THE GUISES OF MENTAL PROBLEMS
MENTAL AND emotional problems
can have obvious enough manifestations-in an individual's behavior, feelings,
outlook on life. The tense and anxious person or the depressed and apathetic
person may wear his inner state, so to speak, "on his sleeve." But an
anxiety or depressive state, whether or not obvious to others, may take a
physical as well as emotional toll.
And sometimes, in fact often, the physical
problems may loom so large to the sufferer that he may consider them his whole
burden and tend to dismiss his emotional state, not even mentioning the latter
when he consults a physician. This can make it difficult for the physician to
help. If you understand well the many guises that emotional disturbances can
take, you will be better able to obtain help if any develop, and you may be
better able to prevent their development.
ANXIETY
This is often called the age of anxiety. Tranquilizers are
in common use. Each day physicians see many patients with physical problems
either triggered or made worse by anxieties. The human body, when faced with a
threat, usually reacts in one of two ways: it prepares to remove the threat or
escape from it.
This is the basis of the familiar "fight or flight"
concept of adjustment. When there is a failure of adjustment, when the body
does not react one way or the other, when there is internal conflict, there is
anxiety. Anxiety is not the same as fear. Fear stems from recognition of a
specific danger, but anxiety tends to be unspecific-a condition of heightened
tension and apprehension that often cannot be pinned down.
While fear and
anxiety both signal that the security of the individual is threatened, the
danger signaled by anxiety is not necessarily concrete and objective. Both fear
and anxiety set protective body processes in motion. When you experience a
fear, adrenal gland and other changes take place, organizing the body to meet
the fear-provoking threat.
The emotion of fear is no mistake of nature: it can
aid survival. Recently, for example, when a plane by accident dropped a live
200- pound bomb on an aircraft carrier deck, a sailor rushed over, lugged it to
the side and threw it overboard, saving his own and many other lives. Next day,
when challenged, he could not budge a similar but safely de- fused bomb. There
have been many instances of mothers who, in behalf of threatened children,
accomplished seemingly impossible feats of strength.
