Applied Psychology for Nurses, Mary F. Porter [100 best novels of all time txt] 📗

of the conscious mind made possible as weariness overpowers the censor, and this guard at the gate naps. The censor is merely that mental activity which forces the mind to keen, alert, constructive attention during our waking hours, a guard who censors whatever enters the conscious mind and compares it with reality, forcing back all that is not of immediate use, or that is undesirable, or that contradicts established modes of life or thought. In sleep we might say that the censor, wearied by long vigilance, presses all the material—constantly surging from the unconscious into consciousness, there to meet and establish relations with matter—back into the unconscious realms, and locks the door, and lies and slumbers. Then the half-thoughts, the disregarded material, the unfit, the unexpressed longings or fears, the forbidden thoughts; in fact, the whole accumulation of the disregarded or forgotten, good, bad, and indifferent—for the unconscious has no moral sense—seize their opportunity. The guard has refused to let them pass. He is now asleep. And the more insistent of them pick the lock and slip by, masquerading in false characters, and flit about the realms of the sleeping consciousness as ghosts in the shelter of darkness. If the guard half-wakes he sleepily sees only legitimate forms; for the dreams are well disguised. His waking makes them scurry back, sometimes leaving no trace of their lawless wanderings. So the unconscious thoughts of the day have become sleep-consciousness by play acting. Consciousness in Delirium

At this time of our study it will suffice to say that in delirium and in insanity, which we might very broadly call a prolonged delirium, the toxic brain becomes a house in disorder. The censor is sick, and sequence and coherence are lost as the thronging thoughts of the unconscious mind press beyond the portals into consciousness, disordered and confused. We shall later find, however, that this very disorder falls into a sort of order of its own, and a dominant emotion of pain or ecstasy, of depression or fear, of exaltation or depreciation calls steadily upon the stored away incidents and remembered, related feelings of the past and interprets them as present reality. The censor of the sick brain is stupefied by toxins, shock, or exhaustion, and the citadel he is supposed to guard is thronged with besiegers from every side. The strongest—i. e., those equipped with most associations pertinent to the emotional status at the time—win out, occupy the brain by force, and demand recognition and expression from all the senses, deluding them by their guise of the reality of external matter.

We find consciousness, then, determined by all past experience, by an external world, and by its organ of expression—the brain.

Consequently, our psychology leads us into anatomy and physiology, which, probably, we have already fairly mastered. In rapid review, only, in the following chapter we shall consider the organs of man’s consciousness, the brain, spinal cord, and the senses, and try to establish some relation between the material body and its mighty propelling force—the mind.

CHAPTER III
ORGANS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Nothing is known to us until it has been transmitted to the mind by the senses. The nerves of special sense, of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, the temperature sense (“hot or cold” sense), the muscular sense (sense of weight and position), these, and the nerves controlling voluntary motion, form the peripheral, or surface, nervous system. This acts as a connecting medium between the outside world and the central nervous system, which is composed of the brain and spinal cord. We might liken the nerves, singly, to wires, and all of them together to a system of wires. The things of the external world tap at the switchboard by using the organs of special sense; the nerves, acting as wires, transmit their messages; at the switchboard is the operator—consciousness—accepting and interpreting the jangle of calls.

The recognition by the brain of the appeals coming by way of the transmitting sense, and its interpretation of these appeals, is the mind’s function of consciousness, whether expressed by thinking, feeling, or willing.

The Central and Peripheral Nervous Systems in Action

I am passing the open door of a bake-shop, and a pervading odor fills the air. I think “hot rolls,” because my organ of smell—the nose—has received a stimulus which it transmits along my olfactory nerves to the brain; and there the odor is given a name—“hot rolls.” The recognition of the stimulus as an odor and of that odor as “hot rolls” is consciousness in the form of thinking. But the odor arouses desire to eat—hunger; and this is consciousness in the form of feeling. The something which makes me walk into the shop and buy the rolls is consciousness in the form of willing. The sensory appeal from the outside world gained admission through the sense of smell; this transmitted the message, and consciousness recognized the stimulus, which immediately appealed to my hunger and incited action to satisfy that hunger.

The ear of the operator in the telegraph office, again, might illustrate consciousness. It must be able to interpret mere clickings into terms of sense. To the operator the sounds say words, and the words are the expression of the object at the other end of the wire. The brain is the receiving operator for all the senses, which bring their messages in code, and which it interprets first as sound, vision, taste, touch, feel, smell, temperature; then more accurately as words, trees, sweet, soft, round, acrid, hot.

The mind can know nothing except as the stimulus is transmitted by sense-channels over the nerves of sense, and received by a conscious brain. A baby born without sight, hearing, taste, smell, or touch would remain a mere bit of clay. He could have no awareness. But so long as any one sense channel remains open the mind may acquire some knowledge.

Suppose I am paralyzed, blind, and deaf, and you put a tennis-ball into my hand. I cannot tell you what it is, not even what it is like. It means nothing whatever to me, for the sense channels of touch, sight, and hearing, through which alone it could be impressed upon my brain, are gone. Suppose I am blind and deaf, but have my sense of touch intact; that I never saw or touched or heard of a tennis-ball before, but I know “apple” and “orange.” I can judge that the object is round, that it is about the size of a small orange or apple. It is very light, and has a feel of cloth. I know it to be something new in my experience. You tell me in the language of touch that it is “tennis-ball”; and thereafter I recognize it by its combination of size, feel, and weight, and can soon name it as quickly as you, who see it.

Suppose I am blind and my hands are paralyzed, but I have my hearing. You tell me this is a tennis-ball, and if I have known “tennis-ball” in the past, I can describe it to you. It has been impressed upon my brain through my sense of hearing; and memory immediately supplies the qualities that go with “tennis-ball.”

But if none of the senses has ever developed, my brain can receive no impression whatever; it cannot have even the stimulus of memory. Hence conscious mind cannot be, except as some sense-channel or channels have been opened to carry thought material to the brain. So far as we know today, in this world, mind is absolutely dependent upon the sense organs and the brain—upon matter—for existence.

The Sympathetic Nervous System

Associated with the central nervous system by connecting nerves—but located outside of it in various parts of the body—are groups of nerve-cells (gray matter) and their fibers, forming what we call the sympathetic nervous system—the direct connecting link between mind and body.

The central nervous system is the director of all conscious action of the body; the sympathetic orders all unconscious action.

The beating of the heart, the contraction of the blood-vessels, hence the flowing of the blood, the processes of digestion, the functioning of the glands, are all directed by the sympathetic. In other words, the central nervous system normally controls the movements of the voluntary muscles; the sympathetic controls those of the involuntary muscles.

The quick blush, the sudden paling of the cheeks, the start of fear, the dilated pupils of fright are the direct result of the action of involuntary muscles under control of the sympathetic system. The stimulus is received by the central nervous system; the fibers connecting the central and the sympathetic systems carry the message quickly to the latter, which immediately respond by ordering contraction or expansion of involuntary muscles. So tears flow, we breathe freely again or we quake and tremble, our pupils widen or contract, the heart beats suffocatingly, or seems almost to stop.

The sympathetic system, as the name implies, is influenced by suggestions from the emotions rather than from the intellect. We might say that it is controlled by the “feeling mind” rather than the thinking mind, for intellect cannot influence it in the least.

The wise nurse, who knows something of the laws of the mind, soon realizes that the sympathetic nervous system, rather than physical disability, causes many indigestions, headaches, diarrheas, dry mouths, chills; is responsible for much nausea, much “exhaustion,” etc. When she has had wider experience she finds that almost any known physical disorder can be unconsciously imitated by the suggestible patient, whose sympathetic nervous system causes physical reactions to respond to the feelings of a sick mind. Let the nurse remember, however, that is it not for her to decide whether the disorders from which her patient suffers are of physical or nervous origin. It is for her, on the other hand, to study her patient’s mentality and reactions, and to become expert in reporting symptoms of nervous as well as of physical significance.

CHAPTER IV
RELATION OF MIND AND BODY

We have found that mind is entirely dependent upon the bodily organs for its existence. Is the body in the same way dependent upon the mind? Can the mind die and the body go on?

Given a perfect body with unblocked sense channels, and put the mind to sleep, paralyze the central nervous system with alcohol in sufficient quantity so that the undamaged peripheral nervous system—the senses—can obtain no response or recognition from it, and that perfect body is as useless for the time as if dead. But here comes proof of the remarkable hold of the body on life. The unconscious mind takes up the burden of directing the sympathetic nerves to stimulate the muscles of breathing. The unconscious sees to the beating of the heart. It directs the contraction of the blood-carrying vessels. It maintains certain vital processes of secretion. Thus automatically life goes on; the body still reacts to a limited field of stimuli, and consciousness recognizes it not. But when the unconscious mind ceases to function, then, indeed, does the body die. Yet the conscious mind may “die” and the body live on, so long as the unconscious continues its activity.

It is possible for the human body to live for years, utterly paralyzed, with many of the senses gone, with no consciousness of being—if cared for by other persons—a merely vegetable existence. The current of power is broken; but the spark is still glowing, though utterly useless because connected with nothing. And it may continue to glow for some time while properly stimulated from outside sources.

We might liken the mind to the boiler in which steam is generated, and the body to the engine which the steam runs. If the boiler bursts, the engine stops; but it may not be otherwise damaged. It simply cannot carry out its main