In its more extreme forms persecution mania is a recognized
form of insanity. Some people imagine that others wish to kill
them, or imprison them, or to do them some other grave injury.
Often the wish to protect themselves from imaginary persecutors (1)______
leads them into acts of violence which make it necessary to restrain
their liberty. This, like many other forms of insanity, is
only an exaggeration of tendency not at all uncommon among (2)______
people who count as normal. I do not propose to discuss
the extreme forms, that are a matter for a psychiatrist. (3)______
It is the milder forms that I wish to consider, since they (4)______
are a very frequent cause of unhappiness, and because, not having
gone much far as to produce definite insanity, they (5)______
are still capable of being dealt by the patient himself, (6)______
provided he can be induced to diagnose his trouble
right and to see that its origin lies within himself and (7)______
not in the supposed hostility and unkindness of others. (8)______
We are all familiar with the type of person, man or woman,
who, according to his own account, is perpetually the victim
of ingratitude, unkindness, and treachery. People of such kind (9)______
are often extraordinarily plausible, and secure warm sympathy
from those who have not known them long. There
is, as a rule, nothing inherently improbable about every separate (10)______
story that they relate.
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