Again our advice was not taken and some months later the father
came to us with the story of extreme poverty, some recent attacks
of unconsciousness on his part, separation from his third wife,
and the information that Annie was about to become a chorus girl.
Even a final consideration of the general diagnosis in this case
which has been so long observed by us does not seem to justify
our including it among our border-line mental types. Application
of the term constitutional inferiority seems a priori warranted
by the family history and yet we have no proof that her physical
and mental conditions as enumerated above are not the result of
her many early illnesses and the excessively erratic
environmental conditions, rather than of causes which existed at
birth.
On account of the peculiar inhibitory phases which arose nearly
always during observation, we never relied merely on the results
of laboratory tests for our judgment, and her success in some
social situations has proved the wisdom of this. Our earliest
feeling that we had to do with a temporary and mild psychosis was
perhaps justified, but further observation of her has led us to
see clearly that she is not to be considered as a deeply
aberrational type.
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