Wheezing geezers..

Some of the most interesting takes on life is offered by patients with hysteria. That if I am not able to deal with the anxiety that my 'unconscious' turns up, my 'unconscious' will act crazy or ill. Not kind of course, but one is definitely distressed by patients waking u up at 3 am on a night duty complaining of breathlessness, where nothing organic could be found; and you re-assure the patient and try to go back to sleep.

A slower reappraisal might suggest that this could be another instance of according relatively less sympathy to a symptom of mental causation, despite being critical of our medical colleagues for not being 'sensitive' to psychological distress. Being a learned response, one slips from this high ideal at times, often later into the night and with more sleep backlog. There may be multiple facets to this particular problem. The primary being that, in the absence of any real evidence organic brain disorders in hysteria, we're forced to rely on freudian concepts of dissociation which are, incidentally close to the idea of malingering, give or take a little gain. :) The more curious idea being that we are somehow programmed to give less credit to a 'software' defect of our mind than a brain disease and that even less than for a general medical illness. I am guessing it is related to the primal position with which the mind is treated, as it is root of identity of self, and thus the self of pride one has in oneself(refraining from 'go'). And that any problem 'in your mind' may thus reflect poor control over our own 'self'.

A toast to the control freaks of the world..and the hysterics. being some of both myself. :)

osho