Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-01-26
MASKED FEARS
By H. AddingtOn Bruce

J
A LMOST everybody nowadays knows
n that large numbers of people are af-
dicted with phobias, or irrational
dread of zone thing >or another. Compare
lively few people know that in many cases
the phobia is a kind of covering or mask for
a deeper dread of which the phobiac is un-
aware.
And this fact is of great significance, in
that it helps to explain the usual inability
of phobiacs to overcome their dread by exer-
else of will power. Necessarily they exert
their will to no purpose by directing it
against the wrong object.
The outcome might be different and in
fact victory might be easy for them, if they
appreciated what they really feared. 1t is
not the least meritorious of the many
services rendered to humanity by modern
medical psychology, that it has found way
to give phobias insight into their masked
fears.
Typical is the experience Of a manly
occupation a sailOr-who consulted a med
ical psychologist, DR.. T. A. Ross, because
of a tormenting dread Of the dark. TO be
alone in a dark place was agony to him,
and he stated that he had thus dreaded the
dark as long as he could remember.
Questioning him closely, however, DR..
Ross drew from him a curious bit of in
ormation-namely, that his dread of the
dark completely disappeared whenever he
was at sea. Not once did it trouble him
until his ship again put into port, when 1t
returned with full force.
Suspecting from this that the dread OF
the dark masked dread Of something else,
DR.. Ross, putting the sailor into state Of
mental relaxation known to be favorable
to the emerging of subconsciOus memories
and ideas, directed him to think of his child
hood and especially Of early episodes when
he experienced the dread.
One long forgotten incident after another
was recalled, until finally the sailor remem-
bered a happening from which, it now
seemed to him, his dread of the dark had
dated.
He was passing through the lower hall
of his fathers house, his story Of this hap
pening ran, and was startled to see what he
took to be mans face peering at him from
around a curtain. It was night, the only
light in the hall was from the moon, and
he now believed that shadows had tricked
his eyesight with the illusion Of an imagined
face
But at the time he was convinced a
burglar was in the house, and he fed to his
room on the top floor From that night he
had been in fear lest a burglar spring at
him from some hiding place in the dark
He had cOnfded this special fear Of burglars
to no one, and had repressed it as cowardly
Silly, clearly, it had persisted as general
fear of the dark.
Which accounted for the fact that while
at sea-where no burglar could be hiding
he was free from the dread which tortured
him. This being pointed out by DR.. Ross
the sailor for the first time found himself
equally free from his dread while ashore
and has remained free from it.
Repeatedly medical psychologists have
found other phobias-dread of closed places
dread Of open spaces, dread Of cats, Of
crowds, and so forth-similarly serving to
mask fears of something other than the OBJ
jeCts consciously dreaded.
And commonly in such cases the cure Of
the ph0bia has been a comparatively easy
matter-often a surprisingly easy matter
once psychological analysis has revealed the
true meaning and cause of the dread.
Copyright, 1920