Mental Hygiene
[Dr. James Yotutg, the writer of this article, is one of the leading authorities in ,this country on the new branch of science which goes by the name of paYcha-pathology.—En. Spectator.] -LIVERY new movement of opinion is called forth by 11.4 some necessity in the contemporary nature of life. Thus, the modern psycho-therapeutic movement originated in the perception by many intelligent and responsible minds that it was necessary to face and investigate more resolutely than heretofore the alarming_ incidence of mental debility and instability and of insanity which, inter alia, form the fertile soil for the growth of crime and delinquency in modern civilization.
This state of affairs may well make thinking people pause to consider whether there is not something radically wrong with our educational and social system, not- withstanding the triumphant progress of science in other directions.
In so far as science has been and is being applied to a social and educational system which yields such an appalling crop of mental disease and "nerves," that science is the science of psycho-pathology .(the science of morbid mental and emotional processes and morbid aberrations of human instinct). There have been psycho- pathologists of greater or less insight as far back as history records. Many. of these have not belonged to the medical profession. Literary geniuses, philosophers, social reformers, and others have all contributed their quota to the science of psycho-pathology through their powers of observation and insight into human nature.
The outstanding figures in modern psycho-pathology are undoubtedly Freud, Jung, and Adler. The approach to the problem of each of these physicians is different, but they have contributed in their several ways theories and data which have enormously stimulated research in the field of psycho-pathology.
The majority of psycho-pathologists are now agreed that for the most part the origin of mental and nervous disorders and nervous breakdowns cannot be laid solely at the doer of heredity. Were such conditions invariably inherited or inheritable it would be a poor look-out for the future of the British race and of Western European humanity in general !
Actually physical heredity plays' quite a subsidiary part in the genesis of the multifarious " nervous " phenomena of the modern age. He who stresses overmuch the factor of heredity (" blood will tell ") may be suspected of failure in the will to grapple with the monstrous body of Superstitions and prejudice which, as it were, flings its coils of neurosis and insanity around many in originally well-constituted and promising individual.
Modern psycho-pathology has set itself the task- of conquering the dragon—it refuses 'to submit to the incidence Of nervous crises arid disorders of cOnduet as if they were either the punishments "Of an ,atigrylGbd or the viSitiitions of a Morbiferons DCA!: Instead of-aecepting them resignedly, or rather pessimistically, as a curse of Fate, and then trying to buy off the oppressive powers by means of prayers, exorcism,: incantations, and other forms of magic or religious ritual, it tries to understand their psychological genesis. That is' tosay, the modern psycho pathologist stresses the importance of enyirodz mentally imposed traditional values, whether of the family, or of the social or occupational status. . • There are stupid, oppressive, or over-indulgent parents: The writer has treated a man with. suicidal .tendencies whose forbears belonged to a fanatical religious sect: In his own generation, one brother had committed sniciad and a sister was in a mental hospital.. In his. parents! generation, an uncle had committed suieide by jumping out of the window during the family's religious devotions. His grandparents were "eccentric " most of their lives and both became mentally afflicted towards ,the age of seventy. In this case the morbid tendencies had, less to do with hereditarily transmitted biological defects than with the transmission of morbific religious prejudices. , There are impossible social conditions in the working, middle, and upper classes alike.
There are impossible occupational conditions, as, for example, where an individual—having been forced to become merely a unit, or cypher, in an industrial organiza- tion in which the human factor is ignored—develops nervous symptoms or goes mad.
Even where in certain cases a specialist in the field of psycho-pathology is right in presuming that the seed of .a. nervous disorder was inherent in the individual at birth,, it is often quite clear to him that had that seed, been, recognized early enough and suitably treated the painful and monstrous growth of morbid and regressive tendencies into which it has developed might have been avoided, Indeed, we can go further and say that the development of the seed which afterwards grows into a painful and crippling burden for the individual might, with intelligent nurture and perhaps pruning, have been directed into the formation of healthy talent, if not into genius. .After all, it is well established that genius is allied .:to madness. It is also a fact that talent is often allied .to delinquency !
If so much potential talent and genius shall not be allowed to degenerate into morbidity, it is necessary that we should have a real and adequate mental hygiene. And what do we mean by mental hygiene ? It might be defined as the system of knowledge and values which incorporates the findings of the most enlightened. workers in the fields of psycho-pathology, sociology, sexology, and pedagogy. The extension and the preventive and curative application of this body of knowledge is the raison (rare of the National Council for Mental Hygiene, which has already been active for some time, and the Tavistock Square Clinic, which is one of the pioneer institutions in England for the treatment of functional nervous disorders by modern and approved methods of psycho- therapy.
A joint committee of these two organizations proposes to establish an institute of medical psychology, which shall be a centre for the prevention and early treatment of nervous and mental disorders in adults and children, which shall also give facilities for research in the wide field of psycho-pathology and be a centre for the training of psycho-therapists able to deal with the vast demand for treatment. The British Rockefeller who can endow such a seheme has not yet appeared, but it is-earnestly to be hoped that the British public will giVe 'it all the moral, intellectual, and -financial StipPort that such' scheme deserves, JASILES, YOUNG.
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