How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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contagious disease of modern society because neurotics
are. constantly making converts to their neuroses. In
their desire to win approbation for their own desertion
from the battle-front of life, they, often write most
attractive dissertations on the delights of running away.
Tolstoy’s play, The Living Corpse, is an excellent example
of neurotic. proselytizing. In this masterly drama,
irresponsibility is so convincingly lauded that the play
may be described as one of the most subversive ever
written. The contagious nature of the neurosis demands
that every human being shall take an attitude against its
extension. The cure of the neuroses is as much a public
health problem as the disposal of garbage or the vaccina¬
tion of children against smallpox.
If the reader has understood the discussion of the
dynamics of the neuroses, he must be able to answer the
next question : Can a neurosis be cured despite the fact
that it is a habit of many years standing ? The great
majority of neuroses can be cured, although there are
some which tax the energies and capabilities of the most
qualified psychiatrist to the utmost. We must remember
that the neurotic is busy with his neurosis and nothing
else, day in and day out, whereas there is hardly a
psychiatrist who can devote his entire energy to a single
neurotic. The physical limitations of time, money,
education, and health sometimes prevent the cure of a
neurosis in a patient whose neurosis is still successful.
If we could have three or four psychiatrists, a corps
of psychiatric social workers, teachers, companions, to¬
gether with a cheering section of interested onlookers,
every neurosis could probably be cured. That this is
manifestly impossible under existing conditions goes
without saying, and accounts for the increasing prevalence
of the neurosis.
All investigators agree that neuroses begin in child¬
hood. Trained observers can detect the prototypes of
adult neuroses in young infants. For this reason the hope
of the future lies in the education of parents and teachers
to recognize neurotic or problem traits in children and