This case leads over to the large group in which the obsessing idea involves the relation to a particular person.
This particular case presented no difficulty in getting hold of the starting point as my correspondent, whom I have never seen, himself at once pointed to the original source of his obsessing idea.
It was at once apprehended as a mere obsessingidea in the own mind and this idea itself began to be resolved.
I may start with a typical case of obsessing ideas of simplest character and with simple routine treatment illustrating the emphasis on antagonistic ideas.
Cannot they see that by substituting morbid sentiment for honest Rabelaisianism they are obsessing the minds of every one with a matter which after all is only one aspect of life?
They are the things that belong to the hours when these obsessingforces fade and ebb and sink away.
For there is a perilous intoxication in all this, and, like chemical ingredients in some obsessing drug these great vague names work magically and wantonly upon us, giving scope to all our weaknesses and perversities.
When the doctor meets the Captain the question which is eating his mind shows itself as an obsessing idea.
They filled him with an inexplicable horror which until now he had held partially in abeyance; but in this loneliness it became an obsessing force of panic.
Suddenly he faced her, fiercely, almost violently, like a man throwing off anobsessing weakness.
The first obsessing spell had given place to this--it was good to be so loved.
He was able to add to the obsessing question in the hollow of his consciousness one other thought: “Some one is coming.
The necessity to go loomed suddenly insistent, became the obsessing matter, and he staggered to his feet.
Iris was of the earth divinely, and perhaps that's why she couldn't help obsessing a man's mind.
The dead drunkard is perhaps the commonest example of the obsessing entity, and if the obsession is only partial it may lead to nothing worse than strong and perhaps irresistible impulses toward alcoholic stimulation.
But no obsession is possible, in any case, unless there is something within the victim responsive to the moral defect of the obsessing entity.
The second question itself is enlightening as to the character of the obsessing entities.
The Germans record that of infants born during the war, a number are gravely degenerate of type, an infant-degeneracy attributed by some to the creed of Hate obsessing German mothers.
The obsessing aim of many mothers is to "harden" their children.
Your object is to fight on his side, remember, against this thing that is obsessing him.
It is this: whatever you may see--little tricks of speech or movement--you must not for one instant yield to the thought that the creature that is obsessing him is what he thinks it is.
Your ravings during these weeks of delirium shed much light upon the obsessing thoughts which plunged you into mild insanity.
In this task, he found an enthusiastic partner in Fishpingle, who possessed two obsessing interests: love of the land and love of the Pomfrets.
His strength was in the steady delineation of character, conscious of, but not deeply disturbed by, the problems which were obsessing and distracting smaller and greater minds.
He hoped by these occupations to free himself from his obsessing thoughts of Vera.
The strange romance of his existence, and of all existence, flowed around him in mysterious currents, obsessing him.
