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Title: The machinery of the mind
Author: Violet M. Firth
Contributor: Arthur George Tansley
Release date: December 14, 2025 [eBook #77457]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1922
Credits: chenzw, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MACHINERY OF THE MIND ***
THE MACHINERY OF
THE MIND
THE MACHINERY
OF THE MIND
BY
VIOLET M. FIRTH
WITH A FOREWORD BY
A. G. TANSLEY, F. R. S.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1922
COPYRIGHT 1922
BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
The Quinn & Boden Company
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
RAHWAY NEW JERSEY
FOREWORD
I am very glad to have the opportunity of commending this little volume
to those without any previous knowledge who desire to gain a clear idea
of the way in which modern psychology regards the human mind.
For every time the words “psychology” and “psychological” were used in
the newspapers ten years ago, they must be used fifty times to-day; and
though very often some other word would do just as well, or a good deal
better, this sudden vogue has a real meaning. The public has become
aware of the existence of psychology: people are beginning to realise
that the human mind, the instrument by which we know and think and feel
and strive, must itself be studied for its own sake if we are to gain a
deeper understanding and a greater control of human life.
A distinct reaction from the rather narrow materialism of the end
of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, an
increased realisation of immaterial, of “spiritual,” values, has
helped towards giving the mind its rightful place in human interest.
On the one hand, modern academic psychology has for many years now
been gradually emancipating itself from the chaotic subjectivities
of competing philosophies, and developing on really scientific lines,
with the aid of accurate observation, comparison and experiment. Its
genuinely and increasingly useful applications to education and to
industry are evidences of that.
On the other hand, the remarkable results of psychoanalysis have
been made widely known, though often with that misleading one-sided
emphasis which seems fated to attend the popularisation of any branch
of scientific enquiry. And these results have been found not only
interesting but exciting--to some morbidly exciting--because they
appeal to instincts and emotions which our civilisation represses
and often perverts. Psychoanalysis has indeed become a fashionable
craze, and as such has doubtless done a certain amount of harm and
has met with a good deal of opprobrium from the serious-minded. But
psychoanalysis has come to stay, because, however much it may be
misused by the ignorant, the unbalanced and the half-educated, it is
both a sound technique of research and a sound therapeutic method.
And it certainly has a most important contribution to make to the
psychology of the future.
This little book, which can be read through at a sitting, succeeds in
the difficult task of presenting the rudiments of the modern view of
the mind in an easy, lucid and attractive form. Though I may not agree
with every sentence she has written, Miss Firth’s development of the
subject, and of its very intimate connexion with human life and human
troubles, seems to me not only substantially sound and accurate, but
essentially sane and well balanced. Her explanation of the different
levels of the mind and of the “censors” by the metaphor of the tank
and the sieves is particularly ingenious and helpful. The book will
certainly succeed, to use the author’s words, in “planting certain
fundamental concepts in untrained minds so that they may serve as a
basis for future studies.”
A. G. TANSLEY.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
FOREWORD BY A. G. TANSLEY 5
INTRODUCTION 11
I. THE PHYSICAL VEHICLE OF CONSCIOUSNESS 15
II. THE EVOLUTION OF THE NERVOUS
SYSTEM 18
III. HOW AN IDEA ENTERS THE MIND 20
IV. THE ORGANISATION OF THE UPPER
LEVELS OF THE MIND 22
V. THE ORGANISATION OF THE LOWER
LEVELS OF THE MIND 27
VI. COMPLEXES 31
VII. THE INSTINCTS 35
VIII. THE SELF-PRESERVATION INSTINCT 39
IX. DISEASES OF THE SELF-PRESERVATION
INSTINCT 42
X. THE REPRODUCTIVE INSTINCT 44
XI. DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPRODUCTIVE
INSTINCT 46
XII. DISEASES OF THE REPRODUCTIVE INSTINCT 49
XIII. SUBLIMATION 52
XIV. MALADAPTATION TO ENVIRONMENT
AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 56
XV. CONFLICT 60
XVI. REPRESSION 63
XVII. DISSOCIATION 66
XVIII. SYMBOLISATION 69
XIX. PHANTASIES, DREAMS, AND DELUSIONS 71
XX. PSYCHOTHERAPY 76
XXI. PSYCHOANALYSIS 78
XXII. HYPNOSIS, SUGGESTION, AND AUTOSUGGESTION 84
XXIII. THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF PSYCHOLOGY 89
XXIV. CONCLUSION 93
INTRODUCTION
Originally given as a popular lecture course, this little book does not
pretend to be a contribution to the formidable array of psychological
literature. It is intended for those who have neither the time nor the
training necessary to assimilate the standard works on the subject,
but who want to know its elements; and to understand the principles on
which our characters are formed and the means by which the process of
thought is carried on, not so much from the scholastic point of view,
as in relation to the problems of everyday life.
It is hoped that many will find herein the key to things that have
puzzled them in their own natures, for only those who hold such
unsolved problems in their hearts can know how crippling and tormenting
they are.
This book does not aim so much at an orderly setting forth of the
elements of psychology as at planting certain fundamental concepts in
untrained minds so that they may serve as a basis for future studies.
To this end the writer has adopted a pictorial, almost diagrammatic
method of presentation in order that a framework of general ideas may
be formed into which details may subsequently be fitted, having found
this to be the best way to convey novel concepts to minds untrained in
metaphysical subtleties.
The teachings of no special school of psychology are adhered to; the
writer is indebted to all, but loyal to none, holding that in the
absence of any accepted standard of authority in psychological science
each student must review the doctrines offered for his adherence in the
light of his own experience.
This book is essentially practical in aim, written in response to a
practical need. In her experience of remedial psychology, the writer
saw that many cases of mental and nervous trouble would never have
developed if their victims had had an elementary knowledge of the
workings of the mind; she also found that many patients required
nothing but an explanation of these principles to put them on the road
to recovery, and that even when more than this was needed to effect a
cure, such a knowledge greatly expedited the treatment by enabling the
patient to co-operate intelligently.
So far as she is aware, there is no book that deals with
psychopathology, not from the point of view of the student, but from
that of the patient who needs an elementary knowledge of the laws of
the mind in order to enable him to think hygienically. This book is
written to fulfil that need; it is not only applicable, however, to
those who are sick in mind or estate, but to those also who desire to
develop their latent capacities by means of the practical application
of the laws of thought and character.
The Machinery of the Mind
CHAPTER I
THE PHYSICAL VEHICLE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
In order to arrive at an adequate understanding of mental processes it
is necessary to have some idea of the machinery whereby the mind makes
contact with the body.
Throughout every inch of our organism is a network of specialised
fibres whose function it is to carry nervous impulses from the sense
organs to the central nervous system of brain and spinal cord, and from
thence out again to the muscles, glands, and other organs of reaction.
The sense organs act as receivers of sensation, the nerve fibres
as transmitters, the central nervous system as a general telephone
exchange, and the muscles, glands, and organs as the executants of the
impulses of the mind.
Sense organs consist of cells, or sets of cells, specialised for the
reception of particular kinds of impressions. That is to say, if the
particular kind of stimulus they are fitted to receive is administered
to them, a change, probably of a chemical type, takes place in their
substance, which, it is thought, gives rise to energy of an electrical
nature, which runs along the nerve fibre as along a wire. At the
present moment, however, our knowledge of the nature of the nervous
impulse is tentative and hypothetical.
Like all other living tissue, the nervous system is built up of
millions of specialised cells. These cells consist of a main cell body
with prolongations, usually two in number. One of these has a mass of
branching fibres like the root of a plant, and is called the DENDRON;
the other consists of a long thread, the end of which is frayed out
into strands as the end of a piece of worsted may be unravelled. This
process is called the AXON.
The thread-like branches of the axon of one cell interlace with these
of the dendron of another cell, and a nervous impulse, running down the
nerve fibres, jumps the gap in the same way as the electric current
jumps the space between the terminals of an arc lamp.
It will readily be seen that these interlacing fibrils, millions in
number, ramifying throughout every portion of the body, form a most
wonderful system of communication; the brain and spinal cord acting as
a central telephone exchange.
Muscles are composed of long, spindle-shaped cells which are capable
of contraction. Chemical changes are constantly going on in their
substance. The blood and lymph which bathe them bring food materials
and carry away the waste products of their activity.
These food substances, which are highly organised chemical compounds,
are stored in the body of the cell. When a nervous impulse is received,
these food globules, as it were, explode; that is to say, they break
down into their component chemical parts, and the energy which went
to build them up is set free in the process and performs the work for
which the muscle is designed.
The glands are the chemists of the body, and in the crucibles of their
minute cells carry out the wonderful processes of living chemistry upon
which our vital functions are based. The quantity and quality of their
output is controlled by the nervous system, which acts as regulator of
every process of the body.
CHAPTER II
THE EVOLUTION OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM
The easiest way to grasp the organisation of our complex nervous
structure is to study its evolution from its humble beginnings in the
simplest forms of life.
In single-celled animalculæ, the most primitive type of living
creatures, a single cell performs all the functions of life; it moves,
breathes, assimilates, excretes, and feels. With the development of
multi-cellular organisms, however, different cells are given different
work to do, and made to do that, and nothing else.
It then becomes necessary that co-ordination should be maintained
between the sense organs that perceive the prey and the muscles that
move to its capture, and for this purpose other cells are told off to
specialise in communication.
Thus it will be seen that the functional unit of the nervous system
is not the nerve cell, but what is called the SENSORI-MOTOR ARC,
consisting of a nerve carrying the incoming sensation from a sense
organ and making contact with another nerve which carries the outgoing
impulse to a muscle or organ.
When a multiplicity of muscles becomes available for movement, it is
necessary to further link up the sensori-motor arcs, so that other
parts of the structure may be brought into play, and the response
not be confined to one muscle alone; so nerve cells form loops upon
the arcs, and loops upon the loops, with further intercommunications
among themselves, the organisation becoming more and more elaborate,
admitting of more and more complex reactions to stimulus, till finally
the wonderful complications of the human brain are achieved.
CHAPTER III
HOW AN IDEA ENTERS THE MIND
When an impression is made on a sense organ, the sensation derived from
it is telegraphed up the connecting nerve fibre to the brain, and there
translated, by a process of which we know nothing, from a sensation to
a thought.
We believe that the mind learns by experience to associate certain
kinds of sensation with certain objects or conditions in the
environment, and when it feels these particular sensations, deduces
that certain objects are present, and forms mental images, or thought
models, intended to represent these objects.
The truth of our percepts is determined by the closeness with which
our thought model corresponds to its original. An exact copy is a true
concept, an imperfect copy an inaccurate concept.
We “recognise” an object by a process of classification, noting
its likeness or unlikeness to other objects already known. When
an unfamiliar object attracts our attention, we put it through a
process of comparison until we find to which compartment in our
concept-pictures it should be assigned, and if we cannot find a perfect
match, we put it in the most suitable compartment we can discover,
and then partition off a little subclass for it, thus admitting its
identity in essentials, but its difference in details from the other
occupants of that compartment.
For example, supposing we were to land on an island and an object on
the shore attracted our attention, we should try to see what class of
things of which we already had experience it most closely resembled.
We should observe its movements, and assign it to the class of living
creatures; see its four limbs and hair, and conclude it was an animal.
Note its upright attitude, clothes, and weapons, and recognise these as
characteristic of humanity; but perceiving that its skin differed in
colour from that of any human being we had ever seen before, we should
partition off a fresh subdivision in the department of our mind in
which our ideas connected with humanity were stored, place it there,
and probably give it a distinguishing name by means of which we could
indicate it to other human beings.
Supposing, however, we presently come across another object of the same
nature, we should not have to make a fresh subdivision for it, but
would classify it with the previously examined specimen, and thus we
should feel this time that we “knew what it was.” In fact, the process
of “knowing” is a process of classification, and we feel that we “know”
a thing when we have assigned it to a satisfactory pigeon-hole among
our concepts.
CHAPTER IV
THE ORGANISATION OF THE UPPER LEVELS OF THE MIND
Those untrained in psychology generally conceive of the mind as a
homogeneous whole; our first systematic examination reveals to us,
however, that the mind is just as organic as the body.
The organisation of the mind may best be realised by thinking of it as
a tank across which, at different heights, are placed sieves of varying
coarseness of mesh. We must conceive of the mind as being composed of
certain layers, and the layer in which our conscious life has its most
permanent focus we will consider to be the outermost layer and name THE
FOCUS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. Immediately behind the Focus of Consciousness
lies the level which psychologists call THE FRINGE OF CONSCIOUSNESS,
and the two are divided from one another by a sieve-like mechanism
which is technically called a CENSOR.
The understanding of these two levels of the mind may be rendered
clearer if we next consider the uses to which they are put. Supposing
a person is sitting in a room listening to a lecture, of what will
he be aware? Firstly, his attention will be concentrated upon the
lecture, and, secondly, he will be dimly conscious of the sounds made
by the traffic in the street outside. By an effort of will he will pay
attention to those ideas only which are connected with the lecture, and
exclude from consciousness those which are connected with the street
traffic; or, to express the process in psychological terms, we may say
that all the ideas connected with the lecture are admitted to the focus
of consciousness, and all ideas connected with the street noises are
kept in the fringe of consciousness, and that the censor-sieve is so
adjusted that ideas in the fringe may not intrude upon the focus. Its
meshes may be conceived as being of such a size that only the compact
little ideas appertaining to the lecture can pass through them, and the
undefined ideas connected with the street traffic are held back.
It will readily be seen that our powers of concentration depend upon
the satisfactory functioning of this psychic sieve. The more we can
bring the adjustment of its meshes under voluntary control, the better
will be our powers of concentration; whereas, if its mesh be loose or
faulty, and we have acquired little or no control over it, we shall
find that we are unable to hold our mind to any consecutive train of
thought, and that our focus of consciousness is constantly liable to be
invaded by ideas alien to the matter to which we wish to pay attention.
These two levels, the FOCUS and FRINGE OF CONSCIOUSNESS, together
comprise what is known as THE CONSCIOUS MIND. This is the part of the
mind which most truly seems to be “our-self.” It is the section of the
mind in which we carry on all our conscious mental activities, but it
is by no means the whole of the mental house.
Immediately behind the fringe of consciousness comes the level of
the mind which is known as the FORECONSCIOUS, PRECONSCIOUS, and many
other things according to the school of psychology whose doctrines are
adhered to. If, however, its function be understood, it will be readily
enough recognised through the disguise of the varied nomenclature
which, unfortunately, complicates the study of psychology.
In this level of the mind are stored all the ideas which we hold
in memory, but are not actually thinking about. It may, in fact,
be defined as the level of conscious memory, and just as the focus
is separated from the fringe of consciousness by an adjustable
censor-sieve, so an exactly similar sieve interposes between the fringe
of consciousness and the foreconscious, and works upon exactly the same
principles.
Thus, the student listening to the lecture could adjust this second
sieve so as to allow everything he had ever learnt that had any bearing
upon the subject in hand, to rise into the focus of consciousness and
help him to understand the lecture. It is this faculty which is of such
great importance in determining the critical powers of the mind, for
the previously determined ideas, ranging themselves alongside the fresh
concepts offered for assimilation, serve as standards of value, and
form a running commentary upon the lecture.
These three levels together, the focus, the fringe, and the
foreconscious, form the level of the mind to which we have access and
of which we can make use; but we must note this point in connection
with these levels, that any idea which we may wish to consider must be
placed in the strong light of the focus of consciousness before we can
see it clearly; we cannot consider an idea while it is still in the
foreconscious, but we can, at will, take it out of the foreconscious
and place it in the focus of consciousness for our consideration.
Indeed, these three levels of the mind may be likened to a kitchen,
the foreconscious being the cupboard, the fringe of consciousness the
table, and the focus of consciousness the mixing basin; and the ideas
upon the three levels may be represented by the ingredients of the
pudding, some of which are put away in the cupboard, some lie ready to
the hand upon the table, and others are actually in the mixing basin
being stirred.
Those on the table, like the ideas in the fringe of consciousness, lie
ready to the cook’s hand, but she is not dealing with them at the
moment; those in the cupboard (the foreconscious) are out of sight, but
she knows they are there and can get them if she wants them; but it is
only those that are in the basin, the focus of consciousness, that she
is actually at work upon.
To the average man these three levels constitute all there is of his
mind, he has no conception of the strange hinterland lying behind the
narrow strip of civilised coast, yet it is here that the springs of his
being take their rise, and it is the discovery and exploration of this
hinterland which has been the great contribution of modern psychology
to the sum of human knowledge.
CHAPTER V
THE ORGANISATION OF THE LOWER LEVELS OF THE MIND
In the level of the mind known as the subconscious or unconscious are
stored all the ideas to which we have no direct access.
Some psychologists say that the memory of every impression which
has ever been received by a sense organ is registered here as on a
photographic plate, but this opinion is not universally accepted. We
shall be quite safe in saying, however, that the memory of anything
which has ever made a distinct impression on the mind is stored here
and plays its part in the mental life.
Between the subconscious and the foreconscious is placed the great
main censor-sieve of the mind, and it is this which is meant when the
“censor” is referred to in psychoanalytical literature.
This censor-sieve is of the greatest importance in the mental economy,
for upon its function the health of the mind is largely dependent. If
its meshes are too loose, we get an uprush into consciousness of ideas
which should never be there; and if too tight, the conscious mind is
cut off from the source of its energy, the subconscious.
This sieve is constructed upon the same principles as the two
others which we have already considered, but it has one fundamental
difference, it is not under the control of the will; the dimension of
its mesh is regulated, not by what I, at the moment, may happen to
wish, but by what the main tenor of my character may determine.
The foreconscious, then, may be likened to a reference library, but the
great storehouse of the subconscious is a vault in which the archives
are kept; and although the bulk of them never touch the conscious
mind, it is their indirect influence which determines the tone of the
character.
The remotest level of the mind, whose functioning is purely automatic,
has the control of all the vital functions of the body. Its thought
processes direct the activities of the spinal level of the nervous
system, whereas the other levels of the mind have the brain as their
physical organ of manifestation, as is proved by the fact that a
disease of the brain can throw the reasoning faculties out of gear and
leave the purely physiological nervous functions intact, whereas a
disease of the spinal cord may render inoperative the nervous processes
of the bodily functions, though the mental processes are unimpaired.
The psychic processes of the automatic mind govern all the biochemical
processes of the body; it is this level which controls the involuntary
muscles, regulates the blood supply to any part of the body, controls
the output of the ductless glands, and hence the chemical composition
of the blood. It is these facts which may throw light upon the origin
of many functional disturbances and upon the phenomena of mental
healing.
Although the automatic level is not normally in touch with the
conscious mind, it is enormously affected by the general feeling-tone
of the mentality, and especially by the emotional states of the
subconscious, hence the alterations of physiological function which
take place in nervous disease.
This level of the mind was the first to be organised in the history of
biological development. The dim mentation of the rudimentary beginnings
of life was of the automatic order, being entirely concerned with
physiological processes.
As organisms became more evolved, a higher type of intelligence was
necessary for the carrying out of their life activities, and we get
mentation of the type that is carried on in the subconscious level, the
impulsive mentation of the instincts.
Level by level the mind builds itself up, in the race and in the
individual; and level by level, under the influence of old age, disease
or drugs, the planes of consciousness break down in the inverse order
to that in which they developed, the more recently organised higher
centres going first, and the automatic mind, the oldest and most
stable, with æons of habit behind it, working on to the last, keeping
the bodily mechanism running long after all that made the organism a
man has withdrawn from its dishonoured vehicle.
CHAPTER VI
COMPLEXES
Having studied the levels into which the mind is divided, we must next
consider the nature of the material that is stored in them, and to do
this we must study the workings of MEMORY.
When an idea enters the mind it does not remain an independent unit for
very long. It seems to be a fundamental characteristic of ideas that
they form alliances among themselves, and these groups of ideas are
technically known as COMPLEXES.
A complex may be compared to the branching growth of a pond-weed; it
has a central starting-point from which ramify threads that divide and
subdivide, and branch in every direction, and connect it with other
systems of ideas that have similar branching threads. Thus it is that
if an idea on any subject enters our consciousness, we find that it is
not an isolated unit, but one end of a chain which branches into all
sorts of side issues; we have not touched a single line of thought, but
a whole railway system.
These systems of ideas spread and ramify through all the levels of the
mind, but if we trace them far enough, we shall invariably find that
they have their roots in one of the great primal instincts, deep down
in the subconscious. It is from this that they derive the vitality that
binds them together, for all complexes have a core of emotion, and it
is from the instincts that the emotions spring.
Let us take an example from actual life, and see how these principles
work. A man may, for example, be a grocer; he will therefore have a
Grocery Complex, that is to say, all his ideas connected with the
buying and selling of household commodities will be linked together, so
that if a train of thought be started in connection with any one aspect
of his business, by an easy transition many other aspects may drift
into his mind.
Now, grocery is not in itself an absorbing subject, like literature
or science, yet the man is interested in it; and why? because his
grocery complex has its root in his self-preservation instinct, for it
is the means by which he keeps himself alive. If his grocery business
prospers, he feels pleasure, because it means a fuller and pleasanter
life for him; if it diminishes, he feels pain and fear, because his
means of keeping himself alive are threatened.
In addition to being a grocer, however, he may be an elder of the
local chapel, and have a far-reaching complex of religious interests,
ramifying, interlacing, and having their instinctive roots in his
subconscious, just as his grocery complex has. Then, one day, he
may be looking up the current price of pepper in his trade list, and
from pepper his thoughts pass to spices in general; their pungent
odour suggests incense, and he asks himself whether ritualism is ever
allowable. It will here be seen that a trailing branch of his grocery
complex has made contact with his religious complex and brought it into
consciousness.
Again, our grocer may be thinking of getting married, and immediately
his grocery complex throws out a side shoot which strikes root in
his reproductive instinct, and his interest in grocery is reinforced
by much of the interest which gathers round sex in his life, for it
is upon the prosperity of his business that his prospect of marriage
depends.
Thus it will be seen that the mind is filled with a ramifying mass of
complexes which throw out branches in every direction, and that if the
end of any thread be caught hold of, by gently pulling upon it we can
draw all the complexes with which it is connected into consciousness.
This is how memory works, and even if an idea has been “forgotten,”
that is, passed from the conscious into the subconscious, it is still
possible to recover it by taking advantage of this tendency of ideas to
stick together; for by gently pulling upon the parts of the complex to
which it is affiliated which are in consciousness, the branchings which
are in the subconscious can be coaxed into light. It is upon this
factor that psychoanalysis bases much of its work.
Ideas tend to group themselves in complexes according to certain
well-defined principles.
I. All ideas connected with the same subject tend to become associated
together.
II. Ideas which enter the mind at the same time tend to become
associated together. For instance, if I have a nasty fall on a piece of
banana skin while going to the pillar-box, when I see bananas I shall
think of falls and pillar-boxes, and when I see pillar-boxes, I may
think of bananas and falls.
III. Ideas of cause and effect become associated together.
IV. Ideas which have any sort of resemblance, fundamental or
superficial, tend to recall one another. Thus, if I think of sausages,
I may be put in mind of Zeppelins, and if I think of the fall on the
banana skin, my mind may leap to the Niagara Falls or fallen women.
This irrational method of thought is of enormous importance in applied
psychology, for much of the thinking carried on by the subconscious
mind is done in this way, and it gives rise to that peculiar method of
thought which will be dealt with in the chapter on symbolism.
CHAPTER VII
THE INSTINCTS
We have already considered the mind as a tank divided into compartments
by sieves of varying diameters of mesh, let us now consider the
currents that move in the water that fills the tank. We may
diagrammatically conceive the inflow as taking place through one main
channel into the subconscious, and there dividing into three streams.
This main channel of energy, which supplies the motive power of all
living creatures, has been called by many names: libido, horme, élan
vitale, and bio-urge; an adequate English equivalent is the thrust of
life.
This stream of psychic energy becomes specialised in the individual
into divergent currents, which we call the three great instincts. The
first of these is the SELF-PRESERVATION INSTINCT. Under this heading
may be gathered up all the activities which are motived by (1) the Will
to Live, or Self-Maintenance, and, (2) the Will to Live more Fully, or
Self-Aggrandisement.
The second great instinct is that of REPRODUCTION, or SEX, whose
function it is to secure race preservation. Through this channel
tends to go the surplus of energy left over after the demands of
self-maintenance have been fulfilled.
The third great instinct is the SOCIAL or HERD INSTINCT, by which term
we designate that system of innate tendencies and capacities which
enables us to co-operate with our fellows and lead a social life, with
all its advantages and disadvantages.
Some animals, however, do not have this third instinct, but lead
solitary lives, acknowledging no ties save those of mate and offspring;
but the more highly evolved types, including man, have developed this
great specialisation of psychic energy which enables them to lead a
social life.
These three great instincts act and react on each other in the hidden
field of subconscious, and build up social organisation and individual
character.
In order to understand the workings of the instincts, however, it must
be clearly realised that they are universal and not personal in their
scope; the survival or suffering of the unit are not considered in the
scheme of things, it is the race that counts.
If we regard the instincts as subserving the welfare of the individual
only, we form a concept which cannot fail to lead us astray when we
seek to put our conclusions to a practical application. The workings of
instinct must be viewed from the standpoint of evolutionary progress,
not individual well-being. This is the point of view from which Nature
frames her schemes, and we can only hope to understand her ways if we
occupy her standpoint.
To regard man as actuated by reason is a hopeless error. Instinct forms
the mainspring of his action, and reason is used to carry out the
promptings of instinct. It must be remembered, however, that instinct
does not function in crude physical forms only. Man possesses emotions
and intellect as well as a body, and upon each plane of his being the
instincts express themselves appropriately, functioning emotionally and
intellectually as well as physically. A man uses his wits as well as
his muscles in the struggle for self-preservation, and the sex instinct
is not exhausted by the physical act of procreation.
Emphasis is laid upon this point, because herein lies the key to the
practical application of psychology to human life.
The emotions have their sources in the instincts; indeed, an emotion
may be said to be the subjective aspect of an instinct. If an instinct
is achieving its aim, we feel pleasure; if it is being frustrated, we
feel pain; and if we anticipate its frustration, we feel fear.
Whenever there is emotion, some underlying instinct must have been
stirred into activity. It will thus be seen how predominating is the
influence exerted by the instincts upon our lives; they may, in fact,
be considered the mainsprings of motive.
At one time psychology busied itself with the reasoning processes,
and looked upon man as a rational being, and indeed the man in the
street still considers himself as such, but the researches of modern
psychology have shown us that emotion and not reason is the actuating
force, and that reason is a tool in the service of the emotions.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SELF-PRESERVATION INSTINCT
The self-preservation instinct appears to our consciousness under the
guise of that deep-rooted clinging to life, that desire to live, which
characterises every living thing. It is this instinct, functioning
simply in simply organised creatures, that leads them to seek food and
avoid danger, and also causes that complex organism, a civilised man,
to carry out the elaborate activities of “earning a living.”
It is essentially a selfish instinct, for it leads the individual
to regard his own welfare alone, and to consider others only so far
as their existence is essential to his. For instance, shooting and
hunting during the breeding season are forbidden by law, not out of
consideration for the hunted creatures, but because the continuation of
their species is useful to us.
Its influence, however, is often modified by the two other great
instincts whose influence may become so strong under certain
circumstances as to induce a man not only to disregard his own
interests, but even to lay down his life for others.
In many varieties of animals, however, only two instincts are present,
self-preservation and reproduction; but in animals that are associated
together into herds or packs, a third instinct is developed, the social
instinct. When this occurs, the functioning of the self-preservation
instinct is greatly modified; the individual no longer owes his
existence solely to his power to cope with his environment, but depends
mainly upon his ability to keep his place in the herd; and upon the
social organisation devolves the task of adaptation and survival. The
strayed sheep is soon hunted down, the solitary wolf starves.
This is equally true of man, who is also a social animal. The misery of
Central Europe, in the breakdown of social organisation following upon
the war, has shown us the helplessness of the individual human being
and his complete dependence upon herd life.
The self-preservation instinct and its ruthless functioning under the
law of natural selection has furnished a theme to many moralists and
sociologists of the materialistic type, but they are apt to forget that
the socialisation of humanity has changed the nature of the problem;
the unit of survival is no longer the individual, but the social
organisation of which he is a member. The law of self-preservation
has given place to the law of group preservation, and the centre of
psychic gravity is shifted. The importance of this point cannot be
over-estimated in practical psychology.
By some psychologists the instinct of nutrition is distinguished from
that of self-preservation, but for all practical purposes they are
identical.
It must be borne in mind, in applying the standards of psychology
to the human character, that in the more highly developed types of
human being the self-preservation instinct is not fulfilled simply
by the continuance of physical life; there is self-preservation of
the personality as well as of the bodily existence, and unless a man
has adequate scope for self-expression and self-development, he will
experience that sense of incompleteness and imperfection characteristic
of the repression of an instinct.
CHAPTER IX
DISEASES OF THE SELF-PRESERVATION INSTINCT
The self-preservation instinct, having its source in the sense of
individuality, of separateness, is the motive of our self-assertion. It
is necessary that each member of a herd should have a certain amount of
self-assertiveness in order to maintain his place among his fellows.
If, however, this quality is above or below the requisite standard,
his survival will be endangered; if, on the one hand, he is lacking
in self-assertion, he will not obtain his fair share of the means of
life available for the group of which he is a member. On the other
hand, if his self-assertion is excessive, it may disrupt the social
organisation, and either lead to the extinction of the group, or to his
ejection from it.
Lack of self-preservation instinct is usually due to deep-seated
psycho-pathologies, too complex to be entered upon here; but we may say
in passing that this failure is often due to a division of aims in the
subconscious mind, the individual is not sure which self he ought to
preserve, and so preserves neither.
An excess of self-preservation is often developed in the child who has
had a hard struggle to find and express his individuality.
The self-preservation instinct has a great influence upon vitality. All
observant persons must have noticed how easily the man who has lost his
hold upon life, or has given up hope, succumbs to disease.
CHAPTER X
THE REPRODUCTIVE INSTINCT
The reproductive instinct is Nature’s mechanism for ensuring the
continuation of the species, and its subjective aspect appears to us as
all the emotions and sensations connected with sex.
As soon as the demands of the self-preservation instinct are satisfied,
as soon as the individual is secure, adequately fed and sufficiently
developed, then life tends to overflow the vessel it has filled, and
this psychic pressure constitutes sex desire.
Sex, however, must not be considered under its physical manifestations
only, it has an emotional and mental aspect as well. It is more than
the mere overflow of energy in the act of procreation, it is also the
desire for the rejuvenation and vital stimulus that is produced by the
act of union. Whosoever in considering human problems fails to look
beyond the physical stratum of the sex instinct, cannot fail to obtain
a false perspective.
It has been laid down as a maxim that psychology and physiology ought
to be kept strictly separate, but it is impossible to treat adequately
of the sex instinct without considering it under both its aspects, for
sex activity works in a psycho-physical circle; organic sensations
stimulate the emotions, and the emotions react on the organs. A sexual
image rising in the mind brings about the preliminary reaction of the
physical organs of its expression; and any irritation of the physical
organs, however accidental, tends to produce a corresponding emotional
state. Stimulus may occur at any point on the psycho-physical circuit,
and so may inhibition.
The sex instinct forms the nucleus of a huge complex, second only
to the group of ideas that centres round the individuality itself.
To all ideas and activities that are in any way connected with the
gratification of the sexual desire, its energy readily passes over.
Dress, the home, the ambitions, each and all may owe their interest
to the reproductive instinct which uses them as channels for its
fulfilment.
CHAPTER XI
DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPRODUCTIVE INSTINCT
The sex instinct, in the course of development from its infantile
aspect to its adult manifestation, goes through well-marked phases
which are little known outside the ranks of the psychotherapists, but
which are of great importance to the educationalist and sociologist.
The sexuality of the child is simply a capacity for deriving
gratification from certain feelings, and it is a diffused and vague
sensation that he experiences; this capacity, however, as the child
grows older, becomes gradually concentrated upon its physiological
channels of activity, and as it becomes concentrated it increases in
intensity, just as the placid waters of a broad and shallow river
become deep and headlong in a ravine.
The interests of a very young child only gradually extend beyond his
own bodily sensations, and he therefore leads an existence that is
self-centred beyond any adult conception of the term. The organs of
reproduction, being very highly nerved in preparation for their future
functions, are found to be capable of keener sensation than the rest of
the body, and therefore attract his attention. This is the AUTO-EROTIC
STAGE.
The, to a child, striking manifestations connected with the exercise of
the bodily functions also attract his interest. This is the COPROPHILIC
STAGE.
Later, his curiosity concerning his own body being satisfied, he begins
to be curious concerning the bodies of others. This is called the
HOMOSEXUAL STAGE, the stage wherein he is interested in bodies of the
same sex as his own, but it might more truly be called the stage of
undifferentiated interest, for the child is only interested in those
who are made in the same way as himself, because he is not aware that
anyone is made differently.
This curiosity being outgrown, his interest is transferred to those who
are different from himself, regardless as to whether they are closely
related to him or not. Soon, however, he begins to differentiate
between his immediate relations and those who are less closely
connected. This is called by psychologists “the raising of the incest
barriers,” but to the child it appears simply as a moving on of the
focus of interest; he is no longer attracted by his mother and sisters,
not because he feels it is wrong to have such feelings towards them,
but because familiarity breeds contempt, and gives rise to the state of
mind that is expressed in the phrase “insipid as sisters’ kisses.”
The child has now attained the adult attitude towards sex, and it only
remains for the physical organs to make their corresponding development
at the time of puberty for the circuit to be complete.
CHAPTER XII
DISEASES OF THE REPRODUCTIVE INSTINCT
I. Should an individual be lacking in vigour, he may fail to reach his
full psychic development, and stick fast at one of the earlier phases.
The adult sex force therefore manifests itself in an immature form, and
the individual is a pervert of a congenital type. Strange as it may
seem, his peculiarity will appear to him as normal and natural, and
will not interfere with the development of a high type of character and
perfect health, though his path through life is rendered a difficult
one owing to the insuperable obstacles to the satisfaction of his love
nature.
Two courses are open to him. He may become an actual pervert, in which
case he incurs the censure of society, because he is unfaithful to his
trust in not using the overflow of his life force for the upbuilding
of the herd, but expends it through channels that cannot lead to
reproduction and thus wastes it; also because any sexual abnormality
is exceedingly infectious, owing to the force of suggestion, whether
by example or precept, and would lead other and normal individuals to
similar antisocial action. It is this strong race-preservation instinct
that gives rise to the disgust and anger of the normal individual at
all forms of abnormality.
The unfortunate, however, may instead become a potential pervert,
and repress into his subconscious mind desires which he feels to be
wrong; he tries to lead a normal life, but the adult form of sex does
not satisfy him, and in his heart he really desires the abnormal form
which he should have outgrown and left behind. This wish, not being
allowed by the censor to enter consciousness, has recourse to symbolic
expression, and gives rise to many forms of insanity and neuroticism.
II. An individual may be developing quite normally, when some shock,
often quite slight, or some undue pressure of environment, may
artificially arrest his development, and he will go through much the
same phases as the potential pervert, but being of better mental
material to begin with, he will usually incline towards neurotic
disease rather than insanity.
Those who have the care of children should be careful not to give the
child a shock by administering a severe reprimand when his curiosities
and activities take an undesirable form; such action gives the matter
undue prominence in the child’s mind, and may lead to a stoppage of
development at the phase represented by the undesirable activity.
Explanation and counsel will be more effective than a scolding, and
leave no undesirable after effects.
III. An individual may reach normal adulthood quite safely, but,
his energies finding no outlet on that level owing to force of
circumstances, they may revert to one of the primitive phases through
which he has passed, and he may acquire a perversion of sexual habit
with the same liabilities to disease that we have noted above.
IV. Excessive sexual activity may lead to jaded powers of response to
normal sexual stimuli, and the individual may then deliberately turn to
abnormal forms of gratification in the hope of obtaining satisfaction.
CHAPTER XIII
SUBLIMATION
Should an instinct be denied its expression and all ideas connected
with it be repressed into the subconscious, trouble will ensue. The
lower reaches of a river can be emptied by the simple expedient of
placing a dam across its channel, but this does not solve the problem
of the surplus water, which gathers head behind the obstruction till
it bursts its banks and makes a morass of the upper reaches. If it is
necessary to deflect a river from its bed, then an alternative course
must be provided, for the water continues to come down from the hills
and must by some means be disposed of.
It is precisely this engineering problem that the psychotherapist has
to deal with. We know that a large percentage of mental and nervous
disorders are caused by the repression of the sex instinct. This great
instinct, in its mental and physical aspects, is so fundamental and
so powerful that it cannot with safety to the individual be entirely
repressed, nor with safety to society be given free rein, and we are on
the horns of a dilemma, for social laws demand that it shall only be
expressed under very limited conditions--those of legal marriage, and
even then not to an unlimited extent; and nature demands that it shall
be expressed as soon as the physical organs of its manifestation are
sufficiently developed to function.
The average man solves this problem for himself by conniving at the
maintenance of a pariah class of women whose very existence is socially
ignored and is a fertile source of misery, disease, and crime; but for
women, unless they are prepared permanently to join the pariah class,
a social safety valve does not exist, and we find among them a much
higher percentage than among men suffering from those nervous troubles
that are due to a repression of the sex instinct, and this also applies
to men who, whether from idealism or fear of disease, do not avail
themselves of a compromise.
This problem would prove as intractable in the future as it has in
the past were it not that we now know that the law of transmutation
of energy from one form to another is as true for psychology as it is
for physics, and sex force can be utilised for other purposes than
physical reproduction. This process of conversion is technically known
as SUBLIMATION.
This is one of the most important discoveries of modern psychology,
for it provides the solution to grave social problems that menace the
fabric of civilisation.
How, in actual practice, can this result be achieved?
First, by altering our entire attitude toward sex, and realising
that a problem is not solved by ignoring its existence. Secondly, by
taking the sex problem out of the domain of the subconscious into the
conscious mind and frankly facing it, and acquiring dominion over it
by the practice of thought control, transmuting our emotions instead
of repressing them; and thirdly, by providing a channel of creative
interest down which may flow the energies we wish to deflect from their
primitive channel of manifestation.
The key to the whole problem lies in this, the life force flows to
the point of interest. If the interest and attention are centred upon
physical sensation, then the life force will flow, or attempt to
flow, through the channel of the reproductive organs, or if denied
manifestation, will keep up a constant irritation and stimulation; but
if the interest be shifted to an emotional or mental level, then the
life force will find an outlet in creative activity upon these levels
and drain the pressure from the physical.
The mental and physical habits of a lifetime are not easily broken, but
if the thoughts be patiently and persistently kept away from physical
sensation and concentrated upon external interests, the law of mental
and physical habit will come to our aid, and the life force will learn
to flow through its new channel with safety to the individual and
benefit to society.
The process of thought control must not be confused with the
dissociation of ideas. In dissociation we are dishonest with ourselves,
denying that certain qualities exist in our natures; the ideas
connected with them are repressed into our subconsciousness, and it
is the involuntary subconscious censor that holds them down; whereas
in thought control we admit the primitive side of our natures and set
to work to train it, and because we know that dwelling upon mental
pictures of a sexual nature produces a physical reaction, we exclude
these ideas from consciousness; but in this case the repression is not
into the subconscious mind, but into the foreconscious, and it is one
of the voluntary censors that enforces the command and remains under
our control.
The distinction between repression and dissociation must be clearly
borne in mind in all re-educational work. A certain amount of
repression is unavoidable in a social life; for each individual
sacrifices something of his personal desires for the sake of the
benefits of co-operation with his fellows, and the energy thus
sacrificed is turned to social purposes. Dissociation, however, is
always a pathology, and should never be allowed to occur.
CHAPTER XIV
MALADAPTATION TO ENVIRONMENT AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
The classification of diseases was carried out at a time when the
body was regarded as the whole of man and the mind looked upon as
an unimportant by-product whose influence was negligible. Modern
discovery, however, has radically changed our outlook.
Much mental disease has a physical origin and should not be classified
as mental at all. To this class belong the mental disturbances arising
from disease of or injury to the brain; womb trouble; poisoned blood
conditions and the faulty functioning of the ductless glands, whose
place in our economy is so important and so little understood; and many
other causes of a like nature.
Setting aside this type of disease, with which psychology, strictly
speaking, is not concerned, we find the true mental diseases fall into
a first broad division, those which are congenital and those which are
acquired. In congenital disease an abnormal individual breaks down in a
normal environment, and in acquired disease a normal individual breaks
down in an abnormal environment. In both cases the results are the
same, but treatment and prospect of recovery are very different.
The boundary line between a healthy and diseased mind is not easy
to draw, but we may reckon a mind diseased when it fails to react
normally to its environment; thus, if happenings which should stir us
deeply leave us unmoved, or we are upset by things which should have
no power to disturb us, we may consider our mind is not working well.
Let it never be forgotten, however, that mental disturbance ranges from
irritability, depression, and bad memory, to its extreme manifestations
in the different forms of insanity.
The division between nervous and mental disease is even harder to draw,
but for all practical purposes the sense of reality may be utilised
as a dividing line; as soon as he loses his sense of reality a man
passes the boundary line of insanity. The neurotic knows that there is
something wrong with him, but that the world is all right; the lunatic
believes that he is all right, but that there is something wrong with
the world.
It is the constant aim of the mind to maintain harmonious relations
between the individual and the environment; to secure an adjustment to,
and to make the best of, the constantly varying conditions to which the
organism is subjected. If it fails to do this, the law of the survival
of the fittest comes into action and automatically eliminates the
unfit--those who have failed to adapt themselves to the conditions in
which they live. Failure to adapt may be due to one of two causes: the
individual may be abnormal, or the environment may be abnormal.
Modern social conditions in a civilised community tend to prevent the
automatic elimination of the unfit and to permit them to live on. With
physical failure to adapt, due to malformation or lack of stamina,
we will not deal here, but will confine ourselves to the problem of
adjustment on the mental level.
If there is difficulty in making a mental adjustment to environment
and finding contentment and peace of mind, then the individual is
faced by a peculiar problem, he is allowed to continue his physical
life, but cannot find mental peace. In order to obtain relief from
this intolerable condition, certain devices are unconsciously resorted
to. These devices are of the nature of buffers or shock absorbers, and
provided the individual does not deviate too much from the normal type,
which is adapted to the environment, and that the environment likewise
does not differ too much from the type for which the individual was
designed, then these devices effectually protect his feelings from the
rude shocks of circumstances and enable him to keep his poise and peace
of mind.
If, however, the strain thrown upon the psychic shock absorber
is too great for it adequately to absorb, then the rebound of the
buffer-springs throws the machinery of the mind out of gear and makes
itself felt in nervous and mental disorders. Like physical disease,
mental disease is Nature’s effort at repair which overreaches itself.
This, then, is what constitutes mental disease (the organic insanities
being excluded from this definition)--the reaction of the mind to what
it cannot assimilate. It must not be thought, however, that mental
disorder necessarily means insanity. Any faulty functioning of the mind
comes under the heading of psycho-pathology, and just as the diseases
of the body range from a passing indisposition to some fatal organic
disease, so the diseases of the mind range from irritability and
forgetfulness to the complete collapse of lunacy.
CHAPTER XV
CONFLICT
As we have already seen, our life is motived by three great instincts.
A moment’s thought, however, will cause us to realise that, as these
instincts are diverse in their aims, they may sometimes find themselves
in opposition to one another; this condition is known to psychologists
as CONFLICT, wherein one instinct can only be gratified at the expense
of another. For instance, a man may be starving, and be tempted to
steal in order to satisfy his hunger. Here we see a conflict between
the self-preservation and herd instinct, for if he steals, he may lose
his place in the herd, and if he does not steal, he may lose his life,
and it is astonishing how many will choose the latter alternative,
proving the power and fundamental nature of the herd instinct. The man
will be torn two ways, and can only gratify one instinct at the expense
of the other.
Or, again, he may fall in love with a woman who is denied to him by the
marriage laws of his country. Here we see a conflict between the sex
instinct and the herd instinct. Or he may fall in love with one whom it
would be disadvantageous socially or professionally for him to marry,
and here we see a conflict between the sex and self-preservation
instincts.
Now, in each of these cases a large amount of force is locked up
and rendered unavailable for the general purposes of the life, for
a head-on collision between instincts is involved, and each employs
the whole of its energy to neutralise the force of the other, and the
whole life comes to a standstill while the battle is fought out. It is
notorious that an individual in such a dilemma can come to no decision,
take no decisive action, in any department of his life. Some solution
has to be arrived at, and any solution is better than a continuation of
the conflict, the pain of which is intolerable.
First, the man may think the whole matter out, and, acting according
to his nature, give the victory to one or other of the combatants,
leaving the vanquished instinct to seek adjustment as best it may. It
requires great strength, however, to take such a stand, and many are
not able to do it. Some seek a solution of the problem by keeping the
instincts in separate compartments of the mind, and never comparing
their special pleadings, as did a science teacher known to the writer,
who on weekdays taught the doctrines of evolution, and on Sundays the
doctrine of special creation, and when questioned on the matter, burst
into a towering passion and refused to discuss it.
A third solution, however, is very often found by the perplexed mind,
and that is known as dissociation.
Now, REPRESSION and DISSOCIATION are two terms current in modern
psychological parlance, and the writer has often heard them used as if
they were interchangeable terms, but this is not the case. Repression
means that certain ideas are put into the subconscious mind and not
permitted to return to consciousness, but dissociation means that some
of these ideas, instead of lying quiet in the subconscious, split off
from the integration of the personality and function independently.
These two factors of mentation will be studied in detail in the
following chapters.
CHAPTER XVI
REPRESSION
Repression is a refusal to permit an idea to enter consciousness. The
instant it looms up upon the fringe of consciousness the attention
is resolutely turned away from it. This device is resorted to when
an idea enters the mind which is repugnant to our character, when we
find ourselves thinking thoughts which are out of harmony with the
general tone of our nature. Unwilling to admit to ourselves that we
have such a side to our dispositions, we turn away from the repulsive
images; but as it is impossible to erase from the mind any idea which
has once entered it, we endeavour to store these ideas, since they
must be stored somewhere, in that part which is furthest away from
consciousness, and so, to use the technicalities of the psychologist,
we repress them into our subconscious.
When it is remembered that every child is born into the world a little
savage, and that it is only by education he achieves civilisation,
it will readily be seen that our primitive nature is not a thing
which our cultivated self can regard with any complacency. That the
untrained child is selfish and dirty, we are all aware; and that we
ourselves, before our training had time to take effect on us, were also
selfish and dirty, we cannot with logic deny; but a merciful veil of
forgetfulness has been drawn across this period, for we have developed
into something so different from what we were that our primitive self
is utterly repugnant to us, and repression is resorted to to prevent
this unpleasant ghost of our original natures from intruding upon our
self-esteem.
All ideas of an uncivilised type which enter the mind are apt to call
forth a certain amount of response from us--hence the success of the
smutty story--for the primitive side of our natures is not dead, and
stirs in its sleep if a note of the same pitch is sounded in its
hearing; therefore ideas which wake our lower nature are quickly
repressed into the subconscious lest they should be translated into
action. Repression is essentially the mechanism of self-disgust.
It is still an open question whether repression is normal or abnormal;
whether it is part of the functioning of the healthy mind, or whether
it is to be regarded as a psychic corn or callosity, an endeavour on
the part of nature to reinforce a point of pressure, which, though
intended as a defence, is apt to become a disease.
The part played by consciousness in repression is equally an open
question. In my opinion, an idea must be present to consciousness
before its nature can be apprehended and the judgment formed which
leads to its banishment.
There is no question but that, if we were strong enough, we could deal
with these problems in the conscious mind by means of thought control,
and that repression is only resorted to when the first line of defence
has gone down before the onslaught of the lower side of our natures.
Repression may therefore be looked upon as a reaction due to weakness;
the mind that was perfectly adapted to its environment would assimilate
all experiences and grow stronger in the process.
CHAPTER XVII
DISSOCIATION
While the device of repression may adequately deal with many of the
unwelcome thoughts that intrude themselves upon us, it is not capable
of doing so in every case, and then the process is carried a stage
further, and DISSOCIATION takes place.
Dissociation is pathological forgetting. Emotion is the life of an
idea. In ordinary forgetting a memory sinks into the subconscious
because insufficient interest is attached to it to enable it to remain
in consciousness; if, however, an idea associated with some strong
emotion is repressed into the subconscious, that emotion will, as it
were, vivify it, and cause it to have an independent life of its own;
it splits off from the personality and is said to be dissociated.
It will be noted that in our study of memory we saw that ideas never
remain solitary, but tend to form associations among themselves, or,
as they are technically termed, complexes. The dissociated idea is
no exception to this rule; not only does it form alliances with its
fellow prisoners, but its chains of associations manage to evade
the censor and ramify through the other levels of the mind with
far-reaching consequences, giving rise to much of the illogicality and
unreasonableness which disturb our attempts at rational thinking.
We have already noted that a complex is a group of ideas held together
by some emotionally toned interest; and as all emotion has its root
in an instinct, it follows that all complexes must be affiliated to
one or other of the instincts; as they sink into the subconscious they
therefore go down the channel of the instinct to which they belong, and
as they are swimming against the current they tend to block the flow of
that particular instinct and to cause it to express itself through the
subsidiary channel which they are endeavouring to open up.
It can readily be seen that serious consequences must arise from an
obstacle lodged in the fairway of so great a force and drawing to
itself, under the law of association of ideas, all thoughts that may
enter the mind on the same subject, or that have a real or symbolic
resemblance to it. As has been truly said, the subconscious grows at
the expense of the conscious, and the balance of the mind is upset;
the thrust of life, the source of all energy, instead of flowing
freely from level to level, is blocked by the complex and held up
in the subconscious, causing the pressure on that level to rise to
danger-point, while the conscious mind is sapped of its vitality,
producing an individual of imperative and chaotic needs, which he is
unable to formulate, even to himself, and with no power to give them
expression or obtain their satisfaction.
CHAPTER XVIII
SYMBOLISATION
We may picture the dissociated complex, with the pressure of an
instinct behind it, constantly seeking to evade the censor and return
to consciousness, where its wishes can be translated into action; and
see how the censor, reinforced by the whole weight of the character,
resolutely refuses to permit its escape.
We have seen that the dissociated complex, following the ordinary laws
of association, forms alliances with ideas which have a symbolical or
fanciful connection with itself. These ideas, not being in themselves
objectionable to the character, are permitted by the censor to
enter consciousness; then the dissociated complex, taking advantage
of its alliance with them, pours its bottled-up emotion along the
association-channels thus formed, and so obtains an outlet into
consciousness, giving rise, however, to very different results from
those which were its original intention, and producing those irrational
likes, dislikes, and eccentricities which are characteristic of the
person whose mind is not working smoothly.
An example of this is shown in the case of a woman who noticed that
the brass plates on doctors’ doors had a peculiar fascination for
her; when enquiry was made into her history, it was found that, in her
youth, she had fallen in love with the family physician, who was a
married man; feeling this affection to be wrong, she had firmly put it
out of her life (i.e., put it into her subconscious). The association
between the doctor and the brass plate was obvious enough, but as brass
plates were unobjectionable, the censor offered no resistance to them,
and the emotion which centred round the doctor whose image was buried
in her subconscious was permitted to reach consciousness transferred to
the innocent brass plate.
The subconscious makes use of symbolism in precisely the same way that
the poet does, but it employs a device which the poet does not, it
remembers that a pair of opposites have a connecting-link in their very
polarity, and uses a negative to express a positive, if the positive
is repugnant to the character. Thus an unmarried woman, whose healthy
sex instinct has been denied fulfilment through husband and children,
may become morbid, and read literature concerning the repression of
the White Slave traffic _ad nauseam_; and becoming worse, may develop
what is called old maids’ insanity, and imagine that perfectly innocent
men are pestering her with immoral attentions (which in her heart she
secretly desires), and go to the police for protection.
CHAPTER XIX
PHANTASIES, DREAMS, AND DELUSIONS
We have already seen that emotion is intimately allied with instinct,
and that it is the thrust of the urging instincts that drives us
to action, making us seek to appease the needs of our nature and
incidentally fulfil certain racial and evolutionary ends.
Our first attempt, urged on by these promptings, is to bring about
the realisation of our desires in the external world by means of
bodily effort; but should this effort fail to achieve its purpose, or
should circumstances deny us the opportunity to make this effort with
any hope of success, then the mind often falls back upon a secondary
achievement, and images its success in the realms of phantasy and
make-believe, where there are no laws of cause and effect to check its
operations, and Cinderella in her kitchen constructs a phantasy of the
Prince’s ball. She sees her wish acted out to its fulfilment in the
theatre of her mind.
This factor in our nature influences a large proportion of our mental
processes, and is considered to be the chief factor in determining the
nature, not only of our dreams, but also of the symptoms of nervous and
mental diseases, as will be seen later.
During sleep the avenues of the physical senses, whereby impressions
reach the mind, are more or less closed, and the ego, which never
ceases its activities, is thrown back upon the resources of its
memories. Unguided by the reason and judgment, it reviews these,
following along the chains of associated ideas according to the laws of
memory, which we considered in an earlier chapter.
These wanderings, however, though carried out with the illogicality
which distinguishes the lower levels of our mind, are not entirely
purposeless, being determined by various factors. It may be that
physical or sensory impressions, dimly discerned during sleep through
the partially closed doors of the senses, will give rise to a train
of thought, or the matters upon which the mind has been busied during
the day may continue to occupy it in an undirected fashion during
sleep; but the dream-determining element to which most attention has
been directed in modern psychology is the upsurging of the instinctive
wishes which have been denied fulfilment in waking life, so that in our
dreams we see realised, as in phantasy, the wishes which have failed to
gain realisation in reality, or may even have failed to gain access to
our consciousness owing to the operation of the censor which strives to
exclude from consciousness all distressing or repulsive matters; for in
sleep all our painfully acquired civilisation falls away from us, the
higher centres of our being are in abeyance, and our primitive, natural
self, controlled but never abolished, expresses its fundamental,
untutored desires in their elemental form.
These wishes, however, are seldom expressed directly. So foreign are
they to our civilised selves that even in sleep our habits of thinking
assert themselves and exercise some check upon what shall be expressed;
but they are generally distorted almost beyond recognition by the
substitutions of more acceptable ideas for crude images of instinctive
needs, and as the subconscious mind links ideas together according to
their superficial or accidental associations, it will be seen that
strange and tangled dramas will be acted out upon the stage of the mind
in an effort to represent the fulfilment of some primitive instinctive
wish.
Modern methods of psychological research make much use of dreams in the
effort to investigate the levels of the mind to which we have no direct
access, and psychotherapy uses the same method in order to trace the
disorders of the mind to their cause. For if the train of thought which
the mind has followed in its progression from a crude instinctive,
often physical, wish to the completed dream-drama be traced back again
from the images of the dream to the underlying ideas which gave rise to
them, we can lay bare the hidden springs of motive and character; hence
the great use that has been made of the method of dream analysis in
modern psychotherapy.
It is interesting to note that the delusions of lunatics are
constructed upon exactly the same principles as the phantasies of
our castles in the air; they also represent the fulfilment of wishes
that have been denied their realisation, and have achieved their
ultimate form through the same primitive methods of thinking that
are responsible for our dreams; in fact, they may be looked upon as
a phantasy which has progressed a step nearer realisation than the
day-dream.
The symptoms of the hysteric have a similar origin, but represent the
wishes of dissociated complexes instead of the wishes of the whole
personality as happens in insanity.
Thus we may see that, should our desires be denied expression in
our lives, they will construct dream castles for themselves during
sleep in which we may temporarily dwell as monarch of all we survey;
and should these desires be very imperative, should a large part of
our nature be involved in them, then the dream may overflow into
waking consciousness, and we shall live among our own subjective mind
pictures, instead of among objective realities, and act out the part
we have assigned ourselves in the dream-drama, to the consternation of
onlookers who pronounce us insane.
The lunatic, however, is not irrational, he is absolutely rational if
once his premises be granted, for he carries the logical deductions
from these premises to their ultimate conclusion. And once it be
realised that some fundamental and essentially natural wish lies at the
root of these phantasies which we see him acting out, then we shall see
that the clue to the treatment of insanity lies in these wishes and the
region of the mind that gives rise to them.
CHAPTER XX
PSYCHOTHERAPY
While many forms of mental disease have a physical origin in the brain,
nervous system, and state of the blood, many others are purely mental
from beginning to end, although the body may be chosen as the scene of
some of their manifestations. Modern medicine is learning to deal with
mental diseases by mental methods, and of these the principal types may
be of interest. It must be remembered, however, that psychotherapy is
the youngest of the sciences, and is still in its experimental stage;
and that though magnificent work has been done by the pioneers, they
cannot claim to have said the last word upon the structure of the human
mind, for even if they knew all that was to be known, leaving nothing
to be discovered by future investigation, which they would be the last
to claim on their own behalf, though their disciples are not always
blessed with the same modesty of genius, evolution is moving on, with
the human mind at its apex, so that statements which were true of human
nature before the Great War may have to be modified and supplemented
when the Great Peace becomes an established fact.
Our knowledge of the mind, its diseases and therapy, is far from
complete. The investigation of each human mind is in the nature of a
voyage of discovery; though the coastline of the mental landscape may
be known to us, the hinterland is unmapped. We do not know what lies
behind the human personality; we are equally ignorant of the exact
nature of its relations with its environment, and while our knowledge
is in this state we cannot speak upon any point with finality.
CHAPTER XXI
PSYCHOANALYSIS
The foundations of this method and theory were laid by Sigmund
Freud of Vienna, and set forth by him in his epoch-making book,
the _Interpretation of Dreams_, published in 1900. Two schools of
psychoanalysis exist at the present time: the Vienna school, which
adheres strictly to the doctrines of Freud; and the Zurich school,
which subscribes to a modification of these doctrines as taught by Dr.
Jung.
While both schools agree upon general principles as to the anatomy of
the mind, they differ in their teaching as to the _modus operandi_ of
mental disease. Freud holds that functional nervous disorders are due
to the retention by the subconscious mind of an infantile attitude
towards life, and especially towards sex, and that this attitude,
which should have been outgrown and left behind, sets up stresses and
strains in the mind which lead to the manifestations of mental disease.
He gives us the concept of the accumulation of emotion in this wound
in the mind, just as pus accumulates in an abscess, giving rise to
tenderness and pain. He conceives the function of the psychoanalyst
to be to lance this abscess by bringing the subject of distress into
consciousness, whereby the repressed emotion is realised and fully
experienced, and thereby got rid of. This process is technically known
as ABREACTION.
The psychologist who conducts the analysis is very likely to be the
recipient of this repressed emotion because, at the moment of its
arrival in consciousness, he is apt to be standing in the line of
fire. This acceptance of the repressed emotion by the operator is
conceived to be a most important phase of the cure, and is known as the
TRANSFERENCE.
That this factor of the transference opens a door to most serious
difficulties and dangers cannot be denied. The via media between undue
influence and callous indifference is hard to find. It is maintained
that more analysis will work off the emotion which much analysis has
succeeded in lying bare, but in actual practice the process is not so
simple and often leads to complications.
This transference of emotion to the analyst, together with the
deleterious effects of continual and prolonged dwelling upon the
unsavoury aspects of life which takes place in a psychoanalysis,
constitute serious objections to this method of therapy.
Jung holds that mental disease is due to a failure of adaptation in
the present, leading to regression to an infantile mode of thinking.
It will thus be seen that the two theories, while based upon the same
data, are fundamentally different, and must lead to differences in
practical application.
Both schools explore the subconscious mind by means of dream analysis,
and to this method the Zurich school also adds the method known as
word reaction. The process of dream analysis is extremely complicated.
Briefly, the patient is instructed to recount a dream, and this dream
is then taken point by point, and the “free associations” traced out
in the following manner. He is instructed to take an image in his
dream as a starting-point, turn his mind loose, and watch where it
goes, the theory being that it will retrace the association train of
ideas by which the dream image was derived from the underlying wish.
An elaborate technique exists for interpreting these dream images; so
elaborate as to be beyond the scope of the present volume. How much of
this technique is sound and how much is arbitrary is still a matter of
opinion among psychologists; we have little data as yet as to the part
played by unintentional suggestion on the part of the psychoanalyst,
no doubt a considerable factor in some cases, and an exceedingly
falsifying and misleading one.
The word association method of Jung is less open to objection on the
ground of arbitrariness, and its operation is simpler. A list of
anything from a dozen to a hundred or more words is made out. The
first half-dozen words have usually no particular significance, but
then follow a series of words believed to be specially associated
with the different types of complex which may become split off from
consciousness; lists of these have been worked out by different
students of this school, but although one of these lists is usually
used as a basis, the analyst generally inserts words which he
believes will especially bear upon the patient’s particular problems.
These words are called out to the patient, one at a time, and he
is instructed to utter the first word that comes into his head in
connection with each. The time he takes to do this is taken by a
stop-watch usually working to one-fifth of a second. The first
half-dozen of unimportant words will show the patient’s average
reaction time, but if any words among the subsequent ones have special
significance for him, there will be a perceptible lengthening of the
time he takes to reply; moreover the replies may be curious, and either
show special bearing upon his problems, or, by their irrelevancy, show
that the original idea was discarded as unspeakable and a substitute
hastily extemporised. If the list be read over again it will be found
that, whereas those words which have no special significance are
usually responded to by the same reaction word, those which bear upon
the patient’s emotions produce a change in the reaction word. Free
association is then resorted to, as in the case of dream symbols,
to discover the underlying train of ideas and the factors in the
subconscious from which they derive their emotion.
Many Freudians make use of this method also, and indeed the two methods
of dream analysis and word association are generally regarded as
supplementary. The chief value of the latter lies in the fact that it
can be used in cases where the patient is either unable or reluctant to
co-operate.
The difference in the view-point of the two schools of psychoanalysis
leads to a difference in the method of handling the patient; the
Freudian who believes that all nerve trouble is due to the retention
of infantile habits of thinking, confines himself to analysis and
nothing but analysis, offering the patient little or nothing in the way
of explanation or instruction, but simply aiding him to lay bare the
depths of his subconscious mind, believing that by so doing pent-up
emotions will be worked off and split-off complexes reassociated to
the personality. The disciple of Jung, on the other hand, believing
that the trouble is due to a present failure of adaptation, though
using the psychoanalytic method to reveal and bring into consciousness
the dissociated complexes, uses a considerable amount of teaching and
explanation in an endeavour to enable the patient to assimilate the
fruits of experience and adapt himself to his environment. The Freudian
complains that the follower of Jung beclouds the issue by unintentional
suggestion, and the latter accuses the former of unnecessarily
prolonging the process by leaving the patient to find his own way
unaided by a wider experience.
The teaching and explanatory method, generally known as re-education,
is chiefly associated with the name of du Bois, who was its
original exponent, but as, in his day, the psychoanalytic method of
investigating the causes of mental disease was unknown, he was often
groping in the dark, and dealing with secondary symptoms and effects,
so that his method fell into disrepute in the eyes of the new school;
but that this method, wisely handled, can be of great benefit in
expediting a cure and lessening the painfulness of the process is
beyond gainsay.
CHAPTER XXII
HYPNOSIS, SUGGESTION, AND AUTOSUGGESTION
Much popular misapprehension exists with regard to the phenomenon known
as hypnosis. It may briefly be described as a condition in which the
reason and judgment of the subject are in temporary abeyance, and any
idea presented to him will be accepted without reflection, and take
so strong a hold upon the mind that it will act itself out almost
automatically. This condition of passive receptivity graduates from
slight abstraction, almost undistinguishable from normal consciousness,
to a condition resembling sleep, or the cataleptic rigidity of deep
trance. Its manifestations and characteristics are manifold and most
curious and instructive, but beyond the scope of the present work.
Different hypnotists use different methods of inducing this condition,
but the main factor in all of them is the fixation and arrestation of
the attention and the use of suggestion. It is generally held that it
is autosuggestion on the part of the subject, induced by the hypnotist,
that is the crux of the whole problem, and that without this internal
co-operation, which is often of an unconscious and involuntary nature,
the work of the operator would be unavailing.
Hypnosis is the oldest known method of psychotherapy, and, in
conjunction with psychoanalysis, is coming to the front again in the
treatment of nervous cases and especially of shell shock.
The term suggestion is apt to be used somewhat loosely to denote any
concept offered by one person to another, but in its psychological
sense it is used to denote those ideas which are slipped into the
mind of a person without being submitted to his judgment; in its
psychotherapeutic sense, however, it is reserved for the process
of inserting ideas in the mind while the patient is in a state of
artificially induced drowsiness, but not unconscious under deep
hypnosis.
Autosuggestion, or the insertion of ideas in the subconscious by
the conscious mind of the person concerned, has been reduced to a
therapeutic system by the New Nancy School of psychology, and is
associated with the name of Emile Coué. It is held by this school
that suggestibility, or the faculty of permitting ideas to so possess
the mind that they express themselves in action, is a normal human
faculty; and although it is the cause of many, or even most of the
ills that both mind and body are heir to, it is not in itself a morbid
condition, but is a necessary factor in educability, evil only arising
when wrong ideas exploit this faculty. We can, however, equally well
make use of it for the expression of good ideas, with great benefit
to our character and health. Suggestion, and, in intractable cases,
hypnosis, is made use of by the New Nancy School, not as a direct
remedial method, but to teach the use of autosuggestion whereby
the patient cures himself and is able to prevent any recrudescence
of his malady. It is claimed that this method increases a person’s
self-reliance instead of undermining it, and is of the greatest value,
not only as a therapeutic agent, but as an educational method, and its
use in this aspect is urged. But although it is of acknowledged value
in the cure of disease, it is questionable whether it might not lead
to artificiality and warping of the nature if applied to the growing
mind that was developing along normal lines. Only the most judicious
guidance could avoid this pitfall.
It is impossible in a book of this nature to give a knowledge of the
psychotherapeutic methods that can be of any practical use; the reader
must refer to the many text-books upon the subject if such is desired.
It must, however, be realised that the modern methods of dealing with
the mind are extremely potent, and that it is possible to completely
wreck a nature by their injudicious use. A knowledge, however, of the
principles of mental hygiene can be nothing but beneficial, though the
actual treatment of mental or nervous disease should be avoided by
the amateur, for, whatever his theoretical knowledge, the practical
experience of hospital and asylum work can alone give accuracy of
diagnosis. The beginnings of certain forms of insanity are very hard to
distinguish from nerve trouble, even by the expert, and the amateur who
tries his prentice hand upon such a case by mistake is likely to have
his error painfully and forcibly impressed upon his mind.
Psychotherapy is the youngest of the sciences and in a state of
vigorous and healthy growth, but there is as yet no orthodox body of
doctrine which is regarded as being thoroughly established and accepted
by all schools of thought. The lay reader, for whom this book is
designed, would do well to be on his guard against dogmatic expressions
of opinion which may be presented to him, either in lecture or in
print, for our knowledge is not in a state to warrant them. We have
learnt much, but we do not know all, and until we know much more than
we do now, we must keep an open mind and judge tentatively. The popular
vogue of applied psychology among those who are not in a position to
form first-hand opinions makes this warning necessary. There is no
“truth once and for all delivered” by a prophet on a mountain, but an
earnest band of men and women adding stone by stone to the temple of
human knowledge.
The various methods of psychotherapy outlined here have each and all
their value, but no one of them is a panacea for all the ills that
flesh is heir to; the science is in its infancy, and the percentage of
cure is by no means satisfactory. There is no standard of training for
either medical men or lay analysts and owing to the great emphasis laid
upon sex by the modern schools, the method is open to grave abuses in
inexpert or unclean hands.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF PSYCHOLOGY
Those who have read the foregoing pages will see that there are certain
broad divisions into which they fall. Let us now review these divisions
in their relation to the practical art of living.
The first great division we studied was concerned with the levels
into which the mind was divided and the types of thinking which were
carried on in each of them. The problems of memory and concentration
are closely concerned with these levels and the interrelations between
them. If an idea, after entering the mind, disappears into the
subconscious, we say it is forgotten and regard it as lost. This, we
have seen, is not the case, however. It is stored in the subconscious,
and we can make use of it even if we cannot gain direct access to it.
There is an old story concerning the advice that was given to a judge
newly raised to the bench, “Give your decision, it is probably right;
but do not give your reasons, they are very likely to be wrong.” Which
is merely a pithy way of saying: “Let your subconscious work out your
decision in the light of the enormous masses of data it possesses,
including the exact reproduction of every law-book you have ever read,
every remark, however casual, you have ever heard, together with the
accumulated experience of your race, all of which you are heir to, and
it will probably be right; but if you try to rationalise this decision,
to explain it in terms of your conscious knowledge, you may make
mistakes, because your conscious mind does not know nearly as much as
your subconscious.”
If we would learn to trust our subconscious methods of thinking, we
should be astonished to find what they are capable of. Genius might
be defined as the power of utilising the subconscious mind, and
inspiration as a subliminal uprush.
Memory also can be greatly improved by taking advantage of the
faculty of association of ideas, a faculty upon which the different
memory systems are founded. If we take any idea we wish to remember
and clearly image it in association with some idea of the same class
that is so familiar to us that it is a permanent part of our mental
furniture, then the two concepts will get stuck together, and we can
always use the second to summon the first.
The instincts and their development and method of functioning form a
second great division of our subject. It will be seen that we must view
our life in relation to the instincts and not to the reason, but it
must not be forgotten that the instincts themselves are evolving or
rather perhaps becoming modified in their expressions by the pressure
of new conditions, and in the course of their evolution are being
steadily socialised and civilised, so although we must realise that, in
their primitive form, they lie at the base of our being, yet in their
evolved form they also function at its apex, and that if we are to live
well, we must harmonise their manifestation upon every level of our
being.
The third and most important division, from the standpoint of practical
living, is that which deals with the mechanisms by means of which the
mind adapts itself to its environment. We should make it our aim to
achieve adaptation in the conscious mind by absorbing and assimilating
all experience, realising that we can learn our lessons from that which
is evil as well as from that which is good, and that any experience,
however evil, from which we learn a lesson is converted from poison
into food.
While it is necessary that certain types of ideas should be repressed
lest they should translate themselves into action, let us never forget
that repression need not necessarily imply dissociation, which is an
unmixed evil. Dissociation would never occur if we were honest with
ourselves. When we refuse to admit, even to ourselves, that our nature
possesses certain primitive aspects, we prevent the ideas connected
with these aspects from being affiliated to our personality and taking
their place in our mental life; they therefore become foreign bodies
in the mind, technically termed dissociated complexes, which function
independently of the main ego complex.
Instead of taking this attitude, let us recognise the existence
of these primitive impulses in ourselves; and when we find their
manifestations obtruding themselves, let us gently but firmly put them
in their place, and see to it that they do not obtain the upper hand.
Let us never forget the enormous power of autosuggestion, for the
subconscious mind will tend to translate into action any image that
is presented to it sufficiently vividly, especially if that image be
charged with emotion. Let us therefore be very careful what mental
pictures we permit ourselves to dwell upon persistently, whether
with fear or desire, for they will mould our lives and even our
circumstances to an extent we little realise.
Our whole aim should be to maintain the integrity of the personality,
to prevent any splitting off of complexes of ideas, and to see that the
instincts, welling up in the deeper levels of our nature, should find
their channels clear and unobstructed, so that they may flow out into
action on the higher levels of our life.
CHAPTER XXIV
CONCLUSION
It has been said that there is no scrap of knowledge concerning the
remotest star which will not, sooner or later, be found to have its
bearing upon the problems of human life, and we may well ask what the
science of human nature itself has to contribute to the solution of our
daily problems.
The practical application of psychology has certain well-defined
spheres. Its bearing upon education has long been recognised, and
much valuable work done in relation to the study of the child mind.
The psychology of fatigue, in relation to industrial efficiency, has
also found recognition as a branch of applied science not without its
practical value. The field of social problems is still largely awaiting
exploration, and there can be little doubt that the study of the
psychology of the criminal and unemployable would yield results of the
greatest social value.
At the present moment, it is the field of abnormal psychology that
holds the focus of attention. That inestimably valuable results are
being obtained in this field of study no one can dispute, but its value
is not confined to the relief of disease alone, but, as the research
is progressing deeper, to the revelation of the conditions that give
rise to disease. Just as the study of pathology gave us the science
of hygiene, so the study of mental diseases is showing us the way
to healthier thinking. It is teaching us that any abnormal attitude
towards life will produce mental discomfort, if not actual disease, and
it is showing us, just as physiological hygiene has shown us, that if
the developing intelligence of man leads him to depart from primitive
conditions wherein the instincts are sufficient guides, then he must
also apply his reason to the new problems to which the new conditions
give rise, and not leave the solution of these to instincts which
are only fitted for the simplest form of functioning. The instinct
of combativeness, or the instinct of flight, will not conduct the
evolutions of a modern army, and neither will the primitive impulses
enable man to live well and happily in conditions which elaborate
mental processes have built up--as witness the terrible prevalence
of unsolved sex problems beneath the fair show of our civilisation.
Two-thirds, if not more, of nerve trouble have their origin in the
efforts of a primitive instinct to function under civilised conditions
and its failure to make the adaptation. We need to take our instincts
out of the region of the subconscious and apply our reason to them if
we are to solve the problems that press upon us.
Throughout this book it will have been seen that stress has been laid
upon the functioning and activity of those levels of the mind that are
below the threshold of consciousness, and that it has been pointed out
that the instincts, and not the reason, are the key to the human mind.
But it has also been shown that the mind is in a state of evolution,
and that reason, as its latest development, has an equal biological
significance with the instincts of sex and self-preservation, and that
we can no more afford to ignore the higher attributes of the human mind
than we can afford to deny their true place to the primitive.
Briefly, the primitive man lies at the base of our being, but the
divine man stands at its apex, and we, in our ascent, are in a
transition stage, with subconscious and superconscious not yet
correlated in the conscious mind. We do not see our past and future
save in the dim pictures of dream and vision, by the uncertain gleam
of intuition rather than the clear light of reason, and no solution of
any human problem, either social or psychological, can be valid which
does not look to the future as well as the past. Hitherto psychology
has sought its standards of normality in the primitive and subhuman,
forgetting that the flower of humanity is a natural product as well as
its weeds; that religion, charity and idealism are as much a part of
human nature as those primitive instincts which give rise to unnameable
crimes. A psychology which looks to the past can show us causes, but
it is only a psychology which looks to the future which can find us
cures. Evolution did not cease its progress when it produced the cave
man guarding his family, but evolved the “Save the Children Fund,”
which before the echoes of the last shot had died away was sending
succour to the helpless young of an enemy herd.
A psychology which bases its philosophy upon a return to the primitive,
especially if that psychology undertakes the solution of human
problems, individual or collective, is ignoring the data of evolution.
We know that all life originated in the sea, and that the young of
many species still pass the first phase of their life in the water.
When, however, they have come ashore, and the gills have given place
to lungs, they cease to be water creatures, and the structural traces
of their origin are vestigial and not functional, and a frog can be
drowned as easily as any other air-breathing creature, despite his
tadpole past. So it is with the human psyche, unquestionably it has
passed through a primitive phase in the course of its development, but
if, in an effort to remedy some faulty development, it be thrust back
to that phase after evolving to a higher one, it will perish as surely
as the frog thrust under water. It should be the aim of psychotherapy,
not to reduce the mind to its primitive elements and point of view,
but rather to help humanity to make that transition from the lower to
the higher which evolution is forcing upon us, whether we will or no.
Adaptation to environment is the key to life, and the environment to
which an individual must be aided to adjust himself, if such aid be
sought, is not that environment which, generation by generation, is
receding further into the past, but that future which hour by hour is
becoming the present, and from which there is no escape.
It should be the aim of psychotherapy to work out the arc which
evolution is describing, and to set the feet of racial wanderers upon
its path. It is a futile and dangerous philosophy which proposes a
return to the past as an escape from the present.
Geology, zoology, sociology, and comparative psychology, all show us
the evolution of that which is simple into that which is complex, from
the cave man, with his few needs and problems, to the complications
of a modern industrial society. And we see in the little segment of
the evolutionary arc with which we are most closely concerned that
the chief factor is the herd instinct which is pressing us all the
time towards a more complete socialisation of humanity, and that
any adaptation which an individual makes must be in relation to his
integration as a social unit and not to his needs as a solitary
individual.
Diagnostic and descriptive psychology must be distinguished from
remedial psychology of which we have had all too little. Research on
the abnormal mind alone will not give us the key to a healthy life,
we must study social psychology as well as individual psychology,
because man is a social animal, and his mental processes are determined
by this fact; any adaptation he makes, and adaptation is the basis of
psychotherapy, must be in relation to his social group as well as to
his own subconscious wishes; it is not enough to bring these wishes
into the light of consciousness, they must be synthesised with the
rest of the personality, to the social organisation of which that
personality is a unit, and to the great evolutionary drift of which
even the race itself is but a partial expression. Psychotherapy may
begin with the primitive, but it must end with the divine, for both are
integral factors in the human mind.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Spelling and grammatical errors on page 81 (Chapter XXI) have been left
unchanged.
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