The Causation And Treatment of Psychopathic Diseases

a and neurasthenia as well as the milder forms of hypochondriasis. In all such diseases the psychical symptoms form the prominent elements of the mental malady. The patient remains unaware of the underlying mental grounds. So much is this the case that the patient is offended, if his trouble is regarded as purely mental in character. The mental side of the diseases is then said to be submerged subconsciously. In the psychoneuroses or neuropsychoses the physical symptoms are, on the contrary, few or none at all, while the predominating symptoms are entirely of a mental character. The patient ignores his physical condition, even if any exists, and his whole mind is occupied with mental troubles. Such conditions are to be found in all obsessions, fixed ideas, imperative impulses, and other allied morbid mental states. Thus i one patient is in agony over the unrighteousness of his conduct, another is obsessed by a terror of some mysterious agency, or by religious and moral scruples. The two clinical forms of psychopathies are in strong contrast. In the somatic psychopathies or somatopsy- choses, the patient brings before the physician physical symptoms?stomach derangements, intestinal pains, contractures of limbs, menstrual disturbances, affections of the sexual organs and their functions, paresis, paralysis, anesthesia, headaches, and similar bodily troubles. It is for the physician to discover the underlying mental states. In the ment...