Excerpt from The Omnipotent Self: A Study in Self-Deception and Self-Cure

Many people, while not considering themselves as suffering from any nervous ailment, nor desiring the services of a physician, are yet far from being perfectly happy in their mental outlook and temperament. Either their feelings are too easily roused, or they are inclined to worry, to be depressed, irritable, nervous, or over sensitive. Trifles which to them seem no trifles interfere with the smooth course of their daily lives, or this slight abnormality may manifest itself in an over-sensitiveness to physical pain or to mental or moral difficulties and conflicts. It is with the hope of helping a few such individuals to a better understanding of themselves, and through this to a more equable temperament and greater happiness, that this little book is written.

There is no hard and fast line between the normal and the abnormal person, and indeed a very real difficulty exists in even defining a normal person. If we take our definition of normal as being average or conforming to type or standard, then the majority of people are normal. If, on the other hand, we take its other meaning, that of performing the proper functions, then there are few people approaching the normal under modern civilized conditions. A tendency to undue irritability or depres sion is a mild and very common form of abnormality. Hysterias, obsessions, and unreasonable fears are greater abnormalities, and fortunately of less frequent occurrence, while certain forms of insanity are still greater deviations from the normal. A similar combination of causes, however, may form the basis ofall these abnormalities.

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