Psychotherapy by Hugo Münsterberg (world of reading .TXT) 📕

The brain may be for instance inclined to overstrong impulses, so that any desire rushes to action before the inhibiting counter-idea gets to work. Or, on the other hand, the brain may have unusually weak counter-ideas so that even a normal impulse does not find its normal checking. The fact that selfish and thus antisocial desires awake in the mind is not abnormal at all; only if they are not normally inhibited, the disturbance sets in. Furthermore the associative apparatus of the brain may work especially slowly; it may thus bring it about that the counteracting ideas do not arise in time. Or the emotions of a person may be unusually strong. Or there may be strong suggestibility, by which a bad example or a strong temptation has especially easy access. Or there may be negative suggestibility, by which a moral admonition stirs up a vivid idea of the opposite. In short, there may be a large number of factors, sometimes even in combination, each one of which increases the chances that the individual may come in danger in the midst of developed society. Yet no one of those factors involves just the necessity of crime. The same kinds of brains might simply show stupidity or credulity or inconsiderateness or brutality or stubbornness or egotism, and might by each of those factors decrease their chances in the community without directly running into conflict with the law. The criminal is therefore never born as such. He is only born with a brain which is in some directions inefficient and which thus, under certain unfavorable conditions, will more easily come to criminal deeds than the normal brain.

With the idea of a stereotyped born criminal there disappears also the idea of a uniform treatment against criminal tendencies. That men are different in their power of resistance or in their power of efficiency or in their intellect or in their emotions, we have to accept as the fundamental condition with which every society starts. It would be absurd to remodel them artificially after a pattern. The result would be without value anyhow, inasmuch as our appreciation is relative. No character is perfect. The more the differences were reduced, the more we should become sensitive even for the smaller variations. All that society can do is, therefore, not to remodel the manifoldness of brains, but to shape the conditions of life in such a way that the weak and unstable brains also have a greater chance to live their lives without conflicts with the community.

The situation is different as soon as the particular surroundings have brought it about that such a brain with reduced powers has entered a criminal career. The thought of crime now becomes a sort of obsession or rather an autosuggestion. The way to this idea has become a path of least resistance, and as soon as such an unfortunate situation has settled itself, the chances are overwhelming that a criminal career has been started. If such cases should come early to suggestive treatment which really would close the channels of the antisocial autosuggestion, much harm might be averted. Yet again the liability of the brain to become antisocial would not have been removed, and thus not much would be secured unless such a person after the treatment could be kept under favorable conditions. With young boys who through unfortunate influence have caught a tendency, for instance, to steal, and where the fault does not yield to sympathetic reasoning and to punishment, an early hypnotic treatment might certainly be tried. I myself have seen promising results. But if the impulse has irresistible character in such a way that the good will is powerless, we are again in the field of disease and the point of view of the physician has to be substituted for that of the criminologist.

Whether pedagogy and criminology are to make use of the services of psychotherapy is thus certainly an open question. It would be short-sighted to overlook the serious obstacles which stand in the way. But while the social life outside of the circle of real disease may better go on without direct interference by psychotherapeutic influences, it is certainly the duty of the community to make the underlying principles of psychotherapy useful for the sound development of society. The artificial over-suggestions which are needed to overcome the pathological disturbances of mental equilibrium may be left for the cases of illness. But we saw that every mental symptom of disease was only an exaggeration of abnormal variations which occurred within the limit of health. To reduce these abnormalities means to secure a more stable equilibrium and thus to avoid social damages, and at the same time to prevent the growth of the abnormality to pathological dimensions. To counteract these slighter variations, these abnormalities which have not yet reached the degree of disease, will demand the same principles of treatment, only in a weaker form. It is in a way not psychical therapy but psychical hygiene. And this is no longer confined to the physician but must be intrusted to all organs of the community. And here more than in the case of disease, the causal point of view of the physician ought to be brought into harmony with the purposive view of the social reformer, of the educator and of the moralist.

The ideal of such mental hygiene is the complete equilibrium of all mental energies together with their fullest possible development. To work towards this end does not mean to aim towards the impossible and undesirable end of making all men alike, but to give to all, in spite of the differences which nature and society condition, the greatest possible inner completeness and outer usefulness. The efforts in that direction have to begin with the earliest infancy and are at no age to be considered as finished; the whole school work and to a high degree the professional work has to be subordinated to such endeavor. Society has further to take care that those spheres of life which stand less under systematic principles, such as the home life of the child and the social life of the man, his family life and his public life, are steadily under the pressure of influences which urge in the same direction.

Harmonious development without one-sidedness, and yet with full justice to the individual talents and equipments, should be secured. That means from the start an effort to secure balance between general education and particular development. The latter has to strengthen those powers by which the boy or girl by special natural fitness promises to be especially efficient and happy. It has to be supplemented later by a wise and deliberate choice of such a vocation as brings these particular abilities most strongly to a focus. Yet this alone would mean a one-sidedness in which the equilibrium would be lost. More important, it would leave undeveloped that power which the youth especially needs to acquire by serious education, the power to master what does not appeal to the personal likings and interests. An equilibrium is secured only if at the same time full emphasis is given to the learning and training in all which is the common ground of our social existence. From the multiplication table to the highest cultural studies in college, the youth is to be adjusted to the material of our civilization without any concession to the emasculating desire to adjust civilization simply to the particular youth. He has to learn learning and not only to play with knowledge, he has to learn to force his attention in adjustment to those factors of civilization which are foreign to his personal tendencies and perhaps unsympathetic. Free election of life's work and unyielding mental discipline in the service of the common demands should thus steadily coöperate. The one without the other creates a lack of mental balance which is the most favorable condition for a pathological disturbance.

The mere learning is of course on both sides only a fraction of what the community has to develop in the youth. Mental hygiene begins with physiological hygiene. The nourishment of the child, the care for the child's sense organs, the recesses and the rest from fatigue, and especially the undisturbed sleep are essential conditions. The interferences with sufficient sleep are to a high degree responsible for the later disturbances of the mental life. It must not be forgotten that the decomposition of the brain molecules can never be restituted by anything but rest, and ultimately by sleep. Physical exercise is certainly not such restitution. In the best case it brings a certain rest to some brain centers by engaging other brain parts. The child needs sleep and fresh air and healthful food more than anything else, if his mind is active. The careful examination of the sense organs and of the unhindered breathing through the nose is most important. Even a slight defect in hearing may become the cause of an under-development of attention.

More important than mere physical hygiene is the demand that a sound character and a sound temperament are also to be built up, at the side of a sound interest. Here again everything depends upon a wise balance between the development of that which is given by nature to the particular individual and the reënforcement of that which society demands and which belongs therefore to the common equipment. The emotional stability and emotional enlargement of the mind is perhaps most neglected in our educational schemes. On the one side it demands a systematic discipline of the emotions, on the other a healthy stimulation of emotions. Here is the place where imagination in play and later in art come in. The biological value of play always lies in the training for the functions of later life, and especially for the emotional functions. The play of our children is too little adjusted to this task. For this reason it leaves too many unprepared for the world of art and for the emotional experiences of real life. Both lack of emotional discipline and narrow one-sidedness of emotions interfere with the harmonious development. Destructive emotions like terror ought to be kept away and not needlessly brought near by uncanny stories and mystic superstitions. It is the healthy love and sympathy of the home which contributes most strongly to the normal development of emotions. Again in the field of will, we want the strong, spontaneous, independent will which is not frightened by discomfort and not discouraged by obstacles, and yet we want the will which is not stubborn and selfish but which subordinates itself to the larger will of the social group and to the eternal will of the norm. There is no balance where independence and subordination do not supplement each other. A wide education not only trains for both but also secures habits which work as autosuggestions in both directions.

But all this harmonious development of intellect and temperament and character has to go on when the school days are over and just here begins the duty of the community as a whole. The special functions of the teachers have to be taken up by the public institutions. The whole social life must shape itself in such a way that everyone finds the best possible chances to perfect this harmonious growth. In the field of the intellect, the community must take care that thoroughness of training and accuracy of information is rigidly demanded and not thrust