The Goulstonian lectures on some abnormal psychical conditions in children / by George F. Still.

  • Still, George Frederic, 1868-1941.
Date:
1902
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Goulstonian lectures on some abnormal psychical conditions in children / by George F. Still. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    Cj|e dfliilstoitwit ITetturcs ON SOME ABNORMAL PSYCHICAL CONDITIONS IN CHILDREN. LECTURE I.' Mr. President and Gentlemen,—The particular psychical conditions with which I propose to deal in these lectures are those which are concerned with an abnormal defect of moral control in children. Interesting as these disorders may be as an abstruse problem for the professed psychologist to puzzle over, they have a very real practical —shall I say social ?—importance which I .venture to think has been hardly sufficiently recognised. For some years past I have been collecting observations with a view to investigating the occurrence of defective moral control as a morbid condition in children, a subject which I cannot but think calls urgently for scientific investigation. It has long been recognised that such a deficiency may occur in associa^ tion with those disorders of intellect which are ordinarily recognised as idiocy, imbecility, or insanity, and I suppose no one doubts the morbid nature of the moral defect in these cases, whether it be regarded as dependent upon the intellectual failure or not. But there are other cases which cannot be included in this category—children who show a temporary or permanent defect of moral control such as to raise the question whether it may not be the manifestation of a morbid mental state, but who nevertheless pass for children of normal intellect; it is this condition in particular which seems to me to call for careful observation and inquiry. The importance of some more widespread knowledge of these morbid states, if such they be, is very great, and although some of them persist into adult life, at no other period are the opportunities for investigating them so favourable as in childhood ; for in early years the influence of environment has not yet become so varied and complicated as to be 1 Delivered on March 4th.