The Smiter Smitten

Though small boys may find it hard to believe, there is something to the old saw "This hurts me more than it does you." For at the very moment when he raises his hand to strike his son, the angry father may suffer such a violent (though subconscious) emotional storm that his arm drops to his side, paralyzed. He may even collapse in a heap on the floor.

The phenomenon is called cataplexy (literally, being struck down). Manhattan Psychiatrist Max Levin has collected dozens of such cases over the years. Last week, in the Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, he offered an explanation of why the smiting father's arm is smitten down, and added an assortment of related cases, including the hunter who goes all of a jelly when he sights his gun at a rabbit.

It all boils down to the fact that civilized man is taught to inhibit many of his aggressive impulses. Of the father & son cases, Psychiatrist Levin says: "In the motor centers of the angry parent there is a struggle. There are excitations which are about to express themselves in an act of aggression. But there also are inhibitions, for the parent feels guilty and wants to restrain himself." Cataplexy, says Dr. Levin, is a symptom of narcolepsy (involuntary sleep). Cataplexy may occur when a man has an aggressive impulse which, because of guilt, he tries (or feels he should try) to suppress. Or he may actually fall asleep. Dr. Levin cites the example of the soldier who almost falls asleep when under enemy fire for the first time--"a moment when one would expect him to break all records for alertness."

Bizarre cases of cataplexy rounded up by Dr. Levin: P:A man who had attacks if he tried to scare a cat away, swat a fly, squash a bug or land a fish. P:A boxer who had his opponent on the ropes, but could not bring himself to deliver the finishing punch. P:Tennis players who, in the middle of a volley, drop the racket and either go limp in the arm or fall down.

Contests need not involve physical violence to evoke the guilt reaction, says Dr. Levin. There was a bridge player who, when he began to win, would "go all to pieces," feel weak, and be unable to shuffle the cards or write the score. Even chess has its victims; one man had an attack when he thought he was going to checkmate his opponent. Cataplexy afflicts winners, not losers. Some people, says Levin, "feel guilty when they beat a competitor, even in sport, for victory gratifies their unconscious hostile wishes. When they lose a game, they may not like it, but they do not feel guilty."

The most remarkable case cited by Dr. Levin involves a hunter and a rabbit: "A rabbit came into view and [the hunter] raised his gun to shoot; but suddenly his arms and neck began to quiver and in his own words, 'everything gave way under me and I squatted like a wet rag.' He had to abandon hunting because [whenever] a rabbit jumped up he would lose muscular tone and fall to the ground."

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