At the end of the 14-year span—when the _second period_ begins—the
subject “received a great shock in the sudden illness of her husband.
This illness was of such a nature that she knew no complete recovery was
possible and that death might result at any time.” This second shock
aroused once more the emotion of fright, and the old rebellion and a
certain apprehensiveness, a trait which is inherent to a marked degree
in her character. During the following four years which covered the
illness of her husband she was almost literally torn to pieces mentally
by this apprehensiveness—always anticipating the inevitable hanging over
her.
After the first two weeks, when her husband’s temporary recovery took
place, the same old rebellious complex returned with intensified force
as the condition that gave rise to it returned. But she repressed all
expression of it, resolved that no one should guess her secret because
she did not wish to give pain to another. So she kept her secret to
herself, and what she kept to herself became the _beginnings_ of a new
personality. “Then came the nervous strain of sorrow, anxiety, and care,
and the inability to reconcile herself to the inevitable. This nervous
strain continued for four years. C’s life during this time was given up
entirely to the care of her husband; she tried to live up to her
ideal—which was a high one—of duty and responsibility, and always having
the sense of failure, discouragement and apprehension.” Necessarily she
was cut off from the social world of gaiety by the care that devolved
upon her or, considering her temperament, thought she was. A person of
less intense feeling and governed by pure intellect quite likely might
have reasonably arranged her life so that she could have both given all
the care she wished to the invalid, on the one hand, and participated in
the pleasures of social life, on the other. But, like many anxious wives
and mothers whom all physicians see, her anxiety and feelings were too
intense for such cool reasoning, her mind became single tracked and she
shut herself off from the world she loved. Consequently, during this
period of stress and strain the old rebellious complex not only became
intensified and more persistent, but also became enlarged and
systematized with a still larger cluster of rebellious thoughts. To the
old rebellion there was now added a rebellion against the hardness of
fate which was about to cheat her out of the happiness which belonged to
her, and still more against the new conditions of life as she found
them. This is what the incurable illness of her husband meant to her.
She rebelled bitterly [B writes in a letter;] she _could_ not have it
so and it _was_ so. No one knew what his illness was and she bent
every energy to conceal his true condition. She blamed herself for his
illness [in her ignorance of the pathology of disease], and after a
time she began to have that sense of being double. More than anything
else she wanted to be happy; she saw all happiness going and she could
_not_ let it go—it _must_ not—she _would_ be happy, and she
_couldn’t_. It was a fight with herself all the time. We were A and B
then just as much as we are now. The part that afterwards became A
doing all that a devoted conscientious wife could do, determined that
her husband should never miss anything of love and care; and the part
that afterwards became B rebelling against it all, not willing to give
up her youth, longing for pleasure, and above all for happiness. To be
happy, that was always the cry, and it was not possible.
It was a longing for conditions which in her mind seemed essential, and
she could not accept the conditions as they were. “It was a rebellion, a
longing for happiness, a disinclination to give up the pleasures of life
which the conditions required; and there was a certain _determination to
have these pleasures in spite of everything_, and this resulted in a
constant struggle between C and this complex.” It was that inability,
which is so common and causes so much mental disturbance and unhappiness
in so many people, to reconcile and adjust oneself to the actual
situation of one’s life and accept it. And here, in the case of B. C.
A., we recognize in the center of the rebellion of this second period of
stress and strain, the same thoughts which had cropped up evanescently
during the first period but now become more intense and persistent, more
disturbing and the fundamental, cause of the inability to adjust herself
to the situation.
These thoughts, however, were not tolerated by the subject and were put
out of mind and _repressed into the unconscious by her rightmindedness_.
It thus became a matter of conflict between the light-hearted gay
sentiments and temperament of inexperienced youth which, in ignorance of
life, finds it difficult to accept its serious responsibilities, and the
sentiments of honor, duty, and affection which were the dominating
traits. These facts are too intimate to go into in greater detail, but
each one will probably recognize in himself some such conflicting
desires and tendencies.
This is the place to point out certain major traits in the character of
B. C. A. which enable us to recognize more clearly the source of the
conflicting impulses and help to make intelligible their uprushes. There
were two strongly marked elements in her character which had always been
noticeable and which, given the appropriate conditions, were almost
bound to come in conflict. B. C. A. during all her girlhood days and
early married life was noted for her happy, buoyant, lively,
light-hearted disposition. She was ready at all times for pleasure and
could not bear to give it up, and she had an unusually intense desire to
be happy; she loved happiness and wanted happiness, and when happiness
dominated, as it generally did in a person of such a disposition, she
was filled with the “joy of life.” Responsive to her environment,[281]
when her surroundings were sympathetic all the joy and mirth of her own
personality was given out and reflected upon others. She was of an
intense nature in that she felt all the anxieties, sorrows, and joys of
life with great and equal intensity. But it was joy and happiness which
appealed to her as the one thing she must preserve. This was one of her
character traits.
On the other hand, the second trait was equally strong, namely,
unreasonably high moral ideals, so high even in the little every day
affairs of life that only a strong stern fanatic or ascetic could live
consistently and perpetually up to them; she was intensely conscientious
and high-minded with an almost inordinate sense of honor and duty; and
there was also an overweening pride in her rectitude and moral ideals
which sometimes seems to have transcended common-sense; and there was
pride in her pride. Reserved and rather unapproachable to strangers she
was affectionate to relatives and intimates.
These two traits of character if analyzed would be seen to be two great
strongly contrasted unitary systems of ideas and sentiments with their
respective emotions and feelings. They formed two sides to her
personality, and the conflicts that ensued could be said to have been
between the two sides.
To say that these two traits or groups of traits—love of the joy of life
and conscientious devotion to duty—were combined in one person is not of
course to mention anything out of the ordinary. What was out of the
ordinary was the intensity with which each existed. Now that she has
recovered from her illness and has reverted to the normal synthesized
personality these traits are still easily noticeable. None but a person
of unusually strong, fixed character, capable of holding an ideal
continuously in mind, subordinating all else, could have downed the cry
for happiness and lighter pleasures of life. When we come to the
secondary split personalities we shall see that the splitting was
between these two traits or systems; the elements of one gathering about
itself associated elements, formed one personality with corresponding
reactions to the environment, and the elements of the other in similar
fashion formed the other personality. Thus stronger conflicts arose.
The recognition of mental conflicts as disturbances of personality and
determinants of conduct is as old as literature itself. They have been
the theme of poets, dramatists and fiction writers of every age. It has
remained for modern dynamic psychology to study and determine with
exactness the phenomena, discover the mental mechanisms involved and
formulate the laws. One school, the so-called psycho-analysts, claims to
find in practically all conflicts, a very complicated mechanism
involving repression, unconscious processes (generally a sexual wish for
the most part from infantile life) a “censor,” a compromise, conversion
and disguisement of the repressed factor in the form of a
psycho-neurosis, or other mental and physiological phenomena,
substitution, etc. I have no intention of entering into a discussion of
the correctness of such mechanisms. The sole point I wish to make is
that, even if so, to find such mechanisms and results to be universal is
the reductio ad absurdum just as it would be to find that a conflict
between a policeman and a resisting rioter is always carried out by a
process which is manifested by a black eye and cracked skull, arrest,
trial and conviction of the rioter. The process of the physical conflict
may be simple or complex and be manifested and terminated in many ways.
It may be carried out by and result in simple dissociation of the rioter
from the crowd and sending him home about his business.
So with mental conflicts which may be manifested in many ways and have
various results. In previous lectures we have considered some of these
ways and results. One way and mechanism is, as in the latter example of
the rioter, the simple repression and dissociation of the weaker factor
resulting in the domination of the stronger, and the determination of
conduct according to the impulses and tendencies organized within the
mental system that has gained the ascendency. But in maintaining social
law and order we may have to deal, not with a single rioter, but with a
mob or organized rebellion. Then the repression of the uprising may
bring into action more men and more systematized forces and may result
in the repression of organized factions and an alteration of the social
system. So mental conflicts may involve large systems and result in
extensive rearrangements and repressions; in other words, an alteration
with dissociation of personality. This was the mechanism and result in
the case now under examination.
The conflicts were between the impulses or conative forces discharged
from the emotions pertaining to youthful sentiments of pleasure and joy
and play and ideas with exalting pleasure-feeling tones, all
constituting wishes for the pleasures and happiness of youth—conflicts,
I mean, between these forces and those of ethical sentiments of duty,
together with other sentiments involving the emotions of affection,
anxiety, sympathy, admiration, and depressing pain-feeling tones. _For
the time being, at least, the latter won and the former were repressed._
But they were still there, conserved in the unconscious, ready to spring
to life in response to a stimulus at any favorable opportunity when the
repressing force of the will power was weakened by stress and strain. So
we see that the conflicting wishes and impulses which jarred and
threatened the mental equilibrium of the subject were, after all, only
impulses or incursions from the unconscious of repressed antecedent
mental experiences (wishes and conative tendencies) which were elements
in the normal character.
Thus it came about that the original complex of rebellious thoughts
against a _particular_ condition had become slowly enlarged into a
rebellion against _general conditions_, and _constellated with a number
of specific wishes for pleasure (which were incompatible with her life)
and their corresponding impulses into a still larger complex_.
It is this latter that we have called the _B complex_.
It had become evolved and organized out of the original “rebellious”
complex as its nucleus by receiving successive accretions from later
rebellious ideas and wishes in conflict with the personality, much as
the pearl in the oyster grows by successive accretions.
From one point of view it was a highly developed “mood.”
It was still under control but later, as we shall find, it was destined
to assume autonomous activity and play a dominant rôle.
“C was still conscious of these thoughts, [B wrote in her account], but
they represented to her the selfish and weak part of her nature and she
tried to suppress them; tried to put them out of her mind but they still
persisted, and she was always to a greater or less extent aware of them.
There was no lack of awareness and no amnesia. As the months and years
went on the sorrow and anxiety of the C group increased, and the
conflicting thoughts and _rebellion_ of the B group increased. C was
ashamed of the latter and always tried to suppress such thoughts as they
arose. If during those years anything happy had come to C the formation
of this rebellious complex would, I believe, have been retarded, perhaps
stopped altogether, but nothing pleasant happened; it was all grief, and
everything went wrong.”
Notwithstanding the continuing stress and strain and lack of joy all
probably would have gone well if C’s husband had recovered and she had
retained her physical health. Returning to her normal life, she would
have been only one more of those who have lived through a period of
anxious perturbation. But unfortunately, as it happened, “C’s husband
died suddenly away from home, the one thing she had [dreaded and] felt
she could not bear.” She received the news over the telephone.
She did not recover [B states] from the shock and became more and more
nervous, was very much depressed, easily fatigued, suffered constantly
from headache, and was possessed by all sorts of doubts and fears,
reproaching herself for things done and undone. She also overtaxed her
strength in attending to business matters.
C’s physical health immediately and suddenly gave way. Her own account,
already given, goes more into detail and lets us see the extent to which
she was handicapped by physical and mental ill-health in her struggle
against her rebellious impulses—against fate. She was not given half a
chance. Her description of her condition at this period, as noted at the
beginning of this account, is worth repeating here in this connection:
I was at that time in good physical health, though nervously worn, but
this death occurred in such a way as to cause me a great shock and
within the six days following I lost twenty pounds in weight. For
nearly three months I went almost entirely without food, seemingly not
eating enough to sustain life, and I did not average more than three
or four hours’ sleep out of the twenty-four, but I felt neither hungry
nor faint, and was extremely busy and active, being absorbed both by
home responsibilities and business affairs. The end of the year,
however, found me in very poor health physically and I was nervously
and mentally exhausted. I was depressed, sad, felt that I had lost all
that made life worth living and, indeed, I wished to die. I was very
nervous, unable to eat or sleep, easily fatigued, suffered constantly
from headache, to which I had always been subject, and was not able to
take much exercise. The physician under whose care I was at this time
told me, when I asked him to give my condition a name, that I was
suffering from “nervous and cerebral exhaustion.”
It is always the case in so-called neurasthenic states that the power of
self-control is weakened, resistance to obsessing thoughts diminishes
and the latter tend to take on automaticity and invade and dissociate
the personality. And there is also a certain degree of repression and
dissociation of previously dominant systems of ideas. In other words
every case of real so-called “neurasthenia” and hysteria is a greater or
less alteration of personality.[282]
Accordingly, although at the beginning of period II the B complex was
only a loosely organized system of rebellious thoughts, wishes and
impulses recurring from time to time, this system now began in her
physically and mentally weakened condition to acquire increased force,
to invade the personal consciousness, and breaking through the
repressing force of the will to gain autonomous sovereignty and
temporarily to dominate the conduct. In the prolonged conflict the
rebellion with its contrary wishes was at moments to gain the
ascendency. In other words, these other elements came to the surface and
gathered to themselves all the discordant elements of personality, much
as a radical political party gathers to itself all the rebellious
discordant factions that are in antagonism to the governing conservative
party. In one sense another side to the character had become
crystallized and autonomous, and, through the intensity of its feeling
tones, became periodically dominant. But not without protest from the
previously dominant elements of personality. This protest, however, had
certain psychological peculiarities which show that the conditions were
not quite as simple as this. I will speak of them later.
Soon the repressed wishes, impulses—the B complex—began to manifest
themselves in a way which indicated that a definite dissociation had
taken place, although as yet, as I have said, there was no secondary
_self_ or _I_ properly speaking. All the previous undercurrents of
thought—the intensified shrinking from the particular condition of life,
the internal rebellion against the conditions in general, the
disinclinations, longings, wishes, and determinations—had become
synthesized, and began to form a separate train of thought, so that at
one and the same time there was a sense, as is so commonly felt in such
cases, of a double train of thought; she had “a sense of being double.”
It seemed to her, C, that there was “all the time a pulling in a
different way from the way she had to go, a not wanting to live the life
she had to live.” This “sense of being double” seems to have been so
pronounced that to B, looking back upon it, it seemed as if these two
trains of thought (the C personality and the B complex) “occurred
concurrently and simultaneously, so that it could be said that one was
co-conscious with the other,” just as much as when there is loss of
awareness on the part of the principal consciousness for the coconscious
train. In this case there was, however, at this time, no lack of
awareness and there is nothing to prove B’s view of concomitance of
different trains of thought rather than that the two trains did not
rapidly oscillate or alternate from instant to instant.
The self-accusations and self-reproaches of the principal consciousness,
C, rendered the pleasure impulses still more intolerable and tended the
more to repress the rebellious train and thereby to disrupt further the
personality and to crystallize the secondary synthesis. It became more
than a matter of inner behavior of mental systems: _the outward behavior
became affected and changed_.
For corresponding to this invasion and domination of the ideas of the B
complex the behavior of C became altered, much to her amazement. That
is, her conduct at times was governed by the impulses of her once
repressed wishes and she found herself then doing things which normally
she had not enjoyed or done. _Her health and strength also, at such
moments, became extraordinarily improved._
This alteration of conduct and character and health became more
obtrusive and characteristic at a later date when the B complex had
become developed into the B personality. But the alteration of conduct
can be easily recognized at these earlier times if some of the previous
minor characteristics of C in respect to this sort of behavior are
understood.
Among these characteristics were a great dislike of riding on electric
cars, an almost abnormal nervousness about bugs and mosquitoes—I
always disliked going into the woods for this reason—an aversion to
exercise in summer, and a fear of canoeing. I had never enjoyed
sitting out from under cover or on the ground as the glare of the sun
was apt to cause headache and I abhorred all crawling things. I was
reserved with strangers and not given to making my friends quickly;
devoted to my family and relatives, fond of my friends, and not in the
habit of neglecting them in any way. I felt much responsibility
concerning business matters and had given a good deal of time and
thought to them. Many more peculiarities might be mentioned.
In the later B personality, as will be presently related, these and
other traits were replaced by their opposites, but even at this earlier
time the complete reversal of her tastes and behavior was obvious.
To my surprise [C states in her account] there were times when I did
some of the things above referred to, such as sitting in the woods,
etc. I felt a sense of wonder that I should be doing them and a still
greater wonder that I found them pleasant. There was also a sense at
times of impatience and irritation at being troubled with business
matters or responsibility of any kind and an inclination to throw
aside all care. I wondered at myself for feeling as I did and rather
protested to myself at many of my acts but still kept right on doing
them. It seems to me that these ideas and feelings formed a complex by
which I was more or less governed and that this complex gradually grew
in strength and can be identified with that of the personality (B)
which first developed.
A more interesting account of this change of conduct is given by B:
_As she grew more and more neurasthenic_, it seems to me as I look
back upon it, the _B complex grew stronger and more dominant_, and
with this increase of strength of this complex, C began to live a life
_corresponding to the impulses belonging to it_—staying out of doors
entirely—and then there followed much improvement in her health.[283]
She took long rides on the electric cars, which she had always
previously disliked intensively; she had always been very much afraid
of a canoe, but now she went canoeing often and enjoyed it. She was
surprised and astonished that she should enjoy these things, as it was
foreign to her natural and previous ideas and inclinations. There was
no change of character, properly speaking, but she did things she
disapproved of and knew at the time that she disapproved of them.
There was a recognition that she was doing things she would not
previously have done, and she protested to herself, but even this
half-protest was suppressed. She would say to herself, “Why am I doing
these things? I never cared for them before. Why should I care for
them now?” The old doubts and fears were at this time out of her mind.
The personality was C, but influenced and dominated by the B complex
of which, of course, she was perfectly aware.
What is here described is obviously a mood but a mood which included
altered bodily as well as mental characteristics. The alternation of
neurasthenic and healthy phases also became more obtrusive when the
healthy mood became a personality. The apparent recovery then deceived
the medical attendant.
In these quoted passages we have a description of the uprush from the
unconscious and successful sovereignty of the conflicting B complex.
Before continuing with our analysis two points are worth noting. First:
With the winning of sovereignty by this system of ideas, the previously
dominating system—or self—sank to an inferior position and assumed the
protesting, one may say, the rebellious attitude. Like two adversaries
in a wrestling conflict, in which first one then the other holds the
vantage and each in turn yields before the superior force of the other,
so it was turn and turn about, and now the rebellious complex becoming
the victor, repressed the protests, the self-reproaches, doubts, fears,
and scruples of the regularly constituted government.
Second: With the eruption of the B complex into the C personality it is
interesting once more to note the increase of physical strength, and
improvement in the general health. It was thought by her physician that
it was really a condition of health which had supervened but, as will be
seen, this was far from being the case; it was one of psychological
disintegration. Nevertheless with the one system of ideas—the B
complex—there were associated all the mental and bodily reactions of
health, with the other complex the reactions characteristic of the
neurasthenic condition. This alteration was still more noticeable later
when the B _personality_ erupted. The same phenomenon was observed in
the case of Miss Beauchamp. With the appearance of the “Sally” complex
all the neurasthenic symptoms vanished, and the personality became
buoyant with health. Identical variations in health have been observed
in other cases of dissociated personality; one phase of personality
being characterized by an extreme hysterical condition, another by
freedom from such symptoms (Felida X., Marcelline R., and others). This
phenomenon is of great significance for the understanding of the
neurasthenic and hysteric condition.
-----
Footnote 264:
This study was first published in the _Journal of Abnormal
Psychology_, Oct., 1919, but originally was written for this volume.
It was omitted with other lectures from the first edition to limit the
size of the volume.
Footnote 265:
Dissociation and inhibition are not coextensive terms for although
inhibition implies dissociation, a dissociated element may not be
necessarily inhibited as it may function subconsciously or
independently of the personal consciousness.
Footnote 266:
Unfortunately most of the reported cases were not studied from a
genetic point of view and the reports are too meagre to afford
sufficient data for a study of this kind. But in many cases the
principles can be recognized. In the article “Hysteria from the Point
of View of Dissociated Personality,” _Journal of Abnormal Psychology_,
Oct., 1906, I have given a synopsis in tabulated form of the reports
accessible up to the date of publication.
Footnote 267:
I would refer those who are interested in this problem of personality
to a similar but more exhaustive study of the case of “Miss Beauchamp”
which I have recently published in the _Journal of Abnormal
Psychology_, Vol. XV, Nos. 2 and 3, 1920. A descriptive account of the
case was published in 1906: _The Dissociation of a Personality_; New
York; Longmans, Green & Co., 1906.
Footnote 268:
Published under the title “My Life as a Dissociated Personality” in
the _Journal of Abnormal Psychology_; Oct.-Nov., 1908 and Dec.-Jan.,
1909.
Footnote 269:
The broken lines indicate dissociation; the solid lines, synthesis.
Footnote 270:
I have italicized a number of words and sentences not thus emphasized
in the original account.
Footnote 271:
Sympathetically excited emotions (instincts).
Footnote 272:
The division into periods follows that given in the second account by
B.
Footnote 273:
_Journal Abnormal Psychology_, Vol. III, No. 5, p. 311.
Footnote 274:
Lecture IX.
Footnote 275:
Prince: _Jour. Abnormal Psychology_. Vol. I, No. 1, 1906. Also, _The
Dissociation of a Personality_, 2nd ed., Chap. XXI. James: _Varieties
of Religious Experiences_.
Footnote 276:
I. e., “Tried not to think of it”; “put it out of her mind as a
disagreeable fact.”
Footnote 277:
Instinct of repulsion (McDougall).
Footnote 278:
Nor were they the reaction to or the expression of a previously
repressed sexual wish as any such wish would have met no conscious
resistance. It is easy to see in the light of all the facts that,
given a certain change in the conditions, or point of view, there
would have been no shock and no rebellion.
Footnote 279:
Lecture X; also, “The Meaning of Ideas as Determined by Unconscious
Settings,” _Journal Abnormal Psychology_, Oct.-Nov., 1912.
Footnote 280:
I use the present tense as more convenient although I am speaking of a
past condition.
Footnote 281:
As illustrated by her responsive behaviour at the theatre (p. 558), as
I have witnessed it there and socially.
Footnote 282:
“Hysteria from the Point of View of Dissociated Personality.” _Journal
Abnormal Psychology_, 1906.
Footnote 283:
It is interesting to note the apparent paradox of an increasing
physically neurasthenic phase coincident with an increasing physically
healthy phase. With the subsidence of the latter the neurasthenic
state became obvious.
LECTURE XIX
(THE SAME CONTINUED)—THE B PERSONALITY