Part 36

It is evident, that, theoretically, if antecedent conditions have prepared the emotional soil, and if an emotional complex, an intense sentiment, or instinct should be aroused by some stimulus, any one of a number of different possible psychopathic states might ensue, largely through the mechanism of conflict, according, on the one hand, to the degree and extent of the dissociation, inhibition, etc., established, and on the other to the character and systematization of the emotional complex or instinct. As with the physiological manifestations of emotion, we can construct various theoretical schemata to represent the psychological structure of these different states. Practically both types—the physiological and psychological—must necessarily almost always be combined.

1. The impulsive force of the emotion might repress all other ideas than the one in question from the field of consciousness, which would then be contracted to that of the limited emotional complex awakened; all opposing ideas and instincts would then be dissociated or inhibited—a state substantially of mono-ideism. Let us imagine the dominating emotional complex to be a mother’s belief that her child had been killed, this idea being awakened by the sudden announcement of the news. The parental sentiment with child as its object would become organized into a complex with the emotions of fear, sorrow, painful depressed feelings, etc., which the news excited. This complex, being deprived—as a result of the ensuing dissociation—of the inhibiting and modifying influence of all counteracting ideas, would be free to expend its conative force along paths leading to motor, visceral, and other physiological disturbances. An emotional complex of ideas would be then formed which after the restoration of the normal alert state would remain dormant, but conserved in the unconscious. Later, when the emotional complex is again awakened by some stimulus (associative thoughts), dissociation would again take place and the complex again become the whole of the personal consciousness for the time being. This theoretical schema corresponds accurately with =one type of hysterical attack=.

2. If again the awakened complex should be one which is constellated with a large system of dormant ideas and motives deposited in the unconscious by the experiences of life, the new field of consciousness would not be contracted to a mono-ideism. We should have to do with a phase of personality, one which was formed by a rearrangement of life’s experiences. In this case the usual everyday settings (or systems) of ideas being in conflict with the sentiments of the resurrected system would be dissociated and become dormant. The ideas, with their affects, which would come to the surface and dominate, would be those of previously dormant emotional complexes and their constellated system. The prevailing instincts and other innate dispositions would be, respectively, those corresponding to the two phases, the antagonistic dispositions being in each case inhibited. This schema would accurately correspond to a so-called “mood.” If the demarcation of systems were sharply defined and absolute so that amnesia of one for the other resulted, the new state would be recognized as one of =dissociated or secondary personality=. A “mood” and secondary personality would shade into one another.

3. Still another theoretical schema could be constructed if, following the hysterical dissociated state represented by schema 1, there were not a complete return to normality, i.e., complete synthesis of personality. The dissociation effected by the impulsive force of the evoked emotional complex and the repressed personal self-conscious-system might be so intense that, on the restoration of the latter, the former would remain dissociated in turn. The emotional complex would then, in accordance with what we know of the genesis of subconscious ideas, become split off from the personal consciousness and unable to enter the focus of awareness. Amnesia for the emotional experience would ensue. Such a split-off idea might, through the impulsive force of its emotion and that of its setting, take on independent activity and function coconsciously and produce various automatic phenomena; that is, phenomena which are termed automatic because not determined by the personal consciousness. The dissociation might include various sensory, motor and other functions, thereby robbing the personal consciousness of these functions (anesthesia, paralysis, etc.). Such a schema corresponds to the =hysterical subconscious fixed idea= (Janet).

In such a schema also, in accordance with what we know of the behavior of emotion, though the ideas of the complex remained subconscious, the emotion linked with them might erupt into the consciousness of the personal self. The person would then become aware of it without knowing its source. The emotion might be accompanied by its various physiological manifestations such as we have studied. If the emotion were one of fear the subject might be in an =anxious state= without knowing why he is afraid—an indefinable fear, as it is often called by the subjects of it.

4. If, owing to one or more emotional experiences, an intense sentiment were created in which is organized about its object one or more of the emotions of fear, anger, disgust, self-subjection, etc., with their physiological manifestations (tremor, palpitation, vasomotor disturbances, nausea, exhaustion, etc.) and their psychological disturbances (contraction of the field of consciousness, dissociation, etc.); and if the whole were welded into a complex, we would have the structure of an obsession. Such an organized complex would be excited from time to time by any associated stimulus and develop in the form of attacks: hence termed a recurrent psychopathic state as well as obsession. (As we have seen, the psychogenesis of the sentiment is to be found in antecedent experiences organized with its object giving meaning and persistence to the obsession.)

5. Finally (to add one more schema out of many that might be constructed), if a number of physiological disturbances (pain, secretory, gastric, cardiac, etc), such as occur as the symptoms of a disease, were through repeated experiences associated and thereby organized with the idea of the disease, they would recur as an associative process whenever the idea was presented to consciousness. Here we have the structure of an “=association or habit-neurosis=,” a disease mimicry. Numerous examples of the type of cardiac, gastric, pulmonary, laryngeal, joint, and other diseases might be given. The physical symptoms in such neuroses are obtrusive, while the psychical elements (including emotion) which, of course, are always factors, conscious or subconscious, remain in the background.

The study of the individual psychoneuroses belongs to special pathology, and need not concern us here. We are only occupied with the general principles involved in their structure and psycho-genesis.

Footnote 245:

Inhibition and dissociation, although often loosely used as interchangeable terms, are not strictly synonymous, in that, theoretically at least, they are not coextensive. That which is inhibited may be absolutely, even if temporarily, suppressed as a functioning process, as in physiological inhibition (e. g., of reflexes, motor acts, etc.); or it may be only inhibited from taking part in the mechanisms of the personal consciousness, and thereby dissociated from that psychophysiological system. In the latter case the inhibited process is not absolutely suppressed, but may be capable under favoring conditions of independent functioning outside of that system. This is dissociation in its more precise sense. Inhibition may be said to have induced dissociation, and then the two may be regarded as only different aspects of one and the same thing. In the former case (absolute suppression) the inhibited process cannot function at all, as in certain types of amnesic aphasia when the memory for language is functionally suppressed. Inhibition therefore may or may not be equivalent to dissociation. Practically as observed in psychological phenomena it is often difficult to distinguish between them, and it is convenient to consider them together.

Footnote 246:

The Dissociation, p. 189.

Footnote 247:

One sees the same phenomenon in every-day life. Let a person acquire under a sense of injury a dislike of one who previously was a friend, and every sentiment involving friendship, admiration, esteem, gratitude, loyalty, etc., is repressed with a complete change of attitude. Politics furnishes many examples.

Footnote 248:

Exemplified in Miss B. by Sally, in O. N. by the b mood, and in B. C. A. by phase B, and also in the earlier stages of the case by phase A.

Footnote 249:

My Life as a Dissociated Personality, _Jl. Ab. Psychol._, December-January, 1908-9.

Footnote 250:

The Mental State of Hystericals, p. 205.

Footnote 251:

The Dissociation, cf. Index: “Emotion, the Disintegrating Effect of,” and Chapters XXVIII and XXIX.

Footnote 252:

The Dissociation, p. 462.

Footnote 253:

We shall study in other lectures the forces and mechanisms which effected the dissociation in this case.

Footnote 254:

See Morton Prince: Some of the Present Problems of Abnormal Psychology, _St. Louis Congress of Arts and Sciences_ (1904), Vol. 5, p. 772; also, _The Psychological Review_, March-May, 1905, p. 139.

Footnote 255:

Probably derived from the “will to believe,” the desire to please the experimenter, or other elements in the hypnotic setting. The conception of a “censor” or desire to protect the personal consciousness from something painful is an unnecessary complication.

Footnote 256:

The Dissociation.

Footnote 257:

Cf. My Life as a Dissociated Personality, _Jl. Abn. Psychol._, October-November, 1908.

Footnote 258:

T. Brailsford Robertson, in a very recent communication on the “Chemical Dynamics of the Central Nervous System” and “The Physiological conditions underlying heightened suggestibility, hypnosis, multiple personality, sleep, etc.” (_Folia Neuro-Biologica_, Bd. VII, Nr. 4/5, 1913), has attempted to correlate these conditions and also amnesia (as one of their phenomena) with the isolation of paths “canalised” by auto-catalysed chemical reactions. These processes he concludes, from previous studies, “underlie and determine the activities of the central nervous system (and therefore the physical correlates of mental phenomena).” (See Lecture V, p. 124.)

Footnote 259:

The Dissociation, Chapter XXIX; My Life as a Dissociated Personality, pp. 39 and 41.

Footnote 260:

In this analysis I follow McDougall who seems to me to have analyzed clearly and adequately the emotional conditions. (Social Psychology, p. 145.)

LECTURE XVII THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMIC ELEMENTS OF HUMAN PERSONALITY

We ought to be able now to construct out of the various elements we have studied a general scheme, if not the details, of that composite whole which we call _Personality_. This should include its structure as well as its elements and dynamics.

It is obvious that we must have a fairly comprehensive and accurate conception of these factors if we would understand those alterations of personality which are met with as pathological conditions and particularly their psychogenesis. Multiple personality, for instance, as it occurs in the alternating and coconscious types can only be comprehended through a knowledge of the normal structure and dynamic mechanisms. On the other hand the phenomena of this latter pathological condition throw a flood of light upon the normal and can be utilized to test the validity of theories. I shall complete these lectures by a study from the psychogenetic point of view of a case of dissociated and multiple personality. Certain phenomena met with in this derangement of the normal have been frequently cited in the preceding lectures and certain general principles underlying them and the alterations giving rise to multiplication of the personality and character in one individual have been referred to. A study of the psychogenesis of a concrete case will on the one hand illustrate these principles and, on the other, the structure and dynamics of normal personality.

Before making such a study, however, we ought to have a working conception of the normal; and this we are entitled, from the point of view of dynamic psychology, to construct on the basis of data supplied by studies of abnormal and normal mental behavior. The older way of considering human personality was to conceive it as an “ego” with various faculties. We may now consider it as _a composite structure built by experience upon a foundation of performed, inherited, psycho-physiological dynamic mechanisms (instincts, etc.), containing within themselves their own driving forces_.

Let us glance for a moment at this foundation with a view to a full comprehension of the significance of the innate instinctive and other dispositions composing its structure. The structure and the dynamics of these dispositions themselves we have already studied (Chap. XV). Their teleological aspect needs further exposition for in their functioning the processes which they carry out have a distinctly purposive character for the personality.

Every instinct has an aim or end which it strives to fulfil and which alone satisfies it; and it contains in itself the driving force which, as an urge, or impulse, sets into activity the mechanism and carries the instinctive process, unless blocked by some other process, to completion and satisfies the aim of the instinct. Thus the instinct of flight impelled by the urge of fear has an aim to escape from danger and is not satisfied until the danger is escaped. Until that end is gained fear will not subside. If impeded in its activity it may awaken the pugnacity instinct which coming to the rescue may fight for safety. Similarly the instincts of acquisition and self-assertion are not satisfied and their urge persists until their ends are gained—the acquisition of certain objects in the one case and self-display or domination of other individuals or situations in the other case. Obviously the instincts and other innate dispositions have a biological significance, ontogenetically and phylogenetically, in that they serve the preservation of the individual and species and the perpetuation of the latter. And obviously in the drive to satisfy their aims they determine and govern behavior. But in doing this they become modified and controlled by experience—by the dispositions which are acquired by experience. In this way the behavior of the individual becomes adapted to the specific situations of the environment. Necessarily these modifications of the workings of the innate mechanisms by the imposition of experience upon and within them become very complicated and the problems of instinct and experience thereby evoked have been the object of much study and debate.

Now with such fundamental innate mechanisms as a basis the composite structure of personality is built up by experience, according to the theory I am presenting.

By experience new “dispositions” are deposited (i.e., acquired), and organized, systematized, not only amongst themselves but integrated with the inherited mechanisms. Thus, on the one hand, are formed new mechanisms which in their functioning manifest themselves as mental processes and behavior, and, on the other, the instinctive mechanisms are brought under control by experience and mental processes acquire a driving force, or an extra driving force, from the impulsive forces of the integrated instinctive mechanisms.

Accordingly we may say: _Personality_ is the sum total of all the biological innate dispositions, impulses, tendencies, appetites and instincts of the individual and of all the _acquired_ dispositions and tendencies—acquired by experience. And to these it is limited.

The former would embrace inherited, innate psychophysiological mechanisms or arrangements, such as those of the emotions, feelings, appetites and other tendencies manifested in instinctive reactions to the environment; the latter the memories, ideas, sentiments and other intellectual dispositions acquired and organized within the personality by the experiences of life.

The integration into one functioning organism, or whole, of all these innate and acquired dispositions with their mechanisms and inherent forces by which they come into play is personality.

As thus defined personality includes more than _character_. Character is the sum total of the predominating dispositions, or tendencies, popularly called traits. Thus in the domain of the innate dispositions every personality includes anger, fear, curiosity, and other instinctive reactions, but one personality might possess an angry temperament, while another an amiable temperament, meaning that in the one anger is aroused quickly and by a large variety of situations; in the other it is rarely aroused and by few situations; in the one anger is excited whenever the individual is thwarted, opposed, or wounded in his feelings; in the other the response is never or rarely anger in such situations but perhaps sorrow, or pity, or some other feeling. One is said to be quick to anger; the other slow to anger. Hence the character of the one is said to be “good tempered,” the other “bad tempered.” Yet every normal personality will manifest anger in some situation.

Likewise with fear: one person reacts with fear to all sorts of threatening situations; another rarely and to very few. One is said to have a timorous, or an apprehensive, the other a brave, or bold, “sandy,” character. Yet every one manifests fear in one of its phases (apprehension, anxiety, etc.) in some situation. There is no personality born without the fear instinct.

Likewise in the domain of acquired dispositions personality includes the ideals, “sentiments,” desires, points of view, attitudes, etc., of the individual in respect to himself, to life and the environment. These being acquired by educational, social and environmental experiences largely differ in every individual. Some become common, or substantially common to all or many. But those that are peculiar to, or acquire a dominating position and influence in the personality, play their part—and even a greater part than the primitive instinctive dispositions—in distinguishing the character of one personality from that of another. For in a large measure they determine the reaction to situations, the behavior and the modes of thought as intellectual processes. They stamp the _quality_ or character of the intelligence (its content) rather than the _degree or capacity_ of the same.[261] On this side, then, character is so much of personality as is represented by the dominating acquired dispositions of the individual. But as innate and acquired dispositions become inter-organized by experience, as traits, into complex functioning wholes, or complexes, acquired traits include the former.

Thus a personality may exhibit a character recognized as idealistic, altruistic, selfish, egotistic, social, anti-social, etc., according to what ideals, “sentiments,” morals, etc., have been acquired by experience. It is in these respects that he is largely the product of his education and environment, the influences of which have also organized his innate dispositions (instincts, etc.,) with his intellectual processes.

We have already seen (Lectures IX and XV) that the acquired dispositions are, by the very experiences by which they are acquired, organized into complexes and systems of complexes which are conserved as such in the storehouse of the unconscious to be drawn upon by memory or to be awakened again to activity as occasion may demand to serve the purposes of mental life. Now, large numbers of these complexes have not only an organized structure but a dynamic potentiality and in consequence of these two characteristics each tends to function as a dynamic psychic whole. For in such complexes are incorporated one or more emotional or other instinctive mechanisms from which their chief energy and aim are derived. (This theory postulates not only a structure of mental dispositions but a correlated structure of hypothetical physiological dispositions which I have termed the “neurogram.”)[262] In so far as dynamic complexes and systems of complexes have structure and tend to function as psychic wholes they take on the character of unitary mechanisms or systems. From this point of view the most fruitful conception of the structure of personality is that which views it as built up of dynamic units which may be classed as primary and secondary. The primary units are the innate psychophysiological arrangements or mechanisms which we have agreed to call the instincts, or innate tendencies or dispositions, in many of which are incorporated the emotions and other affects. These primary units become organized by experience into larger units or unitary systems. Whether they are also _innately_ organized amongst themselves and by themselves into larger systems as some maintain (Shand) may or may not be the case. It is not necessary for our present purposes to consider this problem. It is sufficient that those dispositions which are innate, such as those of anger, fear, joy, etc., do become organized by and with experiences into larger and larger dynamic unitary systems.

The secondary units are the acquired complexes and systems of complexes within which are incorporated one or more primary units. In these are found as already mentioned the ideals, “sentiments,” wishes, aspirations, forebodings, apprehensions, and all other organized systems of thought which, on the one hand have their roots in the deposited experiences of life and, on the other, their promptings and urges in the primitive innate instincts and other dispositions. Thus the innate and acquired dispositions are organized into unitary systems of greater and greater complexity but each having a tendency and, under certain conditions of dissociation, a greater or less freedom to function as a psychic whole. And the integration or potential integration of all these units and unitary complexes and systems into a functioning whole is personality. This does not mean that all the primary and secondary units take part in the functioning of the personality; on the contrary, as we have seen, many lie dormant, for one reason or the other, in the unconscious. But, as we have also seen, they are potentially capable of being awakened and determining mental and bodily behavior. Furthermore, evidence has been adduced to show that the various units of personality do not always coöperate and function harmoniously with one another, as no doubt they ought to do, but sometimes are incited to conflicts and then they play the deuce with the individual and he fails to be able to adapt himself to the realities of life.