Symptomatology, psychognosis, and diagnosis of psychopathic diseases

To be able to recognize the mental and to be able to differentiate it from the purely physical is certainly of the highest consequence to the general practitioner, even if the treatment may fall into the hands of specialists who have devoted their life to such work. The reason why all kinds of occult cures have become so rampant in this country is because the medical profession ignores the mental side of the patient. The medical student, the practitioner, is in sore need of a training in psychology, normal and abnormal. The medical profession must realize the importance of a working knowledge of subconscious mental affections. More than one-half of the patients that come to the general practitioner are cases of psychopathic disorders. An early recognition and appropriate treatment would not only vindicate the professional man, but would help the patient at the right moment and prevent him from becoming a chronic invalid. The best way is to study the case, know it by the description of its symptoms, and dig deeply into the conscious and subconscious sides of the patient's character and life history. In short, we must learn to know the workings of the patient's mind, we must learn his ideals of life, his attitude towards man and to the world, his actions and his total reactions in his adaptations to his environment. In other words, we must learn to understand not only the patient's physical, nervous, and mental condition, not only his history and the development of his present trouble, but we must learn his personality as a whole, his attitude to his external surroundings, his Weltanschauung so to say. The knowledge thus obtained of the patient's psychic life is what I regard as Psychognosis. In other words, psychognosis is of importance not only from a theoretical, psychopathological standpoint, but is of the utmost consequence to a right, practical, psychotherapeutic procedure and treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved).