutlets, lion and tiger stews, appeared under their own names, even at the banquets of the wealthy.

What is true of the mental att.i.tude for meats influencing not only the relish for them, but their digestion, is also true for many vegetables. There are unfavorable suggestions in the minds of many with regard to the supposed indigestibility of potatoes, turnips, carrots, beans and occasionally with regard to tomatoes, lettuce, or the like. A few definite physiological idiosyncrasies against these vegetables, or certain of them, do actually exist. The att.i.tude of mind, however, is largely responsible for the discomfort that occurs after the consumption of most of them. Patients who ought to consume more starchy substances, or whose bowels need the residual materials that are contained in these vegetables, for the sake of their effect upon peristalsis, should be persuaded to take these vegetables, first in small quant.i.ties and then in gradually increasing amounts. Many of them can thus be brought to a diet at once more nutritious and more likely to help out intestinal function. Their objection to them is usually but a fancy.

Genuine Food Idiosyncrasies.--There are certain genuine idiosyncrasies with a physiological basis which prevent the taking of certain kinds of food, or cause disturbance if they are taken, but these are rare.

Their presence should never be considered as demonstrated by subjective signs alone for these are eminently fallacious. In certain cases, however, so rare as to be almost always curiosities in medical practice, there are definite objective symptoms of the idiosyncrasy.

These consist of urticarial rashes, tendencies to vomiting, or diarrhea, or both. Sometimes these result from the most bland and nutritious of foods. I have notes of the cases of two children--whose father could not eat eggs without vomiting--and to whom fresh eggs fed at the age of two and three years, always produced this same effect.

Even small portions of egg would cause it. It mattered not how the egg was prepared, nor even whether it was carefully concealed in custard or in cake provided there was a certain amount of it, the food eaten with it would be vomited. There are many such idiosyncrasies for sh.e.l.l fish, cheese, and such fruits as strawberries, pineapples, pomegranates and the like, but they are demonstrated by objective signs. But by far the greater number of food dislikes are entirely {246} subjective and the subjective feelings can probably always be overcome by habit and training.

Food Dislikes.--_Milk_.--Nothing makes more clear the absolute dominion of the mind over the stomach than the likes and dislikes of people for various kinds of milk. Most Americans can take cow's milk with good relish, though there are a few to whom it is distasteful. In this country we have not had much experience with the milk of other animals. Even goat's milk is not commonly used. The very thought of taking it disturbs many people, and to take it with other food would almost surely produce disturbance of digestion. I have seen people while traveling quite upset over the discovery that goat's milk had been put into their tea or coffee. Mare's milk is commonly used in some parts of Europe and in many parts of Asia, but it would be quite impossible to most of our people. Sheep's milk is used in some places.

a.s.s's milk is commonly used in parts of Asia and may be obtained in Spain and is said to be less likely to disagree with children in summer than cow's milk. Most American mothers would rather not hear of it.

The same thing is true of the milk products. Some people find certain kinds of cheese quite out of the question though other people relish them. It requires special training, not of stomach but of mind, to enable one to eat certain cheese, though once the habit has been acquired such articles are delicious. It is only in recent years that some forms of cheese with greenish tints have become popular in America. To serve them at a dinner a generation ago disgusted many people. Now a dinner does not seem complete without them.

The beverages of various countries ill.u.s.trate this same principle. The wines the Spaniards care for are not palatable to the Italians, and _vice versa_. Beer, as the result of familiarity, is now drunk everywhere in Europe, but when it was first introduced into Italy from Germany, it was considered impossible to understand how anybody could take it and pretend that its taste was pleasant. The question is said to have been once asked of one of the Congregations at Rome whether it was permissible to take beer on fast days. The Cardinals who tasted it declared that not only did it seem to them permissible but that it was a mortification to drink it and therefore it was proper Lenten exercise.

_Eggs_.--Many people have a supposed natural repugnance for eggs which they are sure indicates that these are not good for them. As a result, the physician gets all sorts of stories with regard to the supposed effects of eggs. One person tells you that more than two eggs a day makes him bilious. Another will tell you that they are too heavy for him. A third will tell you that they are distinctly constipating. A fourth will tell you that they produce a tendency to diarrhea. Here, as with regard to milk, the experience of the tuberculosis sanatoria has shown that there are but few people who cannot, when properly persuaded and when eggs are given in various forms, take from four to six eggs in the day without injury, and even without inconvenience. In these cases, it is largely a matter of mental att.i.tude towards the food. In many instances, it will be found that the disinclination began in some experience in childhood when an egg was not very good, or when it was served insufficiently cooked, or when, perhaps, eggs always cooked one way were made a staple of the diet for a considerable period. There are over one hundred {247} ways of cooking eggs and this variety of preparation will often make them palatable, and nearly always digestible.