THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF PSYCHOLOGY
Those who have read the foregoing pages will see that there are certain
broad divisions into which they fall. Let us now review these divisions
in their relation to the practical art of living.
The first great division we studied was concerned with the levels
into which the mind was divided and the types of thinking which were
carried on in each of them. The problems of memory and concentration
are closely concerned with these levels and the interrelations between
them. If an idea, after entering the mind, disappears into the
subconscious, we say it is forgotten and regard it as lost. This, we
have seen, is not the case, however. It is stored in the subconscious,
and we can make use of it even if we cannot gain direct access to it.
There is an old story concerning the advice that was given to a judge
newly raised to the bench, “Give your decision, it is probably right;
but do not give your reasons, they are very likely to be wrong.” Which
is merely a pithy way of saying: “Let your subconscious work out your
decision in the light of the enormous masses of data it possesses,
including the exact reproduction of every law-book you have ever read,
every remark, however casual, you have ever heard, together with the
accumulated experience of your race, all of which you are heir to, and
it will probably be right; but if you try to rationalise this decision,
to explain it in terms of your conscious knowledge, you may make
mistakes, because your conscious mind does not know nearly as much as
your subconscious.”
If we would learn to trust our subconscious methods of thinking, we
should be astonished to find what they are capable of. Genius might
be defined as the power of utilising the subconscious mind, and
inspiration as a subliminal uprush.
Memory also can be greatly improved by taking advantage of the
faculty of association of ideas, a faculty upon which the different
memory systems are founded. If we take any idea we wish to remember
and clearly image it in association with some idea of the same class
that is so familiar to us that it is a permanent part of our mental
furniture, then the two concepts will get stuck together, and we can
always use the second to summon the first.
The instincts and their development and method of functioning form a
second great division of our subject. It will be seen that we must view
our life in relation to the instincts and not to the reason, but it
must not be forgotten that the instincts themselves are evolving or
rather perhaps becoming modified in their expressions by the pressure
of new conditions, and in the course of their evolution are being
steadily socialised and civilised, so although we must realise that, in
their primitive form, they lie at the base of our being, yet in their
evolved form they also function at its apex, and that if we are to live
well, we must harmonise their manifestation upon every level of our
being.
The third and most important division, from the standpoint of practical
living, is that which deals with the mechanisms by means of which the
mind adapts itself to its environment. We should make it our aim to
achieve adaptation in the conscious mind by absorbing and assimilating
all experience, realising that we can learn our lessons from that which
is evil as well as from that which is good, and that any experience,
however evil, from which we learn a lesson is converted from poison
into food.
While it is necessary that certain types of ideas should be repressed
lest they should translate themselves into action, let us never forget
that repression need not necessarily imply dissociation, which is an
unmixed evil. Dissociation would never occur if we were honest with
ourselves. When we refuse to admit, even to ourselves, that our nature
possesses certain primitive aspects, we prevent the ideas connected
with these aspects from being affiliated to our personality and taking
their place in our mental life; they therefore become foreign bodies
in the mind, technically termed dissociated complexes, which function
independently of the main ego complex.
Instead of taking this attitude, let us recognise the existence
of these primitive impulses in ourselves; and when we find their
manifestations obtruding themselves, let us gently but firmly put them
in their place, and see to it that they do not obtain the upper hand.
Let us never forget the enormous power of autosuggestion, for the
subconscious mind will tend to translate into action any image that
is presented to it sufficiently vividly, especially if that image be
charged with emotion. Let us therefore be very careful what mental
pictures we permit ourselves to dwell upon persistently, whether
with fear or desire, for they will mould our lives and even our
circumstances to an extent we little realise.
Our whole aim should be to maintain the integrity of the personality,
to prevent any splitting off of complexes of ideas, and to see that the
instincts, welling up in the deeper levels of our nature, should find
their channels clear and unobstructed, so that they may flow out into
action on the higher levels of our life.