The cure of self-consciousness / by James Alexander.

  • James Alexander
Date:
1915
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The cure of self-consciousness / by James Alexander. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    entering a public conveyance—a tram, motor-bus, train, steamer; walking along a promenade, taking part in a procession, walking along a street or road and having to pass groups of people who are standing laughing or talk- ing. ‘These instances will suffice to illustrate the large scope there is for self-consciousness in the presence of the crowd. It is safe to say that there is not a man or woman who has not at some time or other, in situations such as we have enumerated, felt in some degree the tendency to self-consciousness. Very few people, for instance, can walk down the aisle of a church or across a concert plat- form, with the eyes of hundreds of people upon them without feeling a sense of uneasiness. In many people it causes real distress. Next time you are seated in a train, especially a corri- dor train or electric train with long open carriages, look carefully at the people as they enter, and you will note at once their self-consciousness. In many instances it is very marked; merely to glance at such people is sufficient to make them turn their heads away, or to look cross or annoyed. The case is worse if you are with friends, all laughing and talking together. To lock at the self- conscious person then is to make him think your laughter and talk is directed against him. At once he will flush up and look distressed, and sometimes he will seek refuge by going to another part of the train. The fear of the self-conscious person, where the crowd is passive as above, is a real fear. The construction he puts on the attitude of the crowd towards him is, in the great majority of cases, the work of the imagination, but the fear in every case is real; a fear that causes dis- tress to mind and body in varying degree. The fear of the crowd, especially in its passive aspect, is very prominent in adolescence, and where it exists in the adult in any marked degree, its origin can nearly always be traced back to the adolescent period. The reason why this fear is prominent in adolescence is easy
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