The favorable reception which was given to the first edition of this
work has tempted me in preparing a new edition at the request of the
publishers to incorporate four additional chapters dealing with the
general principles underlying the structure and dynamic elements of
human personality (Lecture XVII) and a study of a special problem in
personality in which these principles are involved, namely, the
psychogenesis of multiple personality as illustrated by a study of the
case known as B. C. A.[3] (Lectures XVIII-XX.) The latter study was
omitted (with other lectures) from the first edition in order to limit
the number of subjects treated and the size of the volume.
Although the theory of the subconscious and that of the dynamics of
specific conscious and subconscious processes (to the fundamental
principles of both of which these lectures were limited) owe their value
to our being able through them to explain many mental and physiological
abnormalities, they possess an equal value from the light they throw
upon the structure and dynamics of that composite whole best termed
human personality. Over and above a knowledge of the abnormal, what we
as human beings want to know is not only what sort of physiological
beings but what sort of conscious beings we are; and how we think and
act, and what motives and other impulses whether hidden or in the clear
light of awareness, regulate and determine our behavior; what are the
forces that do it and how. We want to know the answer to a lot of
problems of this character, all of which involve principles of innate
and acquired dispositions.
A comprehensive study of human personality would include, as far as may
be, answers to all these problems and would require a volume in itself.
I have, therefore, not been able more than to give an outline in Lecture
XVII of what seem to me to be the fundamental principles involved and
the dynamic unitary systems out of which the structure is built up.
There are various points of view from which the structure of the mind
may be considered, just as with the structure of a literary work of art,
or of a complicated mechanism like an automobile. We may consider the
structure of the latter, for instance, as an assembly of complex units
or mechanisms—cylinders, carburetors, ignition systems, etc.,—each
analyzed into its elements, without regard to the dynamic, integrative
functioning of the units in the total mechanism. This would be the
static point of view. Or we may consider these units as wholes from the
standpoint of the forces they generate, the processes they subserve and
the parts they play in the total functioning of the whole machine. This
is the dynamic point of view. It is this latter which alone has a vital
practical interest. The former is of interest only to the technician. So
with the mind. The dynamic point of view alone is of practical
importance and alone awakens fascinating interest of stirring intensity.
So long as psychology held to the static viewpoint it was only of
academic value. For submitted to the pragmatic test it made little
difference whether it was right or wrong. Nor could it become an applied
science. Consequently it is from the dynamic viewpoint that I have
sketched in—and it is little more than a sketch—the application of the
principles laid down in these lectures to the peculiarly appealing
problem of personality. Closely related to this is multiple personality,
for it is a special problem in personality, and one that is a
fascinating study in itself. But aside from its own intrinsic interest,
its practical interest, its chief value is derived from the fact that it
is a veritable vivisection of the mind by the mind’s own vital forces,
and as such gives us much more definite and precise data for the
determination of normal mental mechanisms and processes than can
introspective analysis; just as the vivisection of the body in the
laboratory and by disease has given us our most precise knowledge of
physiology. Consequently the phenomena acquire a greater interest and
value from the insight they give into the normal. For there is no more
fruitful material for the study of the mechanisms and processes of
personality than cases of this sort where there is a disintegration of
the normally integrated structural wholes and a reassembling of the
component elements into new composite wholes. In the construction of
these new personalities certain normal structures and mechanisms are
dissected out, so to speak, of the original composite by the stress of
the forces that cause the cleavage between systems and are then
reassembled into new functioning wholes. There is a veritable
vivisection of the mind. In a mind thus disassembled nearly every mental
phenomenon, conscious and subconscious—conflicts, hallucinations,
coconscious processes, defense reactions, etc.,—can be observed in an
isolated form and systematically studied. They are veritable gold mines
of psychological phenomena, as William James once expressed it to me in
reference to one of my cases. It is strange, therefore, that such cases
have been neglected by psychologists who would study mental mechanisms.
It is true that for a complete understanding of multiple personality a
study of a number of cases should be presented, particularly as many
variations are to be observed constituting differing types. But in a
volume of this kind this would be impracticable. I have, therefore,
limited myself to the psychogenesis of a single case, that of B. C. A.
This will I believe be of interest not only as illustrating the basic
principles underlying the pathology of multiple personality, but because
of the data it offers for the understanding of the structure and
mechanisms of the normal self, something that curiously appeals to the
egoistic interest of human nature.