Transcriber’s Note:
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.
THE OMNIPOTENT SELF
THE OMNIPOTENT
SELF
A Study in Self-Deception and Self-Cure
BY
PAUL BOUSFIELD
M.R.C.S. (Eng.), L.R.C.P. (Lond.)
Physician to the London Neurological Clinic (Ministry of Pensions),
Late Demonstrator of Morbid Anatomy, St. George’s Hospital, Late
M.O. American Women’s Hospital for Officers, etc., etc.
Author of The Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis.
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., Ltd.,
BROADWAY HOUSE, 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.C.
1923
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE DEVONSHIRE PRESS, TORQUAY.
PREFACE
“Nature has granted to all to be happy if we but knew how to use hergifts.”—Claudius.
Many people, while not considering themselves as suffering from anynervous ailment, nor desiring the services of a physician, are yet farfrom being perfectly happy in their mental outlook and temperament.Either their feelings are too easily roused, or they are inclined toworry, to be depressed, irritable, nervous, or over-sensitive. Trifleswhich to them seem no trifles interfere with the smooth course of theirdaily lives, or this slight abnormality may manifest itself in anover-sensitiveness to physical pain or to mental or moral difficultiesand conflicts. It is with the hope of helping a few such individualsto a better understanding of themselves, and through this to a moreequable temperament and greater happiness, that this little book iswritten.
There is no hard and fast line between the normal and the abnormalperson, and indeed a very real difficulty exists in even defining anormal person. If we take our definition of normal as being “averageor conforming to type or standard,” then the majority of peopleare normal. If, on the other hand, we take its other meaning, thatof “performing the proper functions,” then there are few peopleapproaching the normal under modern civilized conditions. A tendencyto undue irritability or depression is a mild and very common form ofabnormality. Hysterias, obsessions, and unreasonable fears are greaterabnormalities, and fortunately of less frequent occurrence, whilecertain forms of insanity are still greater deviations from the normal.A similar combination of causes, however, may form the basis of allthese abnormalities,[Pg vi] and these various deviations from the normal aremore of degree than of kind. But whereas in cases of obsessions andunreasonable fears or in such other abnormalities as homo-sexuality orsexual impotence, etc., the causes are deeply hidden and the forces atwork somewhat complicated, in the lesser abnormalities there are causesfrequently lying less deeply.
In the case of obsessions, phobias, hysterias, sexual abnormalities,and so forth, we can only hope to effect an improvement by a thoroughanalysis of the unconscious causes and conflicts by a competentpsycho-analyst. In the lesser troubles of the mind, however,