psycho-physiological function (memory, sensation, perception, instinct)
is by any force dissociated, the exiled idea or function tends to carry
with itself into seclusion other ideas and functions with which it is
systematized. The dissociation is apt to involve much more than the
particular psychological element in question in that it “robs” the
personal consciousness of much else. I have already cited in a previous
lecture (p. 318) examples of this principle. I need merely remind you of
the observation with Miss B., where the systematized dissociation of
auditory images pertaining to the experimenter carried with it the
associated secondary visual images of him necessary for tactile
perception of his hand. Similarly, in B. C. A., the general dissociation
of tactile images carried with it the secondary visual images necessary
for the visualization of her body. A large number of examples drawn from
all kinds of dissociative phenomena might be given. I will content
myself with mentioning two or three more: In automatic writing the
dissociated muscular control of the hands usually robs the personal
consciousness, so far as the hand is concerned, of all sensory
perception, and in automatic speech the dissociation of the faculty of
speech often robs the personal consciousness of the auditory perception
of the subject’s own voice. In hysterics, the specific dissociation of
one class of perceptions carries away others systematized with them. In
systematized anesthesia it is often easy to recognize this fact. A good
example of this is that recorded in the case of Miss B., who, believing
she had lost her finger rings, not only could not be made to see or feel
them, but also not even the ribbon on which they were hung round her
neck, or to hear them click together, or to feel the tug of the ribbon
when I pulled it.[246] The perceptions of these associated sensations
were therefore also withdrawn. The same principle can be demonstrated by
suggestion in suitable subjects. Thus, for example, I suggest to one of
these subjects in hypnosis that she will forget an episode associated
with a certain person named “August.” After waking she has amnesia not
only for the episode but for the name of the person and for the word in
its other meanings, e. g., the name of a calendar month. She cannot
recall that a month intervenes between July and September.
In these examples the source of the dissociating force is not in every
case obvious. But this need not concern us now. What I want to point out
is that when the dissociation is the consequence of an emotional
discharge the same principle frequently comes into play, the same
phenomenon of systematization is of common occurrence. It may be
recognized with considerable exactness when a conflict between
sentiments has been artificially created. Thus the phenomenon, described
in the last lecture (p. 476), of inhibition of sentiments by a
self-suggested antagonistic sentiment, may equally well be cited in
evidence of this principle. Similarly, O. N. suggested to herself a
sentiment antagonistic to a specific sentiment which she previously
entertained regarding a particular person. Not only was the latter
sentiment dissociated but a number of other allied sentiments
systematized around the same person were also incidentally and
unintentionally repressed and withdrawn from consciousness, so much so
that her whole point of view was altered.[247] (It was easy in hypnosis
by the procedures already stated to synthesize the sentiments at will so
as to drive out, with suggested antagonistic sentiments, the undesired
ones. The change of viewpoint and feeling after waking from hypnosis was
often quite dramatic.)
2. By this mechanism we can explain the dissociation of large systems of
sentiments leaving a contracted personality—a mere extract of its former
self—dissociated and distinguished from what it was by different
sentiments, instincts and other innate dispositions.[248] The facts seem
to show that the awakening of the emotional impulses of certain
sentiments inhibits, not only those particular antagonistic sentiments
with which the former are incompatible, but large systems of sentiments,
and many instincts and other innate dispositions with which the
inhibited sentiments are systematized. The contracted self may or may
not be able to recall to memory the fact of having previously
experienced the dissociated sentiments. But whether so or not the latter
no longer functionally participate in the personality.
This mechanism, to be sure, is an interpretation but the facts are
easily demonstrated. Minor types of such dissociations result in what we
have described as “moods.” More extreme types are pathological and
characterized as phases of personality.
3. The contrast of the sentiments in such moods and phases with the
habitual sentiments having identically the same objects is striking. In
other words the object is organized with an entirely different group of
emotions (instincts). The subject’s sentiment of husband or wife or
father or son no longer contains the emotions of love and reverence,
etc.; but, perhaps, there are organized within it the emotions of anger,
hatred, contempt, etc. A self-regarding sentiment of self-subjection
with shame, “feelings” of inadequacy and depression may be substituted
for self-assertion, pride, self-respect, etc. These clinical facts are
matters of observation. B——n suffers from constantly recurring and very
intense attacks of asthma which have certain characteristics which stamp
it as an hysterical tic. In the attacks it is noticeable that her
personality and disposition—normally amiable, gentle, and
affectionate—undergo a change. The parental instinct and sentiments of
affection for her family, of whom she is very fond, of modesty, of
pride, of consideration for others, etc., disappear and are replaced by
others of an opposite character. Fear, anger, and resentment are easily
aroused, etc. B. C. A. in phase B of personality knew nothing of
remorse, self-reproach, or despair which characterized the normal phase,
and experienced only emotions and feelings of pleasure and
happiness.[249]
Janet, with his customary accuracy in observing facts, has noted these
changes, although I think in his attempt at interpretation he has not
quite recognized the mechanism by which they are brought about. “With
Renée,” this author remarks, when noting the facts, “we have gradually
seen disappearing the taste for finery; her coquetry—vanity,
even—disappeared. With others, the love of property is gone; they lose
all that belongs to them and do not care. Bertha formerly had great
timidity; she now wonders at the loss of it. She goes and comes at
night; she looks at dead bones of which she was afraid in past years,
and asks: ‘Why does all this make no impression on me now?’ Marie,
especially, is very curious as to that. She takes no longer any interest
in things or people. Overwhelmed with misfortunes, consequences of her
malady, and, after having been in comfortable circumstances, reduced to
extreme poverty, she does not perceive that her situation is serious.
She loses money, when she has only a few pennies left; she mislays her
clothing, can scarcely keep on the dress she is wearing and does not
seem to trouble herself about it in the least. Yet we observe that she
is still intelligent and might provide against her situation. She does
so very little, and only wonders at her indifference. ‘Formerly I took
care of my things; now I do not.’ There are some still more
characteristic facts to be observed in this patient. Formerly she loved
her husband and was even quite jealous about him. She was devoted to her
two children. Since her illness she has gradually abandoned her
children, who have been reared by her sisters, and she finally left her
husband. For the last three years, instead of her former happy life, she
leads about Paris the most miserable existence. Not once did she inquire
about her husband or her children. She heard indirectly of the former’s
death. ‘Strange!’ she said, ‘it does not affect me in the least; yet, I
assure you, it does not make me happy, either ... I simply don’t care.’
‘But if we were to tell you that your little Louis [it was her favorite
child] is dead, too?’ ‘How do you suppose it can affect me? I have
forgotten him!’”[250]
4. Janet, when interpreting such phenomena, attributes them to
“psychological feebleness” in consequence of which the personality
cannot synthesize more than a certain number of emotions and ideas to
form the personal self-consciousness. It certainly cannot perform the
synthesis involved in retaining certain formerly possessed sentiments,
etc., but it is not because of _feebleness_. Many hysterics can
synthesize quite as _many_ psychological elements as a normal person,
but not sentiments and emotions of a certain _character_, i.e., those
which pertain to certain experiences, to certain systems of
remembrances. M. Janet has quite correctly pointed out that, in spite of
the apathy and lack of emotionality of hysterics in certain
directions,—which, I would insist, in the last analysis means the
absence of _particular_ sentiments and instincts—in other directions
these patients are “extremely excitable and susceptible of very
exaggerated emotions,” which in turn means the retention of particular
sentiments and instincts. These last dominate the personality. Here is
the key to the enigma.
From this point of view, the effect of the impulsive force of the
dominating emotions has been misinterpreted by M. Janet. These emotions
are the causal factors in determining the apathy, i.e., absence of
particular sentiments and instincts, and explain _why_ they cannot be
brought within the personal synthesis. If we bear in mind that emotion
means discharge of force, an adequate explanation of such phenomena in a
great many instances, at least, is to be found in the principle of
conflict and dissociation. The conflict is between the impulsive forces
of the emotions pertaining either to antagonistic instincts or to
sentiments organized within different systems. With the excitation of
emotion, instincts and sentiments which have opposing conative
tendencies are inhibited, repressed, or dissociated, and with them the
systems with which they are organized. The emotion does not so much
cause “psychological feebleness” in consequence of which the personality
cannot synthesize sentiments, as it inhibits and dissociates
antagonistic sentiments, etc., which consequently cannot be synthesized.
The _result_ you may call “feebleness” if you like.
Hence it is that hysterics present the seeming paradox of having, as M.
Janet observed, “in reality fewer emotions than is generally thought and
[in] that their principal character is here, as it is always, a
diminution of psychological phenomena. These patients are in general
very indifferent, at least to all that is not directly connected with a
small number of fixed ideas.” According to the view which we are
maintaining, the “fewer emotions” are due to the dissociation of many
sentiments and instincts by the dominating emotional complex.
5. Let us not forget that this explanation is a matter of
interpretation, but the interpretation comports with what is common
observation of what happens when a new emotion which is incompatible
with an existing emotion (fear—anger) is excited. In the case of Miss
B., the alternation of the personality coincident with the excitation of
an emotion occurred with such frequency, not to say with regularity,
that there seemed to be no room to doubt the causal factor and the
mechanism.[251] Sometimes the dissociation resulted in the formation of
new phases of personality in which Miss B. reverted to a past epoch of
time in which she lived once more, the experiences of all later epochs
being dissociated; sometimes in phases with a very contracted field of
consciousness without orientation in time or place and with little
knowledge of self or environment; sometimes—and in these instances the
dissociation of organized systems could most clearly be recognized—in
the substitution of one of the already established phases (BI, BIV, or
BIII) for another. It is not always easy without intensive study, to
determine the exact sentiment or instinct which is responsible for the
dissociation, although the actual occurrence of the emotional state just
preceding the development of the phenomenon is obtrusively obvious. “At
various times as a result of emotionally disintegrating circumstances”
at least eight different phases were observed in addition to the three
regularly recurrent phases.[252]
In B. C. A. the gradual organization through the circumstances of life
of a group of “rebellious” ideas, in which the dominating sentiments and
instincts were intensely antagonistic to those previously peculiar to
the subject, could be clearly determined. So antagonistic was this group
that it was known as the rebellious complex but termed B complex for
convenience. It became by successive accretions a large system and phase
of personality. The details are too extensive to enter into at this
time; suffice it to say that as the result of what is called an
“emotional shock” the B system came into being. This interpreted means
that the shock was really the excitation of the rebellious sentiments
and other emotions belonging to the B system; there was a conflict; the
habitual sentiments and the system to which they belonged were inhibited
and replaced by the former (B). Later the displaced sentiments and their
corresponding A system were awakened, the emotions giving rise to
another shock, a conflict, and the B system, in turn, was inhibited. And
so it could be recognized that alternations of systems could be evoked
by the alternate excitation of sentiments and instincts—or complexes, if
you prefer the term—pertaining to each.
6. This summary of the phenomena of conflict inducing dissociation of
personality would be incomplete if the _dissociations effected by
entirely subconscious processes_ were not mentioned. These can be very
neatly studied with coconscious personalities, as such personalities can
give very precise information of the mode by which the displacement of
the primary personality is effected. In the cases of Miss B. and B. C.
A. “Sally” and “B,” respectively, have done this. It appears, according
to this testimony, that coconscious “willing” or strong conation, even
simply a wish to inhibit the principal consciousness, would effect that
result. Thus, for instance, B testified: “When A is present I can ‘come’
voluntarily by willing, i.e., blot A out and then I ‘come.’... By
willing I mean I would say to A: ‘... Go away’: ‘Get out of the way’:
‘Let me come: I _will_ come,’ and then A disappeared. She was gone and I
was there. It was almost instantaneous.... Sometimes the wish to change
would blot out A without actual willing.”
In the case of Miss B. similar testimony of the effect of coconscious
willing and wishes was obtained.
When the coconscious wishes, sentiments, etc., are not synthesized into
a large self-conscious system (i.e., coconscious personality) which can
give direct testimony as to the subconscious conflicts, the former and
the process which they incite must be inferred from known antecedent
factors and the observed phenomena of inhibition or dissociation. That
general and systematized dissociation are phenomena which can be, and
frequently are, induced by the conative force of purely subconscious
processes, in view of the multiform data offered by hysterics can be
open to no manner of doubt. The process may be also formulated in terms
of conflict.
=Laws governing the lines of cleavage of personality.=—In systematized
dissociation there is a cleavage between certain organized systems of
experiences and functions and the remainder of the personality. The
contracted personality is consequently shorn of much. But we understand
only very incompletely the laws which determine _the direction of the
line of cleavage_ and the consequent extent of the dissociated field.
Unquestionably this follows the law of organization of complexes in a
general way, but not wholly so. For instance, it is impossible by this
law or by any known mechanism to explain the anesthesia which sometimes,
apparently spontaneously, appears in certain hypnotic states. A given
subject, e. g., B. C. A., is simply hypnotized by suggestion and
successively falls into two different states. In one state the subject
is found to be completely anesthetic and in the other normally esthetic.
The subject is one and the same and the dissociating suggestion, which
is the same in each case, contains nothing specifically related to
sensation; and yet the line of cleavage is within the field of sensation
in the one case and without it in the other; i.e., that which is
dissociated includes the sensory field in the one state and not in the
other. Similarly when the disaggregation of personality is brought about
by the force of a conflicting emotion, the resulting hysterical state or
dissociated personality may be robbed of certain sensory or motor
functions, although these functions are not as far as we can see
logically related to the emotion or the ideas coupled with it. Thus a
person receives an emotional shock and develops a one-sided anesthesia
and paralysis—a very common phenomenon. Louis Vivé used to pass into one
state in which he had left hemiplegia and into another in which he had
right hemiplegia, another with paraplegia. Each state had its own
systematized memories, but why each had its own and different motor and
sensory dissociations cannot be explained. In Miss B. the dissociation
which resulted in the formation of the secondary personality, Sally,
withdrew, without apparent rhyme or reason, the whole general field of
sensations so that Sally was completely anesthetic.[253] The sensory
functions seemed to be wantonly ejected along with the repressed
complexes of ideas. _Per contra_, by the same process which results in
dissociation, lost functions are often paradoxically synthesized. Mrs.
E. B. and Mrs. R., anesthetic when “awake,” are found to be normally
esthetic in hypnosis; i.e., the sensory functions are spontaneously
synthesized with the hypnotic personality. In other words, in hypnosis
the personal synthesis is in this respect more normal than in the
“waking” state.
Again, when amnesia results it may cover a past epoch—retrograde
amnesia—without obvious reason for the chronological line of cleavage.
In short the suppression by dissociation of a specific psychological
element—remembrance, perception, sentiment, etc.—not only tends to rob
the personality of a whole psychological system in which it is organized
but of other faculties, the relation of which to the specifically
dissociated element is obscure. It seems as if the dissociation
sometimes followed physiological as well as psychological lines.[254] It
is in accordance with this principle that instincts and sentiments which
are not immediately concerned in the specific conflict nor antagonistic
to the dissociating emotion are often suppressed. Thus it is that
hysterics, as we have seen by examples, have lost so many emotions
(instincts) and the sentiments involving them, though they are so
excitable to the emotions that are retained. In the case of B. C. A. the
secondary personality B, the resultant (as I interpret the case) of the
conflict between the play instinct and sentiments of duty,
responsibility, etc., lost the parental instinct with the emotion of
tender feeling (McDougall) and that of fear, with their corresponding
sentiments. She was shockingly devoid of filial and maternal love and,
indeed, of affection, in the true sense, for her friends. Likewise Sally
(in the case of Miss B.), also the product of conflict between the
impulses of the play instinct and those of the religious emotions, was
entirely devoid of fear, of the sexual, and of certain other instincts
not antagonistic to the dominating play instinct. She had lost also a
great many, if not all, sentiments involving the tender feeling. As in
the examples given of dissociation of motor, sensory, and other
functions, the dissociative line of cleavage had excluded more than was
engaged in the conflict. Of course, there always must be some reason for
the direction taken by any line of cleavage, following the application
of force, whether the fracture be of a psycho-physiological organism or
of a piece of china; but when the conditions are as complex as they are
in the human organism their determination becomes a difficult problem.
When we come to study multiple personality we shall see that the
suppression of instincts plays an important rôle.
=Amnesia.=—It is a general rule that when a person passes from a
condition of extreme dissociation to the normal state there is a
tendency for _amnesia_ to supervene for the previous dissociated state
(multiple personalities, epileptic and hysterical fugues, hypnotic and
dream states, etc.). Likewise in everyday life it frequently happens,
when the dissociation effected by emotion results in an extremely
retracted field of consciousness, that, after this emotional state has
subsided and the normal state has been restored, memory for the excited
retracted state, including the actions performed, is abolished or
impaired. Even criminal acts committed in highly emotional states
(anger, “brain storms,” etc.) may be forgotten afterwards. In other
words, in the normal state there is in turn a dissociation of the
residua of the excited state. The experiences of this latter state are
not lost, however, but only dissociated in that they cannot be
synthesized with the personal consciousness and thereby reproduced as
memory. That they may be still conserved as neurographic residua is
shown in those cases suitable for experimental investigation where they
can be reproduced by artificial devices (hypnotism, abstraction, etc.).
Thus B. C. A. could not recall a certain emotional experience although
it made a tremendous impression upon her, disrupted her personality, and
induced her illness. In other respects her memory was normal. Janet has
described this amnesia following emotional shocks, notably in the
classical case of Mme. D.
1. On first thought it seems strange that a person cannot remember such
an important experience as that, for example, of B. C. A., when for all
else the memory is normal. That this experience had awakened conflicting
ideas and intense, blazing emotions with great retraction of the field
of consciousness of the moment is shown by the history. Later there was
found to be a hiatus in the memory, the amnesia beginning and ending
sharply at particular points, shortly before and shortly after this
experience. In other words, the extremely dissociated and retracted
emotional field could not be synthesized with the personal consciousness
or, one might say, with the sentiment of self. In hypnosis, however,
this could be done and the memory recovered. Freud has proposed an
ingenious theory involving a particular mechanism by which such amnesic
effects are produced. According to this theory the dissociated
experience cannot be recalled because it is so painful that it cannot be
tolerated by consciousness; i.e., attempted emergence as memory meets
with the resistance of conflicting subconscious thoughts, acting as a
censor or guardian, and the experience is repressed and prevented from
entering consciousness. (It would be, perhaps, within the scope of this
theory to say that the impulsive force of the conflicting sentiments
(involving pride and self-respect and the instinct of anger) awakened at
the moment of the experience continued more or less subconsciously to
repress the memory of the whole experience.)
2. If expressed in the following form I think the theory would equally
well explain such amnesias, be in conformity with certain known hypnotic
phenomena and, perhaps, be more acceptable: An experienced desire not to
face, or think of, i.e., to recall to memory, a certain painful
experience is conserved in the usual way. When an attempt is made to
recall the episode _this desire becomes an active subconscious process_
and inhibits the memory process. The analogue of this we have in
posthypnotic amnesia induced by suggestion. In the hypnotic state the
suggestion is given that the subject after waking shall have forgotten a
certain experience, a name, or an episode. After waking the conative
force[255] of the suggested idea, functioning _entirely subconsciously_
(as there is complete forgetfulness for the hypnotic state), inhibits
the memory of the test experience in that there is found to be amnesia
for the latter. One may say there has been a subconscious conflict
followed by inhibition of one of the belligerents. That antecedent
thoughts of the individual can likewise become activated as subconscious
processes and come into conflict with other processes and inhibit them,
thus preventing them from becoming conscious, we have already seen. The
antagonism of the motives in the two processes is often obvious.
Numerous examples of inhibitions (induced by conflicts with subconscious
ideas, emotions, and conations) of mental processes which could
afterwards be recalled to memory in a secondary state of personality
have been recorded in the case of Miss B.[256] Likewise in B. C. A.
similar phenomena were testified to as due to subconscious
conflicts.[257] There would seem to be no question therefore of either
the occurrence of subconscious conflicts or their efficiency in
producing amnesia.
3. However all this may be, there is no need for us now to enter into
the question of mechanisms. Certain it is, though, that we often forget
what we want to forget, which means memories that are unpleasant; and
certain types of pathological amnesia answer to the Freudian mechanism
or some modification of it. Certain amnesias undoubtedly follow
deliberate wishes to put certain experiences out of mind, just as they
follow hypnotic suggestions that they shall be forgotten. A very neat
example is that of the observation previously given (Lecture III, p. 74)
of the subject who, in a moment of despair and resentment against
criticism, expressed a wish to forget her own marriage name, and lo! and
behold! on waking the next day she found she could not recall it. But
amnesias of this kind differ in an important respect from the classical
amnesias of hysteria. In the latter variety the dissociation is so
extensive that reproduction cannot be effected by any associated idea of
the personal consciousness; for reproduction another state of
consciousness (hypnosis, alteration of personality, etc.) with which the
forgotten experience is synthesized must be obtained or the subconscious
must be tapped. In the former variety although the reproduction cannot
be effected through an idea with which it stands in affectively painful
association, it can be by some other indifferent idea or complex with
which it is systematized. For instance, in the case of the phobia for
the ringing of bells in a tower which we have studied, the original
episode could not be recalled in association with the object of the
phobia, notwithstanding that this object was an element in the episode,
but it was readily recalled in association with contemporary events of
the subject’s life. In the case of C. D., who had experienced a painful
episode of fainting the same amnesic relations obtained.
4. On the other hand there are other forms of amnesia which the
_Freudian mechanism is totally inadequate to explain_, or of which it
offers only a partial explanation. I refer to the persisting amnesias of
reproduction exemplified by much of the common forgetfulness of
every-day life (often due to dis-interest); by the amnesias for whole
systems of experiences in hypnotic states, in different phases of
multiple personality, fugues, and deliria; by certain retrograde,
general, and continuous amnesias of hysteria, alcoholic amnesia, etc. In
some of these the amnesia is a dissociation of systems undoubtedly
effected by the force of emotional impulses discharged by antagonistic
complexes. This is to view the amnesia from its psychological aspect.
But it may also be viewed from its _correlated physiological aspect_.
Let us note first that reproduction is a synthetic process which
requires some sort of dynamic association between the neurogram
underlying an idea present in the personal consciousness and the
conserved neurograms of a past experience. From this view we may in the
future find the explanation of amnesia (resulting from the dissociative
effect of emotion) in the configuration of the physical paths of residua
traveled and engraved by an emotional experience. The emotional
discharge may have prevented an associative path of residua being
established with the dissociated experience.[258]
5. Amnesia is too large a subject for us to go into its mechanisms at
this time and we are not called upon to do so. It is enough to point out
_the different forms of amnesia_ which at times are the resultants of
emotion. Inasmuch as experiences are organized in complexes and still
further in large systems, which include settings (that give meaning to
the particular experiences) and other associated sentiments, instincts
and other innate dispositions, the dissociation of a single experience
may involve a large complex of experiences, or a whole system of such,
and result either in a simple amnesia alone or in an alteration of
personality accompanied by amnesia. Such amnesias are generally
classified as _localized_, _systematized_, _general_, or _continuous_.
6. The first, as it seems to me, is also in principle systematized, the
distinction being clinical rather than psychological. By _localized_ is
meant an amnesia extending over an epoch of time. Thus, in the instance
already cited, Miss B. suddenly found that she could not recall a single
moment of a particular day, although previously she had remembered well
the incidents, owing to a distressing experience the memory of which had
tormented her during the whole day. The amnesia was localized in time.
It was the result of a suggestion which I gave in hypnosis that the
painful experience only should be forgotten; but unexpectedly the
remembrances of the whole day disappeared. In other words, the
dissociation of a particular remembrance robbed the personal
consciousness of all other remembrances with which it was systematized.
That it was so systematized was made evident by the fact that throughout
the course of the day it had so dominated her mind that she was
continuously under its emotional influence. The amnesia was therefore
not only localized but _systematized_ with the day’s experiences. It is
to be noted that the hypnotic suggestion necessarily exerted its
dissociating force subconsciously after waking.
Similarly in multiple personality, one alternating phase often has
complete amnesia for the preceding epoch belonging to another phase.
This amnesia may extend over a period of from a few minutes to years,
according to the length of time that the second phase was in existence.
It is therefore localized. But it is also systematized, not in the sense
of relating to only a particular category of remembrances, such as those
of a particular object—father, child, etc.—but in the sense of bearing
upon all the experiences organized within a large system of sentiments,
instincts, settings, etc., characteristic of the second personality.
With the dissociation of this system the remembrances of its experiences
go, too. Undoubtedly the dissociating force is that of the awakened
sentiments, etc., of the succeeding phase. These are always antagonistic
to those of the dissociated phase, although those of the one are not
necessarily painful to the other. They are simply incompatible with one
another, and it may quite well be that their force is subconsciously
discharged. Systematized amnesia, on the other hand, may not be
localized, bearing as it may only on a particular category of
remembrances, let us say of a foreign language with which the subject
previously was familiar.
7. The _retrograde_ type of localized amnesia is common following
emotional shocks. The case of Mme. D., made classical by Charcot and
Janet, is a very excellent example. This woman lost not only all memory
of the painful emotional state into which she was thrown by the brutal
announcement of her husband’s death, but of the _preceding_ six weeks.
The amnesia for the episode might be accounted for on the theory of
conflict, but it is difficult to explain the retrograde extension unless
it be there was some systematization covering the six weeks’ period
within the mental life of the patient not disclosed by the examination.
_General and continuous amnesia_, the one covering the whole previous
life of the subject, the other for events as fast as they are
experienced, also, though rarely, occur as the sequence of emotion.
=Subconscious traumatic memories.=—When an emotional complex has once
been organized by an emotional trauma and more or less dissociated from
the personality by the conflicting emotional impulses, it is conserved
as a neurogram more or less isolated. The fact of amnesia for the
experience is evidence of its isolation in that it cannot be awakened
and synthesized with the personal consciousness. Now, given such an
isolated neurogram, observation shows that it may be excited to
autonomous subconscious activity by associative stimuli of one kind or
another. It thus becomes an emotional subconscious memory-process and
may by further incubation and elaboration induce phenomena of one kind
or another.
This is readily understood when it is remembered that such a memory, or
perhaps more precisely speaking its neurogram, is organized with one or
more emotional dispositions (instincts) and these dispositions by their
impulsive forces tend when stimulated to awaken the memory and carry its
ideas to fulfillment. The subconscious memory thus acquires a striving
to fulfil its aim. We ought to distinguish in this mechanism between the
isolation of the neurogram and that of the process. The former is
antecedent to the latter.
The phenomena which may be induced by such a subconscious memory may be
of all kinds such as we have seen are induced by subconscious processes
and emotions—hallucinations, various motor phenomena, disturbances of
conscious thought, dreams and those phenomena which we have seen are the
physiological and psychological manifestation of emotion and its
conflicts, etc.
Undoubtedly the _mental feebleness_, manifested by a feeling of
exhaustion or fatigue, which so frequently is the sequel of intense
conscious emotion, favors the excitation to activity of such
subconscious autonomous processes or memory when antecedent isolation
has occurred. This enfeeblement of personality probably is the more
marked the larger the systems included in the dissociation. Certain it
is that in fatigued states, whether induced by physical or mental “storm
and stress,” subconscious processes become more readily excited. The
greater the dissociation the greater the mental instability and
liability to autonomous processes. Time and again it was noted, for
instance in the case of Miss B. and B. C. A., that when the primary
personality was exhausted by physical and emotional strain, the
subconscious personality was able to manifest autonomous activity
producing all sorts of phenomena (when it could not do so in conditions
of mental health) even to inhibiting the whole primary personality.[259]
The direct testimony of the subconscious personality was to the same
effect.
=Mental confusion.=—Fortunate is the person who has never felt
embarrassment when the attention of others has been directed to himself,
or when some act or thought which he wished to conceal has become patent
to others, or when called upon without warning to make a speech in
public. Unless one is endowed with extraordinary self-assurance he will
become, under such or similar circumstances, bashful, self-conscious,
and shy, his thought confused, and he will find it difficult to respond
with ready tongue. Associated ideas _à propos_ of the matter in hand
fail to enter consciousness, his thoughts become blocked even to his
mind becoming a blank; he hesitates, stammers, and stands dumb, or too
many ideas, in disorderly fashion and without apparent logical relation,
crowd in and he is unable to make selection of the proper words. In
short, his mind becomes confused, perhaps even to the extent of
dizziness. The ideas that do arise are inadequate and are likely to be
inappropriate, painful, and perhaps suspicious. The dominating emotion
is early reinforced by the awakening of its ally, the fear instinct,
with all its physiological manifestations. Then tremor, palpitation,
perspiration, and vasomotor disturbances break out. Shame may be added
to the emotional state.
1. This reaction becomes intelligible if we regard it as one of conflict
resulting in painful bashfulness and shame, inhibition of thought; the
excitation of painful ideas, amnesia, and limitation of the field of
consciousness. The self-regarding sentiment is awakened and dominates
the content of consciousness. The conflict is primarily between two
instincts organized within this sentiment—that of self-abasement
(negative self-feeling) and that of self-assertion (positive self
feeling). The impulsive force of the former, awakened by the stimulus of
the situation—let us say the presence and imagined criticism of
others—opposes and contends with that of the latter which is excited by
the desire of the person to display his powers and meet the occasion.
The result of the struggle between the two impulses is emotional
agitation or _bashfulness_. If this bashfulness is “qualified by the
pain of baffled positive self feeling” there results the emotion of
shame.[260] But these emotional states are not the whole consequences of
the conflict. Almost always fear comes to the rescue as a biological
reaction for the protection of the individual and impels to flight. The
impulsive force of this instinct is now united to that of self-abasement
and the conjoined force inhibits or blocks the development of ideas,
memories, and speech symbols appropriate to the occasion and dissociates
many perceptions of the environment. On the other hand, the
self-regarding sentiment evokes various associative abasing ideas of
self and related memories. The victim is fortunate if unfounded
suspicions and other painful thoughts (through which criticism of self
is imagined and the situation falsely interpreted) do not arise. Or
there may be an oscillation of ideas corresponding to the conflicting
sentiments and instincts. A person in such a condition experiences
mental confusion and embarrassment. The condition is often loosely
spoken of as self-consciousness and shyness.
2. Painfully emotional _self-consciousness_ of this type as the sequence
of special antecedent psychogenetic factors is frequently met with as an
obsession. Then fear, with its physiological manifestations, is always
an obtrusive element. Individuals who suffer from this psychosis
sometimes cannot even come into the presence of strangers or any public
situation without experiencing an attack of symptoms such as I have
somewhat schematically described. The phenomena may be summarized as
bashfulness, emotion of fear, inhibition, dissociation, limitation of
the field of consciousness, ideas of self, confusion of thought and
speech, inappropriate and delayed response, delusions of suspicion,
tremor, palpitation, etc.
=The symptomatic structure of the psychoneuroses.=—When studying the
physiological manifestations of emotion (Lecture XIV), we saw how a
large variety of disturbances of bodily functions, induced by the
discharge of emotional impulses, may be organized into a symptom-complex
which might, if repeatedly stimulated, recur from time to time. On the
basis of these physiological manifestations we were able to construct a
schema of the physiological symptoms occurring in the emotional
psycho-neuroses. We obtained a structure of such symptoms corresponding
to the facts of clinical experience. We then went on in the next lecture
to examine the psychological disturbances induced by emotion and found a
number of characteristic phenomena. The view was held that emotion is
the driving force which bears along ideas to their end and makes the
organism capable of activity. We found conflicts between opposing
impulses resulting in repression, dissociation, and inhibition of ideas
and instincts, and limitation of the field of consciousness. We saw that
sentiments in which strong emotions were incorporated tended to become
dominating, to the exclusion of other sentiments from consciousness, and
to acquire organic intensity and thereby to be carried to fruition. We
saw also that the dominating emotional discharges might come from
sentiments within the field of consciousness, and therefore of which the
individual is aware, or from entirely subconscious sentiments of which
he is unaware. And we saw that conflicts might be between entirely
conscious sentiments or between a conscious and a subconscious
sentiment, and so on. (Indeed, a conflict may be between two
subconscious sentiments as may be experimentally demonstrated with
corresponding phenomena.)
Now the practical significance of these phenomena of emotion, both as
observed in every-day life and under experimental conditions, lies in
the fact that they enable us to understand the symptomatic _structure_,
and up to a certain point the psychogenesis of certain psychoneuroses of
very common occurrence. (For a complete understanding of the
psychogenesis of any given psychoneurosis, such as a phobia, we must
know all the antecedent experiences which formed the setting and gave
meaning to the dominating ideas and determined the instincts which have
become incorporated with them to form sentiments. This we saw when
studying the settings in obsessions (Lectures XII and XIII).)
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.
Amongst these acquired unitary systems there are certain ones which are
of preëminent importance for the personality in the determination of
mental behavior. I refer to those complexes known as the _sentiments_.
By this term, as we have seen, is understood the organization of an
acquired disposition—the idea of an object—or complex of such
dispositions (the psychic whole of idea plus its “meaning” derived from
the setting of associated experiences) with one or more innate emotional
dispositions. It must not be overlooked for one moment that a sentiment
is something more than the organization of an emotion or other affect
with an idea. There is nothing novel or fruitful in such a limited
conception of the structure of a sentiment as this. A sentiment in its
structure is the organization of an idea and meaning with an emotional
instinct which has an aim and end which the instinct strives to attain
and which alone satisfies the urge of the instinct. Such a structure has
great significance and the conception is a most fruitful one. For
because of this structure the excitation of the idea necessarily
involves the excitation of the instinct and the impulse of the latter
determines behavior in reference to the object of the idea and carries
the instinct to fruition. Thus if the sentiment be one of love the
excitation of the instincts organized with the object determines through
their urge the behavior to cherish or possess the object of the
sentiment. And the attainment of this aim alone satisfies it. If the
sentiment be one of apprehension of an object the instinct of fear
incites behavior to escape from the danger contained in the meaning of
the object. A sentiment in the hierarchy of units is a unitary system
built up by the organization (through experience) of primary units with
a secondary unitary complex (idea, meaning, etc.).
The importance of the sentiments in the dynamics of personality and
therefore in the determination of mental and bodily behavior I have
already dwelt upon (Lecture XV). But there is one sentiment which plays
such an important rôle both in these respects and in that unitary system
which we know as the empirical self, or consciousness of self that
something more needs to be said about it. This sentiment is that which
McDougall has termed the “self-regarding sentiment” which is intimately
bound up with the idea or conception of the empirical self, and both
should be considered together. It is only by regarding, as it seems to
me, the conception or idea of the empirical self as a secondary unitary
complex organized by experience that we can approach the solution of the
problem of the self and understand the phenomenon of two selves in one
personality, as so often occurs in multiple personality.
The self-regarding sentiment, according to McDougall’s theoretical
analysis—and I may say his analysis has been confirmed by my own
practical analyses of concrete cases—has structurally organized within
it by experience the two opposing instincts, self-abasement and
self-assertion, but either may be the dominating one. The idea or
conception of self, proper, is, according to the theory, a complex and
integrated whole organized by experience like the self-regarding
sentiment. “McDougall has argued,” to quote what I have written in a
study of multiple personality,[263] “and I think soundly ‘that the idea
of self and the self-regarding sentiment are essentially social
products; that their development is effected by constant interplay
between personalities, between the self and society; that, for this
reason, the complex conception of self thus attained implies constant
reference to others and to society in general, and is, in fact, not
merely a conception of self, but always one’s self in relation to other
selves.’ But, as I would argue, this formulation must be considerably
broadened. Every sentiment (and therefore the self-regarding sentiment)
has roots in and is consequently related to what has gone before. And
the experiences of what has gone before of the self, i.e., what has been
previously experienced (ideally or realistically) by the individual in
reference to the object of the sentiment, determines the attitude of
mind and point of view towards that object, and is responsible for the
organization of the object and instinct into a sentiment. The sentiment
is the resultant and the expression of those antecedent experiences.
They form its setting and give it meaning beyond the mere emotional
tone. You cannot separate sentiment, conceived as a linked object and
emotional instinct, from such a setting. They form a psychic whole. This
is not only theoretically true, but actual dealings with pathological
sentiments (in which the principle can be most clearly studied), called
phobias and other emotional obsessions, bring out this intimate relation
between the sentiment and the conserved setting of antecedent
experiences. Such practical dealings also show not only that the
sentiment is the outgrowth of and the expression of this setting, but
that by changing the setting the sentiment can be correspondingly
altered.... I want to emphasize that in the dynamic functioning of a
sentiment the setting coöperates in maintaining and carrying it to the
fruition and satisfaction of its aim.”
So far as concerns the incorporation of the two instincts,
self-abasement and self-assertion, “McDougall with keen insight and
analysis, has argued that the self-regarding sentiment is organized with
these two innate dispositions, but in different degrees in different
individuals, and with the growth of the mind one may replace the other
in the adaptation of the individual to the changing environment. Taking
two extreme types, he draws a picture of the proud, arrogant,
self-assertive, domineering person, with the feeling of masterful
superiority, and angry resentment of criticism and control, and who
knows no shame and is indifferent to moral approval and disapproval. In
this personality the instincts of self-assertion and anger are the
dominating innate dispositions of the self-regarding sentiment. On the
other hand we have the type of the submissive, dependent character, with
a feeling of inferiority, when the contrary disposition is the
dominating one. McDougall’s analysis was beautifully illustrated in the
case of Miss Beauchamp by two personalities, BI and BIV, fragments of
the original self, which were actual specimens from real life of his
theoretic types. Again McDougall’s theoretic analysis of the conception
of self, showing the idea to be one ‘always of one’s self in relation to
other selves,’ is concretely illustrated and substantiated by the
dissection of this mind effected by trauma.”
The study of another case, that of “Maria” furnished the same results as
respects the two personalities that were manifested, as did that of “B.
C. A.”
As to the conception of the empirical self and as “an important addition
to this theory both from a structural and dynamic point of view, I would
insist again that the complex conception of self includes a setting of
mental experiences of much wider range, in which the idea of self is
incorporated and which gives the idea meaning. The range of this setting
extends beyond ‘other selves’ and ‘society in general’ and may include
almost any of life’s experiences.” By way of illustration let us take
the two selves known as the “Saint” (BI) and the “Realist” (BIV) in the
case of Miss Beauchamp. "Concretely and more correctly the psychological
interpretation of the ‘reference to others and society in general,’ of
the relation of one’s self to other selves, would in this particular
instance be as follows: the Saint’s conception of self (with the
self-regarding sentiment) was related to an ideal world and ideal selves
contained in religious conceptions; and hence it became organized in a
larger setting which gave it a meaning of divine perfection such as is
obtained, or aspired to by saints, and in which were incorporated the
emotional dispositions of awe, reverence, love, self-abasement, etc.
This conception was not a product of, or related to the social
environment. Rather it was the product of an ideal world. She, as has
been said, lived in a world of idealism, oblivious of the realities
round about her, which she saw not ‘clearly and truly’ but as they were
colored by her imagination. Her idea of self thus became the ‘saintly
sentiment’ of self-perfection.
“On the other hand the conception of self in BIV, the Realist, was
related to and set in the realities of this social world as they clearly
are, the world of her objective environment. And in this conception of
self the instinctive dispositions of self-assertion and anger
contributed the promptings and motive force to dominate these realities
and bend them to her will.”
It must be an obvious conclusion from the numerous and multiform
subconscious phenomena which were cited in previous lectures that all
the unitary and complexes and systems which enter into the composite
structure of personality do not necessarily emerge into awareness. Some
function subconsciously and in this way determine conscious mental
processes and behavior. Many remain conserved in the unconscious and
have only a potential reality in that they remain latent but susceptible
of being awakened into activity. It is also true that in the course of
the growth of the personality many become modified by experience and
metamorphosed into new sentiments, new ideals, new desires, new
apprehensions, new meanings, etc.
The necessity for adaptation of the personality to the realities of life
necessarily gives rise to conflicts, for the urges of some unitary
complexes cannot be satisfied, and some are incompatible with the
situations which reality presents, or with one another. A practical
solution of the problem is compulsory. Compensation is sought. Sometimes
compensation or compromise is successfully attained; sometimes it is
not. Or the solution may be accepted and the urge of a rebellious system
incompatible with the demands of reality is suppressed by voluntary or
automatic repression. When neither compensation nor compromise is
attained, or when the situation is not accepted and the rebellious urge
continues, then disruption or disarrangement of the personality may
follow with such resulting phenomena as have been already described.
Integrated systems may become disintegrated or dissociated, permitting
of independent autonomous functioning of conflicting systems. And of the
unitary systems taking part in such conflicts one or more may, as we
have seen, function subconsciously. Furthermore, as observation shows,
dissociated complexes may take on growth independently of the integrated
systems of the personal consciousness and thus create large subconscious
systems. On the other hand both one or more primary units (innate
dispositions) and secondary unitary complexes and systems (acquired
dispositions) may by the force of conflicts be completely repressed and
cease to function within the personality. Thus, for example, certain
instincts may be suppressed and systematic amnesia and other defects be
produced. And so on.
Without pursuing further this exposition of the empirical personality or
going into details, it would seem that some such conception of the
structure of personality as that of which I have given a mere outline
will alone satisfy the phenomena actually observed under normal and
abnormal conditions. Indeed the theory would seem to be a compelling
induction from the phenomena derived from clinical observation and
experiment.
Against this preliminary sketch of the structure and dynamic mechanisms
of the normal personality as a background I will in the next lecture
present a study of a case of dissociated and multiple personality, as
the alterations of structure and the dynamic manifestations observed in
cases of this kind, on the one hand, concretely illustrate the
principles involved, and, on the other, present some of the most
important data on which the theory is founded.
-----
Footnote 261:
“Intelligence tests” therefore do not afford tests of character which
is the most important element of personality from a sociological point
of view. (See “Character vs. Intelligence in Personality Studies” by
Dr. Guy Fernald, _Jour. Abnormal Psychology_, Vol. XV, No. 1.)
Footnote 262:
Indeed I cannot see that mental “disposition” has any reality
excepting so far as it is derived from its correlated physiological
disposition. (See p. 266.)
Footnote 263:
Miss Beauchamp: “The Theory of the Psychogenesis of Multiple
Personality”; _Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, Vol. XV, Nos. 2-3; pp.
108, 120-121.
LECTURE XVIII
THE PSYCHOGENESIS OF MULTIPLE PERSONALITY[264]
THE CASE OF B. C. A.
I
As an introduction let me say that in a previous lecture (The
Unconscious, Lecture VIII) I pointed out that in a general way
alteration of personality is effected through the primary organization
by experience and later coming into dominating activity of particular
unitary systems of ideas with their affects, on the one hand, and the
displacement by dissociation or inhibition of other conflicting systems
on the other. In slighter degrees and when transient this alteration may
be regarded as a mood. When the alteration is more enduring, and so
marked by contrast with the preceding and normal condition as to
obtrusively alter the character and behavior of the individual and his
capacity for adjustment to his environment, we have a pathological
condition. When the alteration is slight and affects few systems it may
be easily overlooked; or when it is accompanied, as it often is, by
physiological disturbances, it may be so masked by them as to be
mistaken for so-called neurasthenia. It is when the dissociation is so
comprehensive as to deprive the individual of memory of his previous
phase of personality, or of certain acquired knowledge or other
particular experiences that the personality is easily recognized as a
dissociated one. When the inhibiting or repressing force that induces
dissociation ceases to be effective, that is when the dissociated
systems come again into activity and repress the temporarily dominant
systems, then the individual returns to his normal condition (in which
he may or may not remember the dissociated state), just as a person
returns to his habitual character after the passing of a mood. We may
speak of the two phases—the normal and the altered one—as constituting
together _multiple personality_. As these two phases may continue to
alternate with one another they are also alternating personalities. The
second or altered state is also sometimes called a _secondary
personality_. There may be several such secondary personalities which
may alternate with each other or the normal personality.
It should be noted that the formation of a secondary personality is
primarily the result of two processes, _dissociation_ and _synthesis_
though it is subject to _secondary growth_ through various processes. As
a result of the first process, dissociation, systems of thought, ideas,
memories, emotions and dispositions previously habitual in the
individual may cease to take part in the affected person’s mental
processes. The influence of these systems with their conative tendencies
is therefore no longer for the time being in play.
When we pass in review a large number of cases, we find that the systems
of ideas, which (through the dissociating process) cease to take part in
personality, may be quite various. One or more “sides” to one’s
character, for instance, may vanish, and the individual may exhibit
always a single side on all occasions; or the ethical systems built up
and conserved by early pedagogical, social, and environmental training
may cease to take part in the mental processes and regulate conduct; or,
again, the ideas which pertain to the lighter side of life and its
social enjoyments may be lost and only the more serious attributes of
mind retained. There may even be amnesia in consequence of dissociation
for chronological epochs of the individual’s life, or for certain
particular episodes, or for certain specific knowledge, such as
educational acquirements (mathematics, Greek, Latin, music, literature,
etc., or knowledge of a trade or profession, and even of language).
Amnesia alone, however, does not constitute alteration of personality
strictly speaking; for a person may have complete loss of memory for
certain specific experiences without true alteration of character. It is
of important significance, as we shall see, that the dissociated or
inhibited[265] systems may include emotions, instincts and innate
dispositions.
Examination of recorded cases shows too that besides mental memories,
physiological functions may be involved in the dissociation. Thus there
may be loss of sensation in its various forms, and of the special
senses, or of the power of movement (paralysis), or of visceral
functions (gastric, sexual, etc.). Dissociation may, then, involve quite
large parts of the personality including very precise and definite
physiological and psychological functions. We see examples of these
different dissociations in numerous cases.
As to the mechanism by which pathological dissociation is effected, it
may be well to point out here that there is no reason to suppose that it
is anything more than an exaggeration of the normal mechanism by which,
on the one hand, mental processes are temporarily inhibited from
entering the field of consciousness, and, on the other, physiological
functions are normally suppressed and prevented from taking part in the
psychophysiological economy. (For instance, the suppression of the
gastro-intestinal functions by an emotional discharge.) Every mental
process involves the repression of some conflicting process; otherwise
all would be chaos in the mind. And every physiological process involves
some repression of another process. The movements of walking involve the
inhibition alternatively of the flexor and extensor muscles according as
which is active in the movement.
This principle is conspicuous in absent mindedness and voluntary
attention when every antagonistic or irrelevant thought and even
consciousness of the environment is prevented by a conflicting force
from entering the field of consciousness. In other words, every mental
process involves a conflict and inhibition: in physiological terms a
raising of the threshold of the antagonistic mental process in
consequence of which it cannot function unless the stimulus be
increased. This is a normal mechanism and process. The conditions which
determine absolute and continuous dissociation or inhibition become the
object of study.
By the second process, synthesis, particular unitary systems of ideas
with the conative tendencies of their feeling tones rise to the surface
out of the unconscious and become synthesized with the perceptions, and
such memories and other mental systems and faculties of the individual
as are retained. Thus it may be that unitary dispositions, sentiments
and systems belonging to a particular “side” of the character—the
amiable or the brutal, the unselfish or the selfish, the ungenerous or
the generous, the practical or the idealistic, the literary or the
business, the religious or worldly, the youthful and gay, or the mature
and serious, etc., to any side may become uppermost and be the dominant
trait of the secondary personality. Or it may be that the systems of
ideas, disposition, etc., belonging to childhood and long outgrown, but
conserved nevertheless in the unconscious, may be resurrected and
becoming synthesized with other systems form a personality childish in
character. Or, again, sentiments, thoughts, dispositions, tendencies,
instincts which, though intimately belonging to the individual, have
been restrained, repressed, concealed from the world for one reason or
another, may, being set free through dissociation from the repressing
thoughts, rise to the surface and take part in the synthesis of the new
personality.
In other words there is a rearrangement and readjustment of the innate
dispositions and those deposited by the experiences of life which go to
form personality. Some by the process of dissociation are expelled from
the personal synthesis; some which had been previously expelled
(repressed) by education, maturity of character, direct volition, and
other processes of mental development are brought back into it.
It is obvious that when such rearrangements and readjustments have
occurred the mental reactions of the individual will vary largely from
what they were before. The reaction to the environment will become
altered. When systems which give rise to the habitual modes of thought
are dissociated, naturally the reactions of the individual will not be
influenced by them but by those of the new synthesis, and the character
will be correspondingly changed. Inasmuch as out of the great storehouse
of the unconscious any number of combinations of systems may be
arranged, it is obvious that any number of secondary personalities may
be formed in the same person. As many as ten or twelve have been
observed.
A study of cases which have come under my personal observation, and the
reports to be found in the literature of those cases of multiple
personality which have been studied with sufficient intensity and
exhaustiveness, allow these general and preliminary statements, which
are little more than descriptive of the facts, to be verified.[266] One
of the best examples is the case of B. C. A. which I had an opportunity
of studying over a long period of time, and to which reference has been
frequently made. I shall take this as the object of our study in
psychogenesis.[267]
This subject has herself written at my request two introspective
analyses of her own case, one by the normal personality and the other by
the secondary personality. These analyses are of great value.[268] They
give different versions of the same facts in accordance with the
differing memories, knowledge and points of view of the differing
personalities. The second also gives an account of the claimed
co-conscious life as experienced by herself and unknown to the normal
personality. We cannot do better than take them as a basis for a genetic
study of the case and reproduce portions of them here. In this study I
have made use, in addition to this material, of a large number of
personal observations extending over five years, of numerous letters and
analyses written by the subject at different times in her various phases
of personality, of the memories in hypnosis, in which state many
subconscious and dissociated perceptions and thoughts not otherwise
remembered are brought to light, and of numerous analyses of her
memories made on many occasions, at the expense of many hours of labor.
Other sources of information have also been made use of. This
investigation has resulted in a voluminous collection of records filling
several large portfolios. In making the analyses and in many of the
letters the subject, with extreme frankness and in the interests of
psychology has gone in great detail into and has laid bare the most
intimate facts of her mental life. This is true of each of the phases of
personality, so that the point of view from which the same facts were
seen in different moods has been obtained. This is a matter of no small
consequence as the same fact often acquires a different aspect or
meaning according to the view point of the mood in which it is
experienced. A large amount of data pertaining to the inner life of the
subject has thus become accessible. It is obvious that data of this sort
are necessary if the psychological status of any given period of an
individual’s life is to be related to antecedent mental experiences as
etiological factors. But this sort of data is that which usually is most
difficult to obtain. Our inner lives we keep hidden as in a sealed book
from the world. In all published reports of multiple personality these
data are lacking, the studies dealing almost entirely with such facts
only as were open to the observation of the investigator. It necessarily
results from such a study of the inner life of a person living in the
circle to which this subject belongs that many of the data are too
intimate and personal for publication. However much one may be
interested in science there is a point beyond which one shrinks from
exposing one’s self in print. I am, therefore, at many points very
properly limited to the use of general phrases and summarizing
expressions instead of explicit statements of particular facts which, I
am aware, would be more satisfactory to the critic. This limitation
cannot be helped, but is probably compensated for by the fact that, if
it did not exist, the subject would be one whose introspective
observations would be of much less value.
I will only add to this statement that the data were not collected in
support of a preconceived theory or even of a working hypothesis, but
only after they were gathered—in fact, after much of this material was
forgotten—were they brought together and studied. It was then found that
when the different pieces of evidence were pieced together they allowed
of only one conclusion, namely, that which the subject herself in the
main reached independently as the facts were laid bare and brought into
the field of her consciousness by the means I have described.
By way of preface to the subject’s introspective analyses I reproduce
here the following remarks, which I wrote as an introduction to the
“Life,” but slightly expanded and with a few verbal changes to make the
matter clearer.
An account of the various phases of dissociated personality written by
the patient after recovery and restoration of memory for all the
different phases cannot fail to be of interest. If the writer is endowed
with the capacity for accurate introspection and statement such an
account ought to give an insight into the condition of the mind during
these dissociated states that is difficult to obtain from objective
observation, or, if elicited from a clinical narration of the patient,
to accurately transcribe. In that remarkable book, “A Mind that Found
Itself,” the author, writing after recovery from insanity, has given us
a unique insight into the insane mind. Similarly the writer of the
following account allows us to see the beginnings of the differentiation
of her mind into complexes, the final development of a dissociated or
multiple personality, and to understand the moods, points of view,
motives, and dominating ideas which characterized each phase. Such an
account could only be given by a person who has had the experience, and
who has the introspective and literary capacity to describe it.
The writer in publishing, though with some reluctance and at my request,
her experiences as a multiple personality, is actuated only, as I can
testify, by a desire to contribute to our knowledge of such conditions.
The experiences of her illness—now happily recovered from—have led her
to take an active interest in abnormal psychology and to inform herself,
so far as is possible by the study of the literature, on many of the
problems involved. The training thus acquired has plainly added to the
accuracy and value of her introspective observations.
A brief preliminary statement will be necessary in order that the
account as told by the patient may be fully intelligible.
The subject was under my observation for about four years. When first
seen the case presented the ordinary picture of so-called neurasthenia,
characterized by persistent fatigue and the usual somatic symptoms, and
by moral doubts and scruples. This condition, at first unsuspected, was
later found to be a phase of multiple personality and was then termed
and is described in the following account as state or personality A.
Later another state, spoken of as personality B, suddenly developed. A
had no memory of B, but the latter had full knowledge of A. Besides
differences in memory A and B manifested distinct and markedly different
characteristics and traits which included moods, tastes, health,
emotions, feelings, instincts, sentiments, points of view, habits of
thought, and controlling ideas. In place, for instance, of the
depression, fatigue, and moral doubts and scruples of A, B manifested
rather a condition of exaltation, and complete freedom from neurasthenia
and its accompanying obsessional ideas. A and B alternated during a long
period of time with one another. After A, for example, had existed as a
personality for a number of hours or days she changed to B, and vice
versa. After the first appearance of B it was soon recognized that both
states were only fragments, so to speak, or phases of a dissociated
personality, and neither represented the normal complete personality.
After prolonged study this latter normal state was obtained in hypnosis
(c´), and on being waked up a personality was found which possessed the
combined memories of A and B, and was free from the pathological
stigmata which respectively characterized each. This normal person is
spoken of as C. Normal C had, therefore, been split and resynthesized
into two systems of complexes or personalities, A and B. Leaving out for
the sake of simplicity certain intermediate hypnotic states, A and B
could be hypnotized into a single hypnotic state which was a synthesis
that could be recognized as a complete normal personality in hypnosis.
All that remained to do was to wake up this state and we had the normal
C. This process could be reversed and repeated as often as desired: that
is, C could be split again into A and B, then resynthesized in c´ who
when awakened became C again. This relationship may be diagramatically
expressed as follows:[269]
[Illustration]
The various traits which characterized and differentiated the different
personalities will appear in the course of this genetic study. With this
introduction we will proceed to the latter.
II
THE DISRUPTION OF PERSONALITY
The first of the accounts above mentioned by the _normal_ personality,
C, written after recovery, is in the form of a letter. She had complete
memory for both her phases A and B. It will be noticed in passing that
this normal self speaks of the phases A and B as herself, transformed to
be sure, but still herself in different “states.” “As A, _I_ felt” so
and so, “as B, _I_ felt” thus, etc. On the other hand, the secondary
personality, B, in her account, always refers to the other personalities
as distinct personages, and uses the third person “she” in speaking of
them. In this matter of differentiation of personalities B was very
insistent, maintaining, as has been frequently noted in other cases,
that she had no sense of identity of her own self-consciousness with
that of the others. “I am, at any rate, a distinct personality,” she
remarks. In her consciousness there was no feeling that the
self-consciousness of C and A was identical with her own, but the
contrary. This frequent phenomenon presents a standpoint from which the
problem of the “I” may be studied. What is it that determines the
self-consciousness of an ego? We are not concerned with this old
question at present, but it is worth noting that cases of dissociated
personality offer favorable material for the solution of the problem.
The following extracts from the accounts by “C” and “B” have been taken
as a basis for our analysis which will further attempt to coordinate the
two accounts and to clarify the psychological development of the case.