The Foundations of Personality by Abraham Myerson (sites to read books for free TXT) 📖
- Author: Abraham Myerson
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was then referred to the United States Public Health Service,
where I saw him, and he became my patient.
My first problem was to restore the power of sleeping. This I
succeeded in doing by means that were entirely “physical.” With
that accomplished, the man became hopeful of further results, and
this enabled one to bring about a desire for food, again by
physical means, medicine, in short. The problem of awaking S.‘s
interest simmered down to that of finding an outlet for his
ambition. The Federal Vocational Board granted him the right to
take up a business course in a college. Though he found the study
hard at first, he was encouraged to keep on and told to expect
little of himself at first. This is an important point, for if a
man holds himself to a high standard under conditions such as
those of S., then failure brings a discouragement that upsets the
treatment. At any rate this method of readjustment, with its
reliance on medicines to bring sleep and appetite and on training
to bring hope and relief from introspection, worked splendidly.
The fact is that no abstruse complicated psychological analysis
was necessary here or in most cases. A man is “jarred” from
light-hearted health to a grim discouraged state. This
discouragement brings with it sleeplessness and loss of appetite,
and there gradually develops a series of habits which lower
endurance and energy. The habit elements in this condition are
not enough recognized, and also the fact that most of the
disability is physical in its development though psychological at
the start. That is, A. had a severe emotional reaction to a
horrible experience; this brought about insomnia and disordered
nutrition, and these, by lowering the endurance and ability,
brought to being a vicious circle of fatigue and depression, in
which fatigue caused depression and depression increased fatigue.
The treatment must be directed at first to the physical factors,
and with these conquered the acquired forms of anhedonia usually
yield readily.
It would be interesting to consider other types related to the
anhedonic personality. The complainer, the whiner, the nag, all
these are basically people who are hard to satisfy. The artistic
temperament (found rather frequently in the non-artistic) is
hyperesthetic, uncontrolled, irritably egoistic and demands
homage and service from others which exceeds the merit of the
individual; in other words, there is added to the anhedonic
element an unreasonableness that is peculiarly exasperating. I
pass these interesting people by and turn to the opposite of the
anhedonic group, the group that is hearty in tastes and
appetites, easily pleased as a rule and often crude in their
relish of life. There are two main divisions of these hearty
simple people,—those who are untrained and relatively
uneducated, and whose simplicity may disappear under cultivation,
and another type—cultivated, educated, wise—who still retain
unspoiled appetite and hearty enjoyment.
Briefly let me introduce Dr. O., an athlete in his youth and
always a lover of the great outdoors.
O. is Homeric in the simplicity of his tastes. A house is a place
in which to sleep, clothes are to keep one warm, food is to eat
and the manner of its service is an indifferent matter. He enjoys
with almost huge pleasure good things to eat and good things to
drink, but as he puts it, “I am as much at home with corned beef
and cabbage as I am with any epicurean chef d’oeuvre. I like the
feel of silk next my body, but cotton pleases me as much.” He is
clean and bathes regularly, but has no repulsion against dirt and
disorder. At home, among the utmost refinements of our
present-day life, he prefers the rough bare essentials of
existence. To him beauty is not exotic, but everywhere present,
and he sees it in a workman clad in overalls and breaking stone
quite as much as in a carefully harmonized landscape. He has no
pose about the beauty of nature as against the beauty of man’s
creations, and he thinks that a puffing freight engine, dragging
a load of cars up a grade, is as much a thing to enthuse about as
a graceful deer sniffing the scent of the hunter in some pine
grove.
Imbued with a zeal for living and a desire for experience, O. has
not been as successful as one more cautious and less impetuous
might have been. He loves his profession so well that he would
rather spend a day on an interesting case in the ward of some
hospital than to treat half a dozen rich patients in his
consulting room. His purpose is indeed unified; he seeks to learn
and to impart, but the making of money seems to him a necessary
irrelevance, almost an impertinent intrusion upon the real
purposes of life. He is eager to know people, he shows a naive
curiosity about them, an interest that flatters and charms. All
the phenomena of life—esoteric, commonplace, queer and
conventional—are grist to his mill.
His sexual life has not differed greatly from that of other men.
In his early youth his passions outran his inhibitions, and he
tasted of this type of experience with the same gusto with which
he delved into books. As he reached early manhood he fell in love
and pledged himself to chastity. Though he fell out of love soon
his pledge remained in full force, and though he cursed himself
as a fool he held himself aloof from sex adventure. When he was
twenty-seven he again fell in love, had an impetuous and charming
courtship and married. He loves his wife, and there is in their
intimacy a buoyant yet controlled passion which values love for
its own sake. He enters into his duties as father with the same
zeal and appetite that characterizes his every activity.
O. is no mystic, proclaiming his unity with all existence, in the
fashion of Walt Whitman. Rather he is a man with a huge capacity
for pleasure, not easily disgusted or annoyed, with desires that
reach in every direction yet with controlled purpose to guide his
life. As he passes into middle age he finds his pleasures
narrowing, as all men do, and he finds his appetites and tastes
are becoming more restricted. This is because his purpose becomes
more dominant, his habits are more imperious, his energy less
exuberant. In thought O. is almost a pessimist because his
knowledge of life, his intelligence and his sympathy make it
difficult to understand the need of suffering, of disease and of
conflict. But in emotion he still remains an optimist, glad to be
alive at any price and rejoicing in the life of all things.
Apropos of this contradiction between thought and mood, it is
sometimes found reversed. There are those whose philosophy is
optimistic, who will not see aught but good in the world, yet
whose facial expression and actions exhibit an essential
melancholy.
In every category of character there are specialists, individuals
whose main reactions are built around one great trait. Thus there
are those whose egoism takes the form of pride in family, or in
personal beauty, or some intellectual capacity, or in being
independent of others, who worship self-reliance or
self-importance. There are the individuals whose social instincts
express themselves in loquacity, in a talkativeness that is the
main joy of their lives, though not at all the joy of other
lives. A fascinating series of personalities in this respect come
to my mind—L. B., who talks at people, never with them, since he
seems to take no note of their replies; T. K., who seems to
regard conversation as largely a means of demonstrating her
superiority, for she picks her subjects with the care a general
selects his battlefield; F., who is a born pedagogue and seeks to
instruct whoever listens to him, whose conversation is a lecture
and a monologue; R. O., the reticent, says little but that
pertinent and relevant, cynical and shrewd; and R. V., who says
little and that with timidity and error. So there are specialists
in caution and “common sense,” self-controlled, never rash,
calculating, cool and egotistic, narrow and successful. Every one
knows this type, as every one knows the “fool,” with his poor
judgment, his unwise confidence in himself and others, his lack
of restraint. There is the tactful man, conciliating, pliant,
seeking his purposes through the good will of others which he
obtains by “oil” and agreeableness, and there is the aggressive
man, preferring to fight, energetic, at times rash, apt to be
domineering, and crashing on to victory or defeat according to
the caliber of his opponents and the nature of the circumstances.
Those whose ego feeling is high, whose desire for superiority
matches up well with their feeling of superiority are often
called the conceited. Really they are conceited only if they show
their feelings, as, for example, does W. Wherever he goes W.
seeks to occupy the center of the stage, brags of his
achievements and his fine qualities. “I am the kind” is his
prefix to his bragging. W. thinks that everything he does or says
is interesting to others, and even that his illnesses are
fascinating to others. If he has a cold he takes a remarkable
pride in detailing every pain and ache and every degree of
temperature, as if the experience were remarkable and somehow
creditable. But W. is very jealous of other’s achievements and is
bored to death except when he can talk or perform.
W. does not know how to camouflage his egoism, but F. does. Fully
convinced of his own superiority and with a strong urge at all
times to demonstrate this, he “knows enough” to camouflage, to
disguise and modify its manifestations. In this way he manages to
be popular, just as W. is decidedly unpopular, and many mistake
him for modest. When he wishes to put over his own opinion he
prefaces his statements by “they say,” and though whatever
organization he enters he wishes to lead, he manages to give the
impression that he is reluctant to take a prominent part. A man
of ability and good judgment, the narrow range of F.‘s
sympathies, his lack of sincere cordial feeling, is hidden by a
really artistic assumption of altruism that deceives all save
those who through long acquaintance know his real character. One
sees through W. on first meeting, he wears no mask or disguise;
but F. defies detection, though their natures are not radically
different except in wisdom and tact.
Half and more of the actions, poses and speech of men and women
is to demonstrate superiority or to avoid inferiority. There are
some who feel inwardly inferior, yet disguise this feeling
successfully. This feeling of inferiority may arise from purely
accidental matters, such as appearance, deformity, tone of voice,
etc., and the individual may either hide, become seclusive or
else brazen it out, so to speak.
A famous Boston physician was a splendid example of a brusque,
overbearing mask used to hide a shrinking, timid, subjectively
inferior personality. Always very near-sighted and unattractive,
he was essentially shy and modest but decided or felt that this
was a rough world and the way to get ahead was to be rough.
Towards the weak and sick he was kindness itself—gentle,
sympathetic and patient—but towards his colleagues he was a
boor. Distant, haughty, quick to demand all the consideration due
him, he was noted far and wide for the caustic way he attacked
others for their opinions and beliefs and the respect he required
for his own. The general opinion of physicians was that he was a
conceited, arrogant, aristocratic man, and he was avoided except
for his medical opinion, which was usually very sound. Those
admitted to the sanctum of this man’s real self knew him to be
really modest and self-deprecatory, anxious to
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