Medicine: Benign Nervousness

That tired feeling when you get up in the morning, those nagging worries, that lack of enjoyment in work or friends, that feeling of indecision, of conflicting emotions, that nail-biting, that heart that beats too fast now & then, and that sudden flush—what causes all that? And how do you treat people who complain of these sub-neurotic symptoms?

Sub-neurotics is just what Dr. Frank N. Allan, of Boston’s Lahey Clinic, might call them—but he has an even more encouraging word for their disease. Four years ago he thought up a new category for people who can live with their jitters if they have to—”benign nervousness.”

Actually, say Dr. Allan and co-worker Dr. Manuel Kaufman in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association, benign nervousness is a lot more common than the nasty, malignant (psychoneurotic) kind. One way to tell the difference: the patient with the benign kind is pleased if he is told there’s nothing wrong with him physically; the true neurotic is apt to be disappointed.

The general practitioner, think Allan & Kaufman, can usually take care of benign nervousness. Talking things over is often enough; the patient should have a chance to tell his story. Sedatives like phenobarbital often help; so does religion. Most general practitioners, who suspect that psychiatrists put too much emphasis on the psyche in psychosomatic, would agree.