The writer C in her account passes over the early first period, but she
remembers clearly the historical facts and has given a very precise
description of them in the many analyses which have been made and
recorded. Moreover in the second account,[273] written in the secondary
B phase of personality, she recognizes the embryonic emotional complex
of this first period, and its genetic relation to the later B _complex_,
and to her own still later developed B _personality_. “This complex” she
(B) wrote, “it seems to me is the same, though only slightly developed,
as that which appeared later and is described as complex B. In trying to
explain this condition, which it seems to me was the first start of what
ultimately resulted in a division of personality, I will divide the time
into periods, and I will call this period I.” (This same division into
periods I have thought it well to follow.) She also identified the ideas
of this early complex with ideas and feelings which she still
entertained and which formed a marked characteristic of her own
dissociated (B) personality.
For the sake of clearness and simplicity of phraseology it will be well
from now on to speak of the subject when in the dissociated B state
simply as B, and when united in the normal state as C. In this way, as C
points out, we shall avoid constant repetition and circumlocution in
such phrases as, “when the subject was in the B state,” etc. You must
not, however, be misled by the connotation of terms and read into this
nomenclature more than the psychological facts warrant, or make
distinctions of personality which transcend in any way psychological
laws. Dissociated and multiple personality are not novel freak
phenomena, but are only exaggerations of the normal and due to
exaggerations of normal processes, and it is for this reason that they
are of interest and importance. For, being exaggerations, they
accentuate and bring out into high relief certain tendencies and
functional mechanisms which belong to normal conditions, and they
differentiate mental processes, one from another, which normally are not
so easily recognized.
They are caricatures, so to speak, of the normal. In one respect they
may be likened to the staining of an anatomical specimen prepared for
the microscope by which the various anatomical structures are brought
out into strong contrast with one another and easily differentiated,
like the boundaries of countries on a colored map. Without the staining
all would have a homogeneous appearance and differentiation would be
difficult. So, though a secondary personality is in one sense but a
phase of the whole personality, it is characterized largely by an
accentuation or domination of particular constituents to be found in the
given normal everyday personality, and by the subordination or
suppression of others, both being effected by the exaggeration of the
normal processes of dissociation and synthesis. In such a secondary
personality these constituents and processes are easily recognized
though they may be hidden under normal conditions. In saying that a
secondary personality is a phase of the whole personality the latter
term—whole personality—must be taken in the sense of including all the
past experiences of life which have been organized, deposited and
conserved in the unconscious, and all the instincts and innate
dispositions of the individual. These past experiences form, as we have
seen,[274] a storehouse of formative material which, for the most part,
under ordinary conditions, may lie dormant though potential; but any
elements of this material may, under special influences, be awakened to
activity and, uniting with particular constituents of the normal
everyday personality, take part under the urge of their own instinctive
impulses and dispositions in the formation of a new personality. The
remainder of the normal personality then becomes submerged and dormant
in the unconscious.
To return to the evolution of the B personality. If this final phase be
correctly traced back 19 years to the early antecedent rebellious
complex above referred to, we shall see that the evolution of multiple
personality in this case passed through several successive stages and
was of slow growth. Speaking generally, it may, indeed, be ascribed,
primarily, on the one hand, to the disruptive or dissociating effect of
continuous _conflicts_ between the opposing impulses of innate
dispositions and instincts (emotions), and, on the other, to the gradual
synthesization of the components of personality repressed by these
conflicts into the subconscious. The secondary incubation of these
repressed and other deposited experiences of life followed, with the
final setting free of all this formative material, when fully matured,
by the force, awakened by a trauma, of the conative emotional impulses
belonging to it. The analogues of these phenomena and mechanisms are
observed in sudden religious conversion which in principle is an
alteration of personality.[275]
All the historical evidence at hand, derived from searching
investigation, goes to show that at the early period to which I have
referred (period I) the subject received an emotional shock, “which,” B
wrote, “it seems to me, as I look at it now, resulted in the first
cleavage of personality. This emotion was one of fright and led to
rebellion [in the form of rebellious thoughts] against a certain
condition of her life, and formed a small vague complex [of thoughts and
emotions] which persisted in the sense that it recurred from time to
time, though it was always immediately suppressed.”[276] And this vague
complex of rebellious thoughts necessarily soon gave rise to and
included other “floating thoughts, impulses, desires, inclinations,” all
of which the subject suppressed or endeavored to suppress during a long
period of years. “This complex,” she adds, as quoted above, “it seems to
me, was the same, though only slightly developed, as that which appeared
later, and is described as complex B.”
The “shock” when more deeply analyzed proved to be the excitation of
certain emotions which, besides a mild degree of fright, were intense
repugnance or disgust. They were a reaction to or defense against
another affect, which was also excited and which we will term, in
deference to our subject’s good taste, X. The emotion of repugnance was
so intense as to require considerable fortitude to withstand and gave
rise to much agitation. It accompanied a cluster of “rebellious” ideas
awakened by the realization of an unexpectedly disagreeable situation
and relation. This cluster I shall call the _rebellious complex_ to
distinguish it from the later B complex into which it became
constellated. This rebellious complex with the emotion of repugnance
(instinct of repulsion) was of necessity frequently excited by the
conditions of life and, therefore, of frequent recurrence, after the
fashion of an obsession. After the first shock the fright naturally
subsided, for one reason, from habituation to the conditions. The X
affect, never experienced before, from the very first was repressed by
the inhibiting force of the more intense emotion of disgust.[277] Fear
also was involved in this repression, for there was a conflict between
the opposing forces of conflicting emotions; and in such a conflict—as,
for example, between fear and anger—the stronger tends to repress its
antagonist and whatever it conflicts with. Consequently the recurring
rebellious complex was habitually accompanied by repugnance alone. The
exact constitution of this rebellious complex I am not at liberty to
mention. It may have been a matter of mother-in-law, or of social
arrangements, or particular duties and responsibilities, or something
else—it does not matter and it is not necessary to say. It was a
shrinking from a particular condition of her life. It was certainly not
a wish unless this repugnance and “kicking against the pricks” can be
twisted into its opposite as a wish to be free from the objectionable
condition. Still less was it a morally unacceptable unconscious, being
just the opposite; for both the rebellious thoughts and the wish to be
free from the condition objected to were acceptable and justified to
herself in her mind, and, in her secret thoughts at least, tolerated as
natural and reasonable.[278] Nor was the X affect an _intolerable_ wish.
If a wish there was no reason why it should not have been gratified.
Nevertheless, as B affirms, the rebellious thoughts were put out of
mind, as thoughts of a disagreeable fact, as they arose from time to
time; but this was only from a sense of duty in consideration of
responsibilities undertaken. I could make this clearer if I were at
liberty to enter into the details of these rebellious thoughts. Her life
in every other respect was an unusually happy one, surrounded by all
that one should desire, and included a devoted husband whom she loved,
admired and respected. For these reasons alone she felt it a duty to
suppress all expression of her rebellious feelings.
The main point, from the point of view of psychogenesis, is that at this
early stage we have constantly _recurring conflicts between the conative
forces pertaining to emotions linked with sentiments of duty, loyalty,
and affection, on the one hand, and those pertaining to the rebellious
thoughts with corresponding desires, impulses, etc., reinforced with the
emotion of repugnance, on the other_. The former always won and the
latter were inhibited or repressed into the unconscious. These were not
the only rebellious thoughts that were repressed. There were others from
which the original rebellion received accretions. That such constantly
repressed thoughts with their strong feeling tones should be conserved
in the unconscious was a psychological necessity, and also that they
should emerge by the force of their own urge into consciousness from
time to time like an obsession whenever stimulated by environmental and
personal conditions. I may simply cite the two following simple
examples.
The subject, governed by the maternal instinct, naturally loved to take
care of her baby and “make things for him to wear, and fuss over them”;
and yet there were “floating thoughts” of an opposite character which
later, as will appear, emerged and became conspicuous in the B complex
and B personality. “She was very fond of her father-in-law and did
everything to make him happy,” and yet there were other thoughts which
conceived of him as a “fussy old bother.” These again were represented
later in the loss of sentiments of affection and in the point of view of
the B phases. There was no real dissociation and doubling of
consciousness; these conflicting attitudes and tendencies were, at least
in the beginning until the later period of stress and strain when they
eventuated in corresponding action, merely _evanescent thoughts, wishes
and impulses which easily passed out of mind_, or an undercurrent of
thought such as all of us have more or less.
Later, when they became more insistent and persistent, they had to be
repressed by an effort of will.
Then it followed that C, conscious of these contrary impulses,
reproached herself for them, thought herself wicked to have them, and
when they became insistent repressed them. Their intrusion into
consciousness was probably favored by a considerable degree of
neurasthenia, for when she was ill they were more frequent and
obtrusive, while with good health and happiness they disappeared, as is
the case with all obsessing ideas.
The occurrence of such contrary impulses would probably have been of no
account and nothing more would have been heard from them, as in the case
of ordinary mortals, if it had not been for a period of stress and
strain which she was destined to undergo. As it was, the awakening of
these contrary thoughts and impulses was fraught with a danger to the
psychical unity, a danger that actually materialized, namely: as these
conflicting impulses, being also rebellious against the conditions of
life, were constantly awakened contemporaneously with the specialized
frequently recurring “rebellious complex,” the whole tended to become
synthesized into a large complex which later, during the second period
of stress and strain, became in turn the nucleus of a still larger
complex (B). During this latter period, as we shall see, like the forces
of a growing political revolution, the rebellious thoughts and impulses
increased in number, frequency and intensity, until there were times
when they acquired the mastery in the conflicts and repressed the
previously opposing thoughts of duty, affection, etc., and dominated the
personality. The effect of such intense conflict was to cause by
repression a rift in the personality, i.e., to dissociate a large system
of ideas (with their emotions), from other systems. All this will appear
as we go on.
There is another point which it is interesting here to note. The
secondary phase B looking back recognizes (i.e., has a sense of
awareness) that the “rebellious thoughts” and the various contrary
impulses were herself. “_I was the rebellion_;” “I think of the
rebellion as myself;” “I was the rebellion which she kept to herself;”
“The first complex formed a something I am;” “I think I am made up of
all the impulses which began to come then;” "It seems to me, as I think
of it now, that I was always there—sometimes more, sometimes less—in the
form of conflicting impulses.“ In these and similar phrases B, over and
over again, in numerous analyses at widely separated intervals,
identifies these early conscious processes with her own individuality.
Nevertheless, ”_I was not an_ I _then_, you know," she explains, “but to
understand what I write you will have to call me so. I remember them now
as my thoughts, but at that time I never thought of myself as a self.”
“I never thought, ‘I’ do not like this or that then; _it was like an
impulse in the other direction_.” Let it not be forgotten, then, that at
the beginning the rebellious complex and impulses were not synthesized
and segregated as an ego. Nevertheless, in fact, whenever she attempts
to describe the early rebellious complex and the impulses she drops into
the mode of saying, “I felt so and so,” and finds herself obliged to use
this personal pronoun when thinking of these past thoughts, and the same
is true when she speaks of the more fully developed subsequent B
complex.
You will say that there is nothing particularly remarkable or unusual in
this. We all think of our past thoughts as our own, even when they
occurred, say, in absent mindedness when there was no consciousness of
self. _But the unusual thing is that B—the subject in the B phase of
personality—does not think of C’s other thoughts or conscious
experiences as her own._ In fact she persistently refuses to recognize
these others as hers. She has no feeling of their having belonged to her
own consciousness. “They were not my thoughts,” she says. This is true
of this other content of the conscious life of the early first period as
well as of the later periods when the B complex and the B personality
appeared. “_She_ liked,” such and such a thing; “_I_ didn’t!” "_She_
thought,“ so and so; ”_I_ didn’t;" referring respectively to the
thoughts of the dominant consciousness and the contrary thoughts. “Yet
in referring to the B _complex_,” she writes of the second period, “I
find myself continually saying ‘I’; it is difficult not to do so. This,
I think, must show the intimate relation between the two. I think of the
B complex and I find I think of it as myself, although I do not think of
A and C as myself, and they do not seem to be my own personality.”
This feeling by a secondary personality that certain conscious
experiences belong, or belonged, to her own personal consciousness or
ego and that others do not, or did not, belong is a common phenomenon in
such cases and is of great significance. It is a phenomenon which
justifies the inference that the relation which one system of ideas
bears to that which we call the ego is different from that of the other
system; it is a phenomenon, too, which must be taken into account in
solving the problem of the ego. When we study the records of cases of
multiple personality we find as a frequent observation that the
secondary personality distinguishes between the conscious experiences
which belong to itself and those which belong to the principal
personality, and to other secondary personalities, if more than one.
This differentiation is based upon the feeling of a particular
self-consciousness being attached to the former and not to the latter.
The conception of self and the self-regarding sentiment differ markedly
in their content in the different phases of personality. The analysis of
their contents shows this to be the case: e. g., the contained images
and affects. It is not, therefore, simply a matter of the experiences
occurring at different chronological epochs. Indeed the two different
sets of experiences may be synchronous, one being conscious and the
other co-conscious.
I have passed over a question which is sure to be asked: Why did the
“unexpectedly disagreeable” situation, whatever it was, occasion the
“shock” and the rebellious complex? I may say frankly that the situation
was not one which would induce such a disastrous effect in the ordinary
individual. The answer is to be found in the principle of settings which
give meaning to ideas. [Every idea over and above the sensory images
which take part in its content has meaning; and the meaning is
determined by antecedent experiences (thoughts, perceptions, feelings,
etc.) with which it is associated, i.e., in which it is set. An idea of
a particular individual, for example, has one meaning for one person and
another meaning for another according to the associated mental
experiences of each. These experiences form the setting or context which
determines the meaning, point of view, and attitude of mind towards any
given object or situation presented to consciousness.][279] Whenever an
emotional “shock” (one that is not a simple instinct reaction) occurs,
this setting of antecedent experiences, organized with the idea and
emotions, acts as a unitary complex, a psychic whole, and behaves as a
sort of psychological torch which some later experience sets aflame, so
to speak, as an emotional shock. Because of this setting the idea reacts
in accordance with the emotions (fear, disgust, etc.) which the
“meaning” includes, and induces a defense reaction. Now analytical
investigation revealed settings to the “situation” dating in part from
early childhood and in part from later experiences. An attitude of mind,
therefore, already existed which was ready to react with the emotions
(fear and disgust) which were excited by the meaning of the situation.
It is easy to see, in the light of the actual facts, that if a certain
factor of the situation had been altered, without altering the situation
itself, its meaning would have been altered, i.e., it would not have
awakened the setting built up by the experiences of life, and would not
have excited the emotional response (shock) that ensued.