How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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Who Shall Tre at the Neurotic ?
Those who would direct strangers require a certain
constellation of qualifications. They ought to know men
and machines, they ought to know the map, they should
have had the experience of being lost themselves, they
should be good teachers, friendly and happy human
beings themselves, and, above all, they should have
learned patience and humility in the face of obstacles and
resistances. The best guides, therefore, would be men
and women who were physicians, men and women who
had themselves made mistakes, who had been lost and
found their way back to normality. They should possess
the maximum possible knowledge of human affairs and
human history. To be effective, they should know some¬
thing about all the arts and be well grounded in all
the sciences. They should be good teachers, patient,
courageous, open-minded. Above all they should be
secure in their own adjustment to reality. The ideal
person to cure a neurosis is a physician who has cured
his own neurosis, a scientist who is an artist in his science,
a happy man who has been unhappy, a courageous man
who has been perplexed and disheartened. A great deal
of mischief has been done by misguided individuals who
approach their neurotic patients in the same spirit as the
undergraduate, who, having been ragged himself, and
graduated from freshman humiliation, wreaks his sadistic
impulses on the freshman. Psychiatrists can be classified
in two groups : those who have been in trouble, and
are finding their way out at the expense of their patients,
and those who, having been in trouble, have found a
technique of extricating themselves, and are happy to
share their knowledge with others who still find them¬
selves in the neurotic morasses.
The better psychiatrists discount their own apparent
authority and their own apparent security. They seek to
minimize the differences between themselves and their
patients. Their attitude is : “ Under the same circum¬
stances, I should have done exactly the same thing.