Læknablaðið - 01.06.1961, Blaðsíða 47

LÆKNABLAÐIÐ
75

And naw I can turn to the
second assumption inherent in
the hasic premise of human
urge towarld health. The as-
sumption is thatwe know some-
thing of what we mean by
health. In terms of wliat I have
defined as assets and liabilities
this becomes more possible. No
one is healtliy or sick. All of
us are more and less healthy
and more and less sick. Tlie
perfectly healthy individual
does not exist and the perfectly
sick person wouhl be dead. Im-
perfection is in the nature of
being human and our veiy im-
perfections can be a stimulus
toward self-realization. I there-
fore say that a person is pre-
dominantly sick wlien the pre-
dominance of his energies is in-
vested in liabilities, i.e., in sick
patterns of integrating, and he
is predominantly healthy when
the predominance of his en-
ergies are invested in his assets,
i.e., in his healthy pattern of
integrating.
What I have spelled out as
assets I have presented as evid-
ence for the urge toward self-
realization. As furtlier evidence
I can tell you that many of my
colleagues working with pati-
ents on this premise have felt
they were more effective in
their therapeutic efforts, and
have been able to fulfill the oh-
jectives they prognosticated.
Working this way they were
not only able to help in resolv-
ing symptoms and sick charac-
ter attitudes, but also to help
þeir patients live fuller lives,
and to help them go on with
their own self-searching. And
according to the assumption of
an urge toward self-realization,
self-searching is a life-long task.
No one ever completes his self-
analysis. We can continue to
grow as long as we are alive.
There is more that I feel I
can offer in support of tliis
basic assumption of a human
urge toward health. I want now
to present some concrete in-
stances, some brief sketches of
people I liave worked with or
have known. But before I do
so I want to say a few words
about a question that has dis-
turbed and intrigued me for
many years. Most often people
ask how come so many people
become mentally ill? Much
more important to me is not
how come so many people be-
comet sick as do, but how come
many more do not? Also how
come human beings are ahle to
evolve these tendencies and com-
plicated sick patterns to hang
onto reality and some semblan-
ce of sanity? I feel the answer
to tliis question lies in the direc-
tion of fuller understanding of
the urge toward self-realization,
in a more comprehensive de-
lineation of what are human
assets and liahilities, in better