Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-07-15

! the technique Of psychotherapy which
| have been developed in Europe, and In
| the application OF which st. Elizabeth's
! Hospital. under the direction of DR.,
william A. White. has made conspicuous
progress Much OF this work Is done
under the direction of DR.. Karpnlall.
The present object Of the work is
not SO much for the individual patient
as for society at large which must
suffer because of their character de-
fects DR.. Karpman tries to find cut
what makes them criminalS-~to dig
from the depths of their unconscious
minds incidents which they long ago
have consciously forgotten, but which
we're the turning points OF their lives.
Now it seems that when this couple
first had discussed adopting child
they had an argument The man
wanted to adopt boy, The wife
yielded 10 the desire of her husband,
once, in the boys hearing. she re-
ferred to this old argument She re-
minded her husband that If they had
followed her original wish and adopted
a nice little girl they wouldn't be hav-
ing all this trouble with the foster
child
Grows Worse.
This also sank deeply into the sub
conscious mind of the little boy 1t
intensified his hatred for the woman.
So she considered little girl--one of
those puny, teary creatures-as better
than he. Once more his feelings were
terribly hurt, He became worse than
ever.
From now on not only did he hate
her but all creatures like her. especially
all girls, They represent i something
utterly opposed to his llterestS.
Now the foster mother vas fairly
we'll educated woman. She was inter-
ested in school life and she was es-
do we'll. She talked to him good
zeal about his duly Of obeying his
teachers and trying to please them.
He was sent--a frightful mistake-to
a public school with women teachers.
Here his record was terrible. The
teachers, championed by his mother
and of the same SEX. became the OBJ
ieCts of his hatred He threw things
at them He refused to study-al-
though by himself he read a great
deal and got very low marks. He
would give way to uncomfortable tam
trun1s and played mean tricks on the
teachers and grieved his foster-mother.
And all this time grew his hatred for
NOfIl6Il. SHlHlEHI& u slIidAIN AAbAi AiiH
hatred for his real mother.
Gains Confidence.
This man was a rather loathsome
and extremely difficult subject to work
On. Very little was to be gained by
questioning him Even If he knew he
wouldn't tell He would lie about II
as a matter of habit, If nothing more.
II was a slow painful process. The
first essential was to gain his conf
dence. He naturally distrusted every
body To accomplish this purpose Or
Karpman visited him for ten months,
six days a week. often spending with
him as many as three hours day. /
Allowance was made for hundreds OF
obvious lies. All sorts of insults were
secure the confidence of the man.
There was still long way to- go The
patient, of course, didn't know the
reason for his own bad character. He
didn't know what lay behind the UNI
comfortable impulses and criminal ten
denotes
Bits of ingenious technical strategy
were used to weed out the deliberate
and also the unprecedented efforts TO
mislead Finally clue came in the
form of a dream. The man told DR..
Karpman that he had dreamed he was
walking along a country road drag
ging beautiful woman by the hair
and that finally ne had drawn a
sword and chopped her head off.
The story of this dream stood up un-
der the various tests for truthfulness.
But it didn't exactly fit into any of the
classificat!ons of dream types. Skill
full professional deductions we're made
that led eventually to uncorering the
whole story.
DR.. Karpman was able in the fol-
lowing days to recover the little incl !
dents responsible Cor that original
hatred of his real mother which the
man had consciously forgotten. He
WIS able. by advanced methods OF
psychotherapy. to go still further and
make the patient recall events that
had happened when he was about two
years old, which he had not brought
with him into the conscious world of
memory Nobody can recall, unaided. |
things that happened when they were
two years old, but ali these are stored
away somewhere in the subconscious
Thus the criminal learned for the |
first time that he hated his mother
and that he had hated all women be-
cause of her.
Now. of course he had no reason to !