worrier is likely to break down under an amount of work which produces no
such effect upon the average normal individual.

The only quarrel I have with the name neurasthenia is that it diverts
attention from the real condition oftenest to be treated, namely, the
faulty mental tendency, and directs attention to an assumed debility which
may or may not exist. Misdirected energy, rather than weakness, is the
difficulty with one who is ready and anxious to walk miles to satisfy a
doubt, or to avoid crossing an open square, and who will climb a dozen
flights of stairs rather than be shut up in an elevator. Even the
exhaustion that follows long attention to business is quite as often due to
worry and allied faulty mental habits as to the work itself. In most cases
the phobias, the doubts, and the scruples, instead of being the result of
breakdown, must be counted among its principal causes.

This is why simple rest and abstinence from work so often fail to
accomplish the cure that should follow if the exhaustion were due simply to
overwork. In the "neurasthenic" rest from work only redoubles the worries,
the doubts and the scruples, and the obsession to improve his time only
adds to his nervous exhaustion. If a European trip is undertaken, the
temperament responsible for the original breakdown causes him to rush from
gallery to gallery, from cathedral to cathedral, so that no moment may be
lost. Not infrequently it so happens that the patient returns more jaded
than ever.

The neurasthenic is not infrequently a confirmed obsessive, with all the
faulty mental habits of this temperament. If he cannot make up his mind it
is not because he is tired, but because this is his natural mental trend.
If he drums, twitches, and walks the floor, these movements are not always
due to exhaustion, but are habits peculiar to the temperament, habits well