But the organization of an emotional complex was not the whole effect of
these experiences. In addition, if the memories of B can be trusted—and
I believe they can—there resulted in a minor degree a cleavage or
dissociation of personality. This was not so pronounced as to give rise
to noticeable pathological manifestations, but apparently sufficient to
make at least a line of indenture, so to speak, which afterwards was
easily broadened and deepened into a complete dissociation. This is not
easy to demonstrate at this late date, but there are certain facts that
have some evidential value.
In the first place, according to the evidence, there developed a
tendency in what we have called the rebellious complex to take on
independent activity, or an automatism after the nature of an obsession,
outside the domain of the will and self-control. No amount of reasoning
or of self-reproach sufficed to change the point of view. Like an
obsession it would not down and recurred automatically.
In the second place, it seems, according to B’s memories, that the
activity of the rebellious complex of ideas began to take place to a
certain extent outside the focus of the attentive consciousness, in the
sense that the personal consciousness was not conscious or aware of
their presence. This means that at times when the ideas in question were
not in consciousness, and therefore might be supposed to be dormant in
the unconscious, they recurred nevertheless and were in subconscious
activity, i.e., were co-conscious. This statement is based upon the
interrogation of B who to the best of her memory thought that the
“rebellious ideas were split off and went on by themselves while the
subject C was thinking of other things, without her being aware of
them.” “They were co-conscious as I know it now.”
Too much weight should not be laid upon memories of this kind after such
long intervals of time, and I would not be understood as doing so; but
that the memories of this secondary personality may be given their just
value it should be explained that, like some other secondary
personalities, B’s memory embraces not only the mental states (thoughts,
perceptions, feelings, etc.,) of the principal personality which were
within the focus of attention, but those which were in the fringe or
margin of awareness and those which were entirely outside, i.e., fully
subconscious. This has proved to be the case by numerous test
observations and experiments. B might, therefore, remember split off
(co-conscious) rebellious states if they existed. One reason for this
enlargement of the field of memory of this phase of personality is that
besides being an alternating personality[280] she is a co-conscious
personality. But this is another story which we shall have to postpone
for the present.
In the third place, the constant invasion of the field of the personal
consciousness by the contrary impulses, which I have already spoken of,
suggest, if they do not establish, a certain degree of automatic
activity arising from the unconscious and dissociated from the rest of
the conscious field. In the light of what has already been told and of
later developments, to be described in the next lecture, the inference
assumes a high degree of probability that these impulses were
manifestations of ideas and feeling tones belonging to an earlier period
of life—childhood or girlhood—which had been conserved in the
unconscious and which now erupted into the field of the personal
co-consciousness.
I do not want to make too much of these early tendencies to dissociation
nor is the matter important. For historical comprehension, however, it
is desirable that the facts should be mentioned for, if our
interpretation be correct, they were evidently steps in the evolution of
the final disintegration.
Thus matters went on during this first period, covering a span of 14
years; sometimes the rebellious complex, enlarged and constellated with
conflicting thoughts, desires and impulses, recurred with frequency, and
sometimes they remained dormant for considerable intervals, the state of
general health apparently often being the conditioning factor.
III
THE EVOLUTION OF THE B COMPLEX