ion
which has been deliberately though unconsciously chosen by its owner.

=Rationalizing Our Distress.= Among other things, a nervous symptom
furnishes a seemingly reasonable excuse for the sense of distress
which is behind every breakdown. Something troubles us. We are not
willing to acknowledge what it is. On the other hand, we must appear
reasonable to ourselves, so we manufacture a reason. Perhaps at the
time when the person first feels distress, he is on a railroad train.
So he says to himself, "It is the train. I must not go near the
railway"; and he develops a phobia for cars. Perhaps at the onset of
the fear he happens to have a slight pain in the arm. He makes use of
the pain to explain his distress. He thinks about it and holds on to
it. It serves a purpose, and is on the whole less painful than the
feeling of unexplained impending disaster which is attached to no
particular idea. Perhaps he happens to be tired when the conflict
first gets beyond control. So he seizes the idea of fatigue to explain
his illness. He develops chronic fatigue and talks proudly of
overwork. In every case the symptom serves a real purpose, and is,
despite its discomfort, a relief to the distressed personality.

A neurosis is a subconscious effort at adjustment. Like a physical
symptom, it is Nature's way of trying to cure herself. It is an
attempt to get equilibrium, but it is an awkward attempt and hardly
the kind that we would choose when we see what we are doing.

=Securing an Audience.= Besides furnishing relief from too intense
strain, a nervous breakdown brings secondary advantages that are at
most only dimly recognized by the individual. One of the most intense
cravings of the primitive part of the subconscious is for an audience;
a nervous symptom always secures that audience. The invalid is the
object of the solicitous care of the family, friends, physician, and
specialist. Pomp and ceremony, so dear to the child-mind, make their
appeal to the dissociated part of the personality. The repressed
instincts, hungry for love and attention, delight in the petting and
special care which an illness is sure to bring. Secretly and
unconsciously, the neurotic takes a certain pleasure in all the
various changes that are made for his benefit,--the dismantling of
striking clocks, the muffling of household noises, the banishing of
crowing roosters, and the changes in menu which must be carefully
planned for his stomach.

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