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PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY
a newspaper of the death of a man of his name and thought it
very probable that he was the person mentioned.
If a mentally ill person troubled with compulsive doubts
begins to think about religious matters his attitude will be
governed by the compulsion. Small coincidences, trifling
suggestions, will provide material for the deranged mind to
dwell upon. He is like the Wandering Jew who walks on and on,
nowhere finding rest. His religious faith is often like that of a
` schoolboy. He may not doubt the truth of the Christian
teaching but will be plagued with uncertainty about his personal
attitude to it.
Religious brooding often finds expression in questions. As soon
as one question is answered another is asked. There is no true
speculation behind the questions. The compulsion is to
continue asking them, not to seek their answers.
The affective group of compulsory ideas occurs when
reason is overwhelmed by sentiment. The compulsion is the
result of a vain struggle against the sentiment reactions. A
patient had from youth shown signs of a neuropathic
constitution with strong hypochondriacal tendencies. While in hospital
he was very depressed, seeing his whole life in the darkest
colours. He explained his depression as the result of a single
definite idea. Some time before his illness he had chosen a
bright green wallpaper for his bedroom. After the new paper
had been put on the wall, circumstances compelled him to
change his lodging. Shortly thereafter he had read in a
newspaper that arsenic was used in the manufacture of green
wallpaper. Immediately he was seized by a conviction that by
choosing such a paper for the wall of the room he had vacated
he would probably be the cause of the death of the person who
took it over from him. The power of this idea was irresistible,
and accounted, he said, for his profound melancholy. After
about four years in hospital, this patient recovered. The
depression and compulsory ideas disappeared, but his earlier nervous,
hypochondriacal state remained.
In the impulsive type of case the personality is overpowered,
not by sentiments, but by primary impulses. The patient will
suddenly begin to shout, scream, weep, dance or laugh
uncontrollably; or will strip off his clothes and go for a walk
stark naked. While staying with her parents and a sister at a
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