Part 15 (2/2)

The situation was now perfectly clear to hiht of the corpse, ”naked, and all blue and green,” had so profoundly affected the iirl as to cause a severe dissociation whereby allepisode had been blotted out of her consciousness, only to be subconsciously re about a cure, to free her fro dread of cholera, it was necessary to ree, and Doctor Janet essayed to do this through suggestions given to her when she was again hypnotized

”You will no longer think of this,” he kept assuring her ”You will forget it, absolutely, permanently”

Day after day, for weeks, he hypnotized her, and reiterated similar commands But she continued to be afflicted with her irrational fear, and it finally became certain that her subconscious recollection of the phobia-causing scene of twenty-five years before was too deeply rooted to be destroyed by direct attack Instead, however, of abandoning the task as hopeless, Doctor Janet, with a shrewdness born of long experience, e in tactics

”You insist,” he said to the hypnotized Justine, ”that you cannot help seeing in your mind's eye the corpse of the man who died Very well, I have no objection to that But hereafter you must see it decently clothed So when it next appears to you, you will see it wearing a bright blue-and-green uniforn estion ”took,” and Doctor Janet followed up his advantage by suggesting that the subconscious arded as that of a corpse was, in reality, the i successful, he set about getting rid of the idea ”cholera,” and its dire i the patient as usual, he demanded:

”What is this 'cholera' that troubles you so much? Do you not understand that it is only the nareen, whoeneral, and his name is Cho Le Ra Bear that well into inspire dread in the ie of a picturesque Chinese officer, General Cho Le Ra Little by little, as this artificial conception obtained firment in Justine's subconsciousness, the baneful idea which it was intended to supplant faded away, and with its fading the abnorth it entirely disappeared, greatly to her joy and the warratitude of her devoted husband[39]

[39] This case and a nu rise to disease-symptoms are discussed in detail in Doctor Janet's ”Nevroses et Idees Fixes”

Other psychopathologists, following Doctor Janet's lead, have si one subconscious idea for another

Doctor John E Donley, a well-known neurologist of Providence, Rhode Island, and one of the few psychopathologists whom the United States has yet produced, was once consulted by a young man of thirty-tho said to him:

”Doctor Donley, I hear you have been very successful in handling people troubled with foolish notions I'm bothered with as foolish a notion as any one could possibly iine I simply can't bear to ride in a street-car with an odd nuive , I've got to let it pass, no h at ot onhave you been suffering in this way?” asked Doctor Donley

”For years Just when it began I can't remember

”Is it only odd-numbered cars that affect you? How about odd-numbered houses, for instance?”

”No, no,” answered the young eneral That doesn't bother me a bit It's just when they're painted on street-cars”

”H'm,” said Doctor Donley ”Ever been in a street-car accident?”

”Never”

”Ever seen one?”

”Not that I remember”

”You are quite sure as to that?”

”Quite”

”Have you any objection toyou?”

”Not in the least, if it is likely to do ood”

In another ten minutes the problem was solved Doctor Donley fro man's phobia must be connected in some ith a street-car accident, and so it proved Fourteen years earlier, alking along the street, he had seen a car strike and seriously injure a child who unexpectedly caon He had noticed at the time that the car bore the nu to hiht of the accident gave him a marked emotional shock, which, he said, upset hi since passed fro hypnosis It was clear to Doctor Donley that the case was one of dissociation, and that the exciting cause of the young man's unreasonable dread of odd-numbered cars was based on a painfully vivid subconscious edy Also, it was evident that before the dread could be overcoe would have to be eradicated