Contributions to Psychology; Psychopathic Behavior and Others

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1919. Excerpt: ... studies might well be made in the globar reaction of empathy which the epileptic makes as against what the hypophrenic makes. With respect to Group IV, the group of mental diseases due to alcohol, drugs and poisons, we find our empathic index, as a rule, high. Whereas our sympathies may carry us in either direction, our empathy is pretty nearly positive. On the whole, what the alcoholic does is something like what any of us might do. The variation of experiences of the alcoholic is such that apparently we can all read ourselves into the alcoholic situation somewhat. Even were the psychic phenomena of alcoholism in themselves so queer and outside the range of the normal altogether, yet the frequency of these phenomena would give the normal man a high empathy for the alcoholic. The morphinist, on the other hand, is, so far as I have been able to observe him in a small experience, far less the object both of sympathy and far less positive when it comes to the empathic test. There are, however, within the group of the pharmacopsychoses some empathic tests. I should say that on the whole, the victim of delirium tremens yielded a positive empathic test in many instances, when victims of the companion disease alcoholic hallucinosis yield a lower index. The fact that in - alcoholic hallucinosis, a perfectly clear consciousness gets split with hallucinatory data means of course a situation that seems far less consistent than the situation in delirium tremens. The victim of delirium tremens is, as a rule, a sick looking man, with tremors, flushing and sweating, and he somehow seems to us the more or less appropriate vehicle of his hallucinations. But as to this minor distinction of sub-groups, it would not be well to speak without a statistical and long-standing analysis. With respect to...