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s                                                           5 [ ]English
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 Date Paper was submitted (mm/dd/yy)   [  9/14/92               ][SCI] [ ]
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Health Book Report
December 14th, 1992

I. Title of book  More Help For Your Nerves

II. Author  Dr. Claire Weekes

III.  Purpose of the book

     The author's purpose in writing this book was to provide

information and various techniques of recovery to sufferers

of nervous illnesses such as nervous fatigue. It is quite a

bit like a self-help book because it is meant to aid

sufferers of nervous illness by helping them to understand

their symptoms and by teaching them techniques which will

help them recover from their condition. Another quality of

the book which helps the nervous sufferer recover is that

the author gives easy to understand advice on how to cope

with certain physical symptoms such as phobias. It appears

that the main intention of the author is to help the nervous

sufferer recover from his problems by fully understanding

the problems and their effects, and then by following the

appropriate steps to get on the road to recovery.




















IV. Table of Contents

A. Chapter 1  NERVOUS FATIGUE
              i. Muscular Fatigue
              ii. Emotional Fatigue
              iii. Mental Fatigue
              iv. Fatigue of the Spirit

B. Chapter 2  RECOVERY
              i. Facing
              ii. Accepting
              iii. Floating
              iv. Letting Time Pass

C. Chapter 3  SOME BEWILDERMENTS CLEARED AWAY

D. Chapter 4  JOURNALS TO PATIENTS

E. Chapter 5  MORE BEWILDERMENTS CLEARED AWAY

F. Chapter 6  TALKS WITH PATIENTS

G. Chapter 7  TALK GIVEN AS GUEST SPEAKER AT THE FOURTH
              NATIONAL PHOBIA CONFERENCE OF THE PHOBIA
              SOCIETY OF AMERICA





























V.  Summary of chapters

A. Chapter 1

     The author, in the introduction to the chapter,

emphasizes the difference between nervous illness and nervous

fatigue. She says that nervous fatigue is the condition of

being fatigued in either of these four ways: muscularly,

emotionally, mentally, or 'spiritually.' She says that a

person can even have all four of these kinds of fatigues and

still not be nervously ill, according to the author a person

only becomes nervously ill when he becomes afraid of the

effects of fatigue and allows this fear to interfere with his

life.

i. Muscular fatigue

     The author explains that muscular fatigue occurs when

muscles are abused, i.e. they are subjected to too constant

and too severe tension. She explains that this muscular

tension, if prolonged, upsets the tone of the muscles or the

balance between relaxation and contraction, and this causes

the 'chemicals' of fatigue to accumulate. When fatigued,

muscles begin to ache and this is why many sufferers of

nervous illness complain of aches and pains. Also, blurred

vision (resulting from the fatigue of the eye muscles) and

'all-over' headaches (resulting from tension in the neck and

scalp areas) can be symptoms of muscular fatigue.

ii. Emotional fatigue

     The author says that a person whose nerves are subjected

to stress too often may go into a sensitized state, a state

in which his emotions can be severely affected by the

slightest provocation and may even seem to have a physical

force to them. She also says that a person becomes nervously

ill when he becomes bewildered and afraid of this condition

instead of understanding it, and this causes the person to go

into a 'fear-adrenalin-fear' cycle. This cycle occurs when a

person's body releases adrenalin under stress and this causes

the person to generally tense up and prepares the body for

'flight-or-fight' skills. According to the author, people who

are sensitized are locked in a cycle of this condition, i.e.

they become afraid, release adrenalin, then start to fear

their own condition. This causes emotional fatigue, and every

little thing that occurs seems to affect them with extreme

intensity.

iv. Mental fatigue

     The author explains that mental fatigue occurs when a

person exhausts his mental capacity constantly. this can

happen to a sensitized person (and is usually a progression

from that state) because that person is always feeling the

shock of something and trying to absorb and think about it.

Some people may develop phobias in this way because they

become so fatigued and frustrated from doing certain things

that they desperately avoid them. They may also get 'muzzy'

head, i.e. a condition where a person feels that their mind

has a block in it and they cannot think.

iv. Fatigue of the Spirit

     This is a condition which occurs when the mentally

fatigued person attempts to fight his condition. The person

becomes so fatigued that he may decide that the struggle is

too much and end up exhausting his will power. The author

says that the only way out of this condition is to force

yourself to see some hope in the future and to see that the

condition is not hopeless and that there are ways to recover.

B. Chapter 2

     Here, the author stresses that the nervously fatigued

person becomes nervously ill by fearing his condition and

that the following four-point program will help that person

to recover from nervous illness:

i. Facing

     Facing means acknowledging that the cure must come from

inside yourself, with the help of others, but fundamentally

through one's own effort. Facing also means not shying away

from your nervous symptoms for fear of making them worse

(this is running away from the problems). One way to face the

symptom is to approach places and objects which cause you to

become ill and to think that it doesn't matter if you become

ill there because you can cope with it.  This will help you

to get used to the object or place and will reduce your

illness.  The key to recovering from nervous illness is by

facing the fears themselves, this involves accepting,

floating, and letting time pass.

ii. Accepting

     Accepting means 'rolling with the punches' that the

nervous symptoms throw at you. When a person goes in with

this mindset the release of adrenalin in the body is reduced

because the person is relaxed and facing the situation

somewhat calmly. This will help the person because it will

reduce the tension of the body and thus help the sufferer to

not fear the symptoms themselves.

iii. Floating

     The author explains through many examples that floating

is to allow your body to move gently when you feel that doing

something will make you ill and your body tenses up. She says

that slowly moving and relaxing your muscles will help to

release tension. She also says that fighting the fear will

further tense the body, so a person should float gently

instead.

iv. Letting time pass

     Here the author stresses that recovery lies not in

forgetting the symptoms but in them no longer mattering to

you, but for this she says, time must pass. Nothing in

nervous fatigue can be forced and the sufferer must allow the

symptoms of sensitization to disappear gradually and must not

hurry them because this will cause more tension. Recovery,

like healing, must be given time.

C. Chapter 3

     In this chapter the author looks at many different and

specific cases of nervous fatigue and nervous illness. For

example she offers advice for people who complain of

trembling legs and weakness when talking by telling them that

they should not worry that their legs will give way because

this will further cause them anxiety and result in a release

of adrenalin which will again put hem into a fear-adrenalin-

fear cycle. Her advice is mainly that a person should not try

and fight or even forget the symptoms but try to think that

even if they come it does not matter. Another thing she

stresses is that if for instance a person's mind goes blank,

the person should not interpret this as an illness but just a

natural happening and give it some time to pass. To people

who have an obsession, she says that they should use a

technique called 'glimpsing' and look into why they have this

obsession every now and then. She says that people with

obsessions usually have "fleeting moments when they see the

truth" and this is the best time for them to "glimpse." But

she warns that people using any of these techniques should

make sure that they do not grow tense because of this. She

also stresses that on occasions of 'superpanic'- where a

person suddenly goes into panic with physical effects as

well- a person should try and feel acceptance of his

condition and not try to withdraw from the symptoms in terror

because this withdrawal usually puts the person between a

wall of fear and panic. The basic purpose of the chapter was

to examine some specific cases and comment on how to deal

with them at the moment of occurrence.

D. Chapter 4

     This chapter consists of a number of journals the doctor

has written to 2000 or so people who are following her

treatment program. The journals were written on a yearly

basis and she repeats many things throughout them. There is

one main theme that is in all of the letters and that is the

theme of not admitting defeat, having courage and not just

learning to live with the symptoms of nervous illness but to

gradually accept and unlearn them. Above all she stresses the

point that one should not fear the condition nor grow anxious

over it but consider it merely something that happens to the

person and to maybe even consider it as a sort of learning

experience, a time when one learned to understand one's own

feelings and inner workings. She also stresses that recovery

will come if everything one does is done willingly, i.e.

willingly get up in the morning, willingly go to work, even

willingly go into panic because this will cause less anxiety

and it will also cause one to not care about the impact of

anything that he does, thus allowing the symptoms to not

matter. The journals also offer great consolation to the

sufferers by praising the patients' bravery and courage in

not giving up their determination to recover despite the many

problems they have faced.

E. Chapter 5

     In this chapter the author again deals with some

specific complaints that nervously ill persons have such as

coping with a neighbor, and symptoms of obsession occurring

after the birth of a baby. For example the author tells the

woman having trouble with talking to her neighbor because of

her nervous condition that she should not try and fight the

panic within her but try to 'float' and relax the muscles of

her body so that the tension and anxiety go away. A new

mother was nervous about the frustration she felt after birth

and was afraid that she might hurt the child, Dr. Weekes

advice for such a condition is to glimpse into one's

obsession and realize that such a thought is only a thought

in a tired mind making an exaggerated impression on a

sensitized body. Much of the advice she gives in this chapter

is centered around the idea that a nervously ill person

should not rush recovery but give it some time and be ready

and willing to go into each day, even each action so that

there is a reduction in tension and anxiety.  She also says

that with such willing intentions one will also feel that

there is some hope in recovering from the illness.

F. Chapter 6

     This chapter is a collection of talks the author has had

with a number of patients. Although the talks vary widely

in subject matter the main advice that the doctor gives to

almost all of the patients is to give recovery some time to

occur. She also advises many patients who have half-recovered

and complain that they have sudden flashes of nervous illness

symptoms that they should try and not concentrate upon what

has happened to them in the past but try and concentrate on

their present favorable condition. Many patients said

that they felt lost when they had returned to operating

normally and they couldn't understand why and the doctor

explained to them that this was because they were too used to

facing their nervous illness problems every day and that now

that they didn't have those symptoms they were feeling lost.

She advised these people to give their recovery some time and

to not grow tense by thinking about their past bad

experiences. She also stresses the point to her patients that

for their recovery they must get a feeling from inside that

the freedom from the fear of the nervous symptom is more

important than the nervous symptom itself.

G. Chapter 7

     This chapter consists of a talk that Dr. Weekes gave at

a National Phobia Conference. The talk does not have much to

do specifically with phobias, as the doctor says at the

beginning of the talk, but more to do with the general

problem of being in an anxious state and thus progressing to

more severe problems. The main theme of the talk is that the

key to a sufferer's recovery is the sufferer's own attitude

towards recovery. The author believes that if the sufferer

grows dependent on any external force, such as a doctor or a

medicine, instead of only taking help from the force, the

sufferer will have more tension and problems because he will

often consider what may happen if that 'crutch' were to

suddenly disappear and no longer be there for him to lean on.

The doctor strongly advised the audience to encourage

themselves (if they were sufferers) or their patients (if

they were doctors or therapists) to try to bring out the

feeling of hope and encouragement from within themselves and

the will to recover because the sufferer is the only one who

can truly and subconsciously effect the changes (of attitude

especially) which are necessary to recovery. She also

stressed to the audience that a patient's recovery could only

truly be accomplished by teaching the patient to listen,

understand and follow his inner voice, any other method would

only effect a temporary recovery. The author ended her talk

by observing that when one "learns to walk and live with

fear, one eventually learns to walk and live without fear."

VI. Conclusion

     In my opinion, the book was quite excellent in achieving

it's purpose. It provided easy to understand information for

people with nervous illness problems and thoroughly explained

each symptom that such a person might have and the reason for

it. Also, by dealing with specific problems or bewilderments

that people may have she pinpointed some things that make

nervously ill people sick and how these people should deal

with them. I enjoyed the book quite a bit because it gives

good insight even into the minor attacks of nervousness that

normal people have and provides techniques through which

normal people might even benefit in stressful situations such

as floating and letting time pass. Overall, I felt that the

book was full of good advice and very useful information

especially for people with an anxious condition.
