Page:The Art of Helping People Out of Trouble (1924).pdf/202

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tial, yet hosts of men and women suffer from various afflictions and inconveniences because, while they realize that they ought to control their diet, they cannot bring themselves to do so. Those who are victims of the habit of retiring late find themselves, day after day, less effective than they might be, but although they want more sleep and realize the importance of this, they seem to be unable to go to bed at an appropriate hour. A knowledge of the facts, an appreciation of the relation between habits such as these and personal inefficiency is seldom alone enough to enable an individual to modify his manner of life. To overcome his trouble he must want to be free of it more than he desires to indulge himself. Other things being equal, if his wish to enter upon a new régime is strong enough he will change.

One way of aiding a man in such a situation is to reinforce his desire with other desires, to strengthen the influence of one motive by appealing to supporting motives. It was this which caused Tom Haverstraw to go to a sanitarium after he had become so suspicious of hospitals and other institutions that he had run away from several in which he had been staying. Tom was suffering from a form of hysteria which had