ncy to part company with
the environment, which ordinarily comes on slowly, might occur with
epileptic suddenness and hence liberate convulsive movements. This is,
however, a pure speculation but not fruitless if it serves to draw
attention to the analogies existing between the stupor reaction and some
of the mental symptoms of epilepsy. These analogies are strong; aside
from the obvious clinical differences, the stupor and epileptic
reactions are dynamically unlike in that they are the product of
different temperaments and precipitated by different situations.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] Clark, L. Pierce. "Is Essential Epilepsy a Life Reaction Disorder?"
_Am. Jour. of the Medical Sciences_, November, 1910, Vol. CLVIII, No. 5,
p. 703. This paper gives a summary of Dr. Clark's theories.

MacCurdy, John T., "A Clinical Study of Epileptic Deterioration."
_Psychiatric Bulletin_, April, 1916.

CHAPTER X

PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF THE STUPOR REACTION

In the previous chapter mention has been made of our view that
manic-depressive insanity is a disease fundamentally based on some
constitutional defect, presumably physical, but that its symptoms are
determined by psychological mechanisms. In accordance with this
hypothesis we seek, when studying the different forms of insanity
presented in this group, to differentiate between the different types of
mental mechanisms observed, and by this analysis to account for the
manifestations of the disease on purely psychological lines. If benign
stupors belong to this group, then we should be able to find some
specific psychology for this type of reaction.

All speech and all conduct, except simple reflex behavior, are
presumably determined by ideas. When an individual is not aware of the
purpose governing his action, we assume, in psychological study, that an
unconscious motive is present, so that in either case the first step in
psychological understanding of any normal or abnormal condition is to
discover, if possible, what the ideas are that lead to the actions or
utterances observed. In the case of stupors the situation is fairly
simple, in that the ideational content is extremely limited. As has been
seen, it is confined to death and rebirth fancies, other ideas being
correlated with secondary symptoms, such as belong to mechanisms of
other manic-depressive psychoses. It is not necessary to repeat the
catalogue of the typical stupor ideas, as they have been given in an
ea