MIND IN THE MASS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 November 1941, Page 6

MIND IN THE MASS

NERVE SPECIALIST’S VIEWS. * METHODS OF MINIMISING HYSTERIA. Mind in the mass is dealt with by Dr. Murdo Mackenzie, the London nerve specialist, in one section of his new book, “The Human Mind.” Increased sensitivity to situations of raised mental tension may extend from the individual to the community, says the author. The common title for this is mass hysteria —which is an unfortunate term and should be dropped in favour of mass anxiety: it is a state of persisting anxiety extending from individuals to groups, and thence to whole communities. Much can be done to minimise the possibility of mass anxiety by resolutely eradicating the scan-dal-monger from all sections of the community. He is a pest, and, in effect, only an unwitting member of the Fifth Column activities, who, being unaware of it himself, is all the more dangerous: he is attaining mental ease by shifting his personal anxiety on to the deficiencies in the authorities, and getting solace from infusing his own mental restlessness into those around him. A great deal of wartime irritability —whether on the part of intolerant spouses, unfair employers or impossible colleagues —is mild persisting anxiety, becoming significant in times of war while insignificant in times of peace. Even if the offenders . cannot help themselves, every individual attempt to ignore this irritability ' and refuse to be dragged in stops the contagion, and, consequently, decreases the liability to ja movement toward mass anxiety. Nothing is more desired by the dictators than mass anxiety in those who oppose them.