In my record files is an old case card which has written on it under the caption of complaint "Patient has an obsession for playing with water." This case provides me with material for an article that may not only prove interesting and instructive to many readers, but may also serve to "ring a bell" in those who suffer from other compulsory acts, or a tendency thereto, and thus this article could be of immense value in helping to effect a release.

It is really surprising how many there are among us who are more or less afflicted with all kinds of compulsions such as having to count things, or when sitting in a car being under a "must" to add up the figures on the number plates of cars in front. Then there are some who must avoid stepping on the cracks in the pave­ment, not to mention those individuals, perhaps running into many hundreds, who are "forced" by some inner power to bypass a ladder rather than go under it. And so on, and so on ...

I find that by relating suitable cases to patients, who are under psychological examination, many respond in a most remarkable manner, in that something in the case history I am relating strikes straight home: and here and there an instantaneous cure is brought about. It can be looked upon as a short cut method, which reduces the number of treatments, but it certainly is not always effective, although it generally enables the patient to talk more freely and gives him greater hope of being freed from his mental trouble.

Now to the case which prompted me to write this article.

The patient was a working man in his forties referred to me by a vicar of the Church of England, who said that he would be responsible for the fees.

After I had recorded the particulars of this man's medical history I asked him to give details of his present complaint, and this is what he related:

"When I get home in the evenings after my day's work, I feel compelled to go to the kitchen sink, turn on the tap and there I just have to play with water for some time. I cannot leave it alone, then leaving the sink I go about the house wiping everything with my bare, wet hands. I go over my person in the same way stroking my shoes, furniture and things with rapid movements of my hands. This goes on for 'hours' at a time."

After listening to this description of his compulsive acts, I uttered this remark: "What you are doing is to you a 'reasonable' thing. Your intelligent and conscious self does not think so, and you are right from the point of view of what is considered to be normal behavior. You believe that this compulsive act of yours is a 'daft' thing to do, and so do all the others who witness your unusual conduct; but let me say this: nothing ever happens without a cause, a reason, and when we discover this, as I hope to, you will readily see that what you have been and are doing in this strange way is 'reasonable' in so far as it is consistent with the cause behind the urge, but when you become conscious of the cause then the urge to play with the water and to wipe will dis­appear, for you will recognize that these acts are now treasonable, for they can no longer serve the unconscious purpose of the original cause which had been relegated to the depths of the unconscious mind, and was operative from there."

This clarification greatly comforted and encouraged the pat­ient, and it at once established a most favorable transference or rapport, which latter term I much prefer.

Analysis was now proceeded with, but only the essential details of it can be given here, which will suffice the purpose of this article.

On the patient being asked to describe some of his earlier experiences in life he immediately started on those he had had as a stretcher bearer in the Royal Army Medical Corps in world war 1914-18. When carrying out his duties as a stretcher bearer in France he had to cross a wide stretch of water to fetch in the wounded. This water was not deep, but on his return journey through it to the first aid post he felt, for some unaccountable reason, safe from the "Jerries'" shells, and this feeling of security was enhanced because, in some inexplicable way, it was shared by his comrades.

This confession brought up into my mind the following thoughts: "Water to this man signifies safety. It appears to him as a protective agent. From what, I asked myself does he to-day wish to be protected, so that he is now compelled to occupy himself so intensely for long periods at a time with water and in such a ridiculous manner?" These thoughts led to my putting the query to the patient: "What is water for?" He naturally replied: "To drink and to wash with, to cleanse." I then requested him to go through the characteristic movements he made over the furniture and his person. "What are you doing?" I asked. "I am wiping away something." "What?" I responded. "I really don't know" he answered.

At a subsequent sitting I questioned him as to what disease he was afraid of. "None to my knowledge," he replied, but he dis­closed soon after, that when a lad he had had the bad habit of rubbing his cheek. This caused his mother on many occasions to remonstrate with him about it and the patient now remembered that his mother had a mortal dread of cancer, and she was con­stantly telling him in an emotionally charged voice that if he kept on rubbing his cheek in the way he did, he would certainly get cancer of the face.

Such admonitions do not always appear to make a deep con­scious impression during the tender years of childhood, but the suggestions conveyed can reach the unconscious mind, and be firmly registered and rooted there, so that it only requires an appropriate stimulus or shock in later life to bring into actual existence the emotion appertaining to (but not the memory of) its origin, which emotion can then find expression in peculiar behav­iour such as the playing with water under an inner compulsion.

The patient now clearly realised that as water in France had "proved" to be a protective agent making him feel safe from the enemy's fire, so somehow water became connected in his mind with protecting him from the dreaded cancer, and as water is cleansing he was wiping away cancer from things around him and from his own person. This realisation caused such a strong emotional dis­charge that he declared he felt freed from his former obsession. Memory by itself unaccompanied by the emotion attached to it is ineffective in bringing about a cure.

A week later our patient called to report and gave this glad news: "Only once after the last treatment, on the next day, did I experience the urge to go to the kitchen sink, but when I had turned on the water, I asked myself what do I want to do here? There was simply nothing in me to respond. There was no reaction, except one of great joy at my release." He was completely cured of his obsession, i.e., when he realised that in using water for wiping he was fulfilling an unconscious motive to wash away cancer. This then, in the circumstances obtaining at the time, was to him, a perfectly "reasonable" thing to do although he was obviously not motivated by conscious reasoning.

Now, when he was made fully aware of what was at the back of it all, viz: a great fear of contracting cancer, and on it being pointed out to him that this disease, so far as it is known, is not contageous, not infectious, not even hereditary he saw the "un­reason" of his former obsessional acts with the water and wiping.

Did not Pontius Pilate call for a basin of water wherewith to wash away something disagreeable? But whereas Pilate knew why he was doing it, and knew of the symbolism that was behind the act of his washing his hands, our patient was quite unaware of his. To the conscious mind they were purposeless actions, which however, had a definite unconscious purpose behind them. But both men had been using the same medium of water, the one to wash away his sense of guilt, and the other to wash away the dis­ease of cancer so keenly felt to be lurking on everything.

Apart from the practical uses of that wonderful element, water, so common, so ubiquitous, it plays a great part in spiritual matters. Just ponder on the baptismal water of the river Jordan, the holy water in the church font, the blessed holy water of the Roman Catholic Church, the spiritual curative power of the water at Lourdes shrine. Look up the second book of Kings, chapter five, wherein Naaman is told by Elisha to go and wash in Jordan seven times so that he may be cleansed of his leprosy. The Bible is full of references to the Divine-healing power of water; and even the rain falls from "heaven."

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