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The Journal of Abnormal Psychology vol 10

U >> Unkown >> The Journal of Abnormal Psychology vol 10




The study of human nature should, in short, begin at the top, rather than at
the bottom; just as, if one had to choose what phase of a symphony one would
choose in order to get an idea of its perfection, one would take some
culminating moment rather than the first few notes simply because they were
the first. To be accurate, one could not do justice to the symphony except
by studying it as a whole, and similarly one should study the man as a
whole, including his relations to the universe as a whole. It is as wholes
that great poets conceived of their poems and great artists of their
pictures, and it is as a whole that each and every human life, standing as
it does as the representative of the body of the universe, and the spirit of
the universe, on the other, should implicitly be viewed.

The psychologist should sympathize deeply with the anatomist and the
physiologist and the student of cerebral pathology, but equally deeply with
the philosopher and the metaphysician who study the implications, present
although hidden, that point to the bonds between the individual and the
universe. To fail to recognize that these bonds exist,--as is done when the
attempt is made to study human beings as if they were really and exclusively
the product of their historic past conceived of in an organic sense,--would
be to try to build one-half of an arch and expect it to endure. The truth
is, we do not, in my opinion, genuinely believe that a human is nothing but
the product of his organic past, or the product of his experience.

We believe, by implication, in our metaphysical selves and our corresponding
obligations, more strongly than we have taught ourselves to recognize. But
to this fact we make ourselves blind through a species of repression, just
as many a child, confident of its parents' affection, assumes, for his own
temporary purposes, the right to accuse them of hostile intentions which
they do not entertain.

We forget, or repress, the fact that the mind of man cannot be made subject
to the laws of physics, and yet we proceed to deal with the phenomena
dependent on the working of the mind of man as if these laws actually did
prevail.

The misleading effects of this tendency are clearly seen where it is a
question of the conclusions to be drawn from the researches, admirable in
themselves, made under the influence of the genetic method.

The notion seems to prevail that we should prepare ourselves for the
formation of just ideas with regard to the mode in which the higher
faculties of men come into existence by wiping the slate clean to the extent
of assuming that we have before us no data except some few acts or thoughts
that are definable in the simplest possible terms, and then watching what
happens as the situation becomes more complicated. But one is apt to forget,
in doing this, that there is one thing which we cannot wipe off the
slate,--namely, ourselves, not taken in the Bergsonian sense alone, but as
fully fledged persons, possessed of the very qualities for which we
undertake to search, yet without the possession of which the search could
not begin. This does not, of course, militate against the value of these
genetic researches in one sense. The study of evolutional sequences is
still, and forever will be, of enormous value. But it does not teach us
nearly as much of the nature of real creativeness as we can learn through
the introspection of ourselves in the fullest sense; and I maintain that
psychoanalysts are persons who could do this to advantage.

Is not the notion that through the careful watching of the sequences of the
evolutionary process, as if from without, we can get an adequate idea of the
forces that really are at work, exactly the delusion by which the skillful
juggler tries to deceive his audience when he directs their attention to the
shifting objects that he manipulates, and away from his own swiftly moving
hands?

My contention is that there are other means of studying the force which we
call "Libido" besides that of noting its effects. The justification for this
statement is that the force itself is identical, in the last analysis, with
that which we feel within ourselves and know as reason, as imagination, and
as will, conscious of themselves, and capable of giving to us, directly or
indirectly, the only evidence we could ever hope to get, for the existence
of real creativeness, spontaneity and freedom.

Every work of art, worthy of the name, gives evidence of the action not
alone of a part of a man, but of the whole man; not only of his repressed
emotions, but of his intelligence and insight, and of relationships existing
between his life and all the other forms of life with which his own is
interwoven.

Unity must prevail throughout all nature. Either we are,--altogether, and
through and through, our best as well as our less good,--nothing but the
expression of repressed cravings, in the sense that they or the conflicts
based on them constitute the final causa vera of all progress; or else the
best that is in us and also our repressed cravings are alike due to the
action of a form of energy which is virtually greater than either one of
them, inasmuch as it has the capacity of developing into something greater
than either.

This is the agency which we should preeminently study and it is best studied
under conditions when, instead of being obviously subject to repression, it
is most free from repression. That is, it is best studied as it appears in
the thoughts and conduct of the best men, at their best, their most
constructive moments.

We cannot use our power of reason to deny our reason; for in so doing we
affirm the very thing which we deny. Nor are we under the necessity of using
our reason to affirm our reason, since that is the datum without which we
cannot undertake our task.

If this view is sound, what practical conclusions can we draw from it? I
wish to insist on this question because it was distinctly and positively
with the practical end in mind that I ventured to write this paper, and I
suggest the following as a few of these conclusions.

(I) We should not speak of the "Libido," in whatever sense this word is
taken, as if it were a fixed quantity, like so much heat, or so much fluid,
that is, as representing so much mesaurable force. One current notion which
has played a very useful part in psychoanalytic work, yet is misleading in
its tendency, is that the "Libido" may be likened to a river which if it
cannot find an outlet through its normal channel is bound to overflow its
banks and perhaps furrow out a new path. This conception is based on this
same law of the conservation of energy to which reference has been made.
If, however, I am right in my contention that the "Libido" is only one
manifestation of an energy,-- greater than simply "vital,"--which can be
studied to the best purpose only among men whose powers have been cultivated
to the best advantage, then it will be seen that this conception of "Libido"
as a force of definite amount is not justifiable by the facts.

One does not find that love or reason is subject to this quantitative law.
On the contrary, the persons whom most of us recognize as of the highest
type do not love any given individual less because their love takes in
another. The bond of love holds not only three, but an indefinite number.

The same statement may be made with regard to reason and to will. The power
and quantity of them are not exhausted but are increased by use.

I maintain, then, that although the "Libido," in so far as it is regarded as
an instinct, does not stand on the same footing with the reason and
disinterested love of a person of high cultivation and large views, neither
does it stand on the same footing with the physical energy that manifests
itself in light and heat and gravitation.

When we come to deal with man and any of his attributes, or as we find them
at any age, we ought to look upon him, in my estimation, as animated in some
measure by his self-foreshadowing best. And whether it is dreams with which
we have to do, or neurotic conflicts, or wilfulness, or regression, we shall
learn to see, more and more, as we become accustomed to look for evidences
thereof, the signs of this sort of promise, just as we might hope to learn
to find, more and more, through the inspection of a lot of seeds of
different plants, the evidences which would enable us to see the different
outcomes which each one is destined to achieve, even though, at first, they
all looked just alike.

(2) The next point has reference to "sublimation." This outcome of
individual evolution, as defined by Freud, has a strictly social, not an
ethical, meaning. Jung also, in the interesting paper referred to, in his
description of the rational aims of psychoanalysis, makes sublimation
(though he does not there use the word) the equivalent of a subjective sense
of well being, combined with the maximum of biologic effectiveness.

"Die Psychoanalyse soll eine biologische Methode sein, welche das hoechste
subjektive Wohlbefinden mit der wertwollsten biologischen Leistung zu
vereinigen sucht."

But in my opinion, while it may be true that the psychoanalyst may often
have reason to be thankful if he can claim a therapeutic outcome of this
sort, the logical goal of a psychoanalytic treatment is not covered by the
securing of a relative freedom from subjective distress, even when combined
with the satisfactory fulfillment of one's biologic mission. A man has
higher destinies than this, and the sense of incompleteness felt by the
neurotic patient, which was emphasized by Janet and is recognized by us all,
must be more or less painfully felt by every man whose conscience does not
assure him that he is really working for an end greater than that here
specified. The logical end of a psychoanalytic treatment is the recovery of
a full sense of one's highest destiny and origin and of the bearings and
meanings of one's life.

On similar grounds I think that the conflicts to which all men find
themselves subjected, must be considered, in the last analysis, as conflicts
of an ethical description. For it is only in ethical terms that one can
define one's relation to the universe regarded as a whole, just as it is
only in ethical terms that a man could describe his sense of obligation to
support the dignity of fine family traditions or the ideals represented by a
team or a social group of which he felt reason to be proud. I realize that a
man's sense of pride of his family, his team, or his country may be a
symptom of narcistic self-adulation; but like all such signs and
symbols--the symbol of the church tower, for example--this is a case where
two opposing meanings meet.

Every act and motive of our lives, from infancy to age, is controlled by two
sets of influences, the general nature of which has here been made
sufficiently clear. They correspond on the one hand, to the numerous partial
motives which psychoanalysis studies to great advantage, and on the other
hand, to the ethical motives which are only thoroughly studied by
philosophy.

(3) Another conclusion, which seems to me practically of great importance,
follows from this same view. Every one who has studied carefully the life
histories of patients, especially of children, and has endeavored in so
doing to follow step by step the experiences through which they reach the
various mile-stones on their journey, must have been astonished to observe
the evidences of PREPAREDNESS on their part for each new step in this long
journey. Human beings seem predestined, as it were, not only in a physical
but in a mental sense, for what is coming, and the indications of this in
the mental field are greater than the conditions of organic evolution could
readily account for. The transcendency of the mind over the brain shows
itself here as elsewhere.

We are told that our visions of the unpicturable, the ideal world, which our
imagination paints and which our logical reasoning calls for as the
necessary cap or final corollary to any finite world which our intelligence
can actually define,-- that such visions are nothing but the pictures of
infantile desires projected on to a great screen and made to mock us with
the appearance of reality.

I have nothing whatever to say against the value of the evidence that a
portion of our visions are of this origin. In fact, I believe this as
heartily as does any one. But I desire strenuously to oppose the view
tacitly implied in the statement of the projection theory just cited, the
acceptance of which as an exclusive doctrine would involve the virtual
rejection of our right, as scientific men, to rely on the principle that the
evidence afforded by logical presuppositions and logical inference is as
cogent as that furnished through observation.

It is, in my opinion, just because we all belong to a world which is in
outline not "in the making" but completed,--because, in short, we are in one
sense like heirs returning to our estates,--that this remarkable
preparedness of each child is found that impresses us so strongly. The
universe is, in a sense, ours by prescriptive right and by virtue of the
constitution of our minds. But the unity of such a universe must, of
course, be of a sort that includes and indeed implies diversity and conflict
as essential elements of its nature.

Psychoanalysts should not make light of inferential forms of reasoning, for
it is on this form of reasoning that the value of their own conclusions
largely rests. We infer contrary meanings for words that are used
ostensibly in one sense, and we infer special conflicts in infancy of which
we have but little evidence at hand, and cravings and passions of which it
may be impossible to find more than a few traces by way of direct testimony.

Our immediate environment and the world that surrounds us in that sense,
appear to our observation, indeed, as "in the making." But besides the power
of observation which enables, and indeed forces us to see the imperfection
in this environmental world, we possess, or are possessed by, a mental
constitution which compels us, with still greater force, to the belief in a
goal of positive perfection of which our nearer goals are nothing but the
shadow.

It is because I believe in the necessity of such reasoning as this that I am
not prepared to accept the "Lust-Unlust" principle (that is, to use
philosophical terms, the "hedonistic" principle) as representing the forces
by which even the child is finally animated. Men do not reach their best
accomplishments, if indeed they reach any accomplishment, through the
exclusive recognition, either unconscious or instinctive, of a utilitarian
result, or a result which can be couched in terms of pleasure or personal
satisfaction as the goal of effort. They may state the goal to themselves in
these terms; but this is, then, the statement of what is really a fictitious
principle, a principle in positing which the patient does but justify
himself and does not define his real motive. Utilitarianism and hedonism
and the pleasure-pain principle, useful though they are, are alike imperfect
in that they refer to partial motives, partial forms of self-expression;
whereas that which finally moves men to their best accomplishments and makes
them dissatisfied with anything less than this, is the necessity rather than
the desire to take complete self-expression as their final aim. The partial
motives are more or less traceable as if by observation. The larger motives
must be felt and reached through inferential reasoning, based on observation
of ourselves through careful introspection.

Finally, the practical, therapeutic question arises, as to what measures the
psychoanalyst is justified in taking to bring about the best sort of outcome
in a given case?

It is widely felt that the psychoanalyst would weaken his own hold on the
strong typically analytic principles through which painful conflicts are to
be removed if he should form the habit of dealing with ethical issues, and
talking of "duties", instead of stimulating his patients to the discovery of
resistances and repressions, even of repression the origin of which is not
to be found within the conscious life. Yet,--parallel, as one might say,
with this clear-cut standard of professional psychoanalytic obligation, the
force of which I recognize,--it has to be admitted that there are certain
fairly definite limitations to the usefulness of psychoanalysis. As one of
these limitations, well-pronounced symptoms of egoism, taking the form of
narcissism, are to be reckoned. These symptoms are not easily analyzed away.
But if one asks oneself, or asks one's patients, what conditions might, if
they had been present from the outset, have prevented this narcistic outcome
(Jehovah type, etc.), the influence that suggests itself--looming up in
large shape--is just this broad sense of ethical obligation to which
repeated reference has here been made. If these patients could have had it
brought home to them in childhood that they belonged, not to themselves
conceived of narrowly (that is, as separate individuals) but only to
themselves conceived of broadly as representatives of a series of
communities taken in the largest sense, the outcome that happened might
perhaps have been averted.

And what might have happened may still happen. What is to be done? Each
physician must decide this for himself. He should be able both to do his
best as a psychoanalyst and at the same time help the patient to free
himself from that sort of repression in consequence of which he is unable to
see his own best possibilities. But he cannot do this unless he has trained
himself to see and feel in himself the outlines of this vision any more than
he could help the patient to rid himself of an infantile complex if he did
not appreciate what this complex means. We must trust ourselves, as
physicians, with deadly weapons, and with deadly responsibilities, and we
ought to be well harried by our consciences if we should do injustice, in
using them, either to our scientific or our philosophic training.



ASPECTS OF DREAM LIFE[*]

[*] It should be stated as possibly bearing on the interpretation of the
dreams recorded by the author, who is well known to me, that she is the
subject of an intense and unusual obsession of hatred of an obtrusively
pathological character against a relative. The psycho-pathology of the
obsession, of which I have an intimate knowledge, has not been determined.
A reasonable interpretation is that the main etiological factor is jealousy.
She has undergone prolonged psychoanalytic treatment by a skilled
psycho-analyst without improvement of the obsession and without revealing a
satisfactory explanation of its pathology. To what extent the contents of
the dreams have been determined or coloured by culture acquired by this
treatment and by the study of Freudian doctrines is also a question
deserving of consideration.--Editor.

The Contribution of a Woman

IT is an easy matter to accept upon authority a given scientific theory and
bring to its support certain selected evidence, but quite another to
carefully observe and report phenomena, inspired, influenced and guided
indeed by the scientific-theory but drawing conclusions no wider or deeper
than individual insight warrants. Scientific knowledge advances not by ready
acceptance of theories but by original observation and experiment and the
following study of dreams is offered as fulfilling in some degree the latter
requirement. While there is a certain familiarity on the part of the writer
with the general theory advanced by Freud and with his principles of
interpretation, there is no acquaintance at first hand with his Die
Traumdeutung, the reading of which has been postponed lest there be excess
of influence.

No apology is offered for this invasion of the domain of psychology by a
layman. The laboratory of the mind is open to all and he who has missed
conventional training may yet chance upon valuable facts and their
interpretation. Neither is apology offered for the intimate nature of the
data reported. Belonging as dreams do to the most personal and private life
of the individual it is nevertheless true that continued and careful study
of this form of mentation insensibly alters one's attitude so that at length
the dream appears as a fact of nature, impersonal and objective.

It is a common remark that if one tells his dreams their number will
increase but this increase is probably only apparent. With attention the
products of the dream-self become more accessible until one who is practiced
in introspection can raise the number of his remembered dreams from one in
two or three nights to five, ten, or even fourteen in a single night. Even
at this maximum of remembrance one feels that but a fraction of the mind's
nocturnal activity is recalled. Images emerge in consciousness and fall back
into obscurity before the waking thought can grasp them. Or it may be more
accurate to say that upon awakening consciousness rises from level to level.
It sometimes happens that when first awake I recall several dreams which
vanish utterly as a sudden shifting of consciousness occurs. Then, upon this
new level, a new set of dreams appears. There is reason to believe that in
thinking again of a dream which has once been recalled it is not the
original dream experience which comes to mind but the copy made in the
waking consciousness when it first emerged. On the other hand visions
recognized as dreams belonging to a long past time occasionally float into
the mind giving rise to the suspicion that they have not before reached the
waking consciousness. It is possible that all dreams are recorded in the
depths of the mind, themselves influencing and merging with later dreams.

The number of my dreams recalled and written out during three years closely
approaches five thousand and without doubt the total number far exceeds
this. I am inclined to the belief that constantly, by day as well as by
night, we are dreaming; that unnoticed and independent trains of thought are
carried on. At times when resting if I fall into an abstracted state--not
of set purpose--I find myself in the midst of a stream of thought appearing,
for the moment, perfectly natural, familiar and intelligible, as if I knew
the beginning and end of the matter. But only for a moment will
consciousness remain at this lower level. There is a sudden return to the
normal plane, the passage fades from memory and I wonder what on earth it
was all about. These phases of subconscious activity differ from dreams
proper in the absence of visual images. The ideas are embodied in words,
heard with the mind one might say. The source may be the same as that of the
night visions but it is evident that during the day the incessant
stimulation of the eye from without leaves no opportunity for the emergence
of the secondary visual images pertaining to subconscious ideas, which, we
are told by Dr. Morton Prince, furnish the perceptual elements of the dream.
The other senses are sometimes represented. Often we are performing, or
trying to perform, some action. But dreams are predominantly visual. Goethe
has said, "I believe men only dream that they may not cease to see."

An account of the probable genesis of the memory images not only furnishes a
clue to the mechanism of dreaming but to the underlying conditions as well.
The lowest forms of life possess no image-forming power. They have no sense
organs; sensation is diffused over the entire form and undifferentiated.
Gradually, as the scale of life is ascended, certain parts of the organisms
become specially sensitive to certain stimuli and eventually individual
organs give separate and distinct reports of phenomena. A substance
hitherto merely felt, is seen, heard, smelled, tasted. The passage from
sensation to perception occurs when but one or two of the sense organs are
stimulated by an object, yet, because of nervous connections established
during former more close and complete experience of the object the remaining
sense organs are faintly roused, sending into consciousness copies of former
sensations. Thus the whole is present to mind while but a part to sense. In
the developing brain the store of memory images of various kinds would
rapidly increase and these images would come at length to have a more or
less independent existence. It is probable that the next step in the making
of mind was the synthesis of one set of sense impressions to form an idea of
the object, the first abstraction, and thenceforth a sensation gave rise to
an idea. There is at this stage no impulse to explain sensations, but
involuntarily, from the store of memory images, and from the reservoir of
ideas above, emerges a representation of the exciting object. If this is one
to which the organism is accustomed the resulting complex in the highest
nerve centers fits the subject, but as evolution proceeds and environment
and capacity for sensation grow more complex, new stimulations occur. In the
absence of the capacity for knowledge and understanding of the object the
developing mind, true to its law, brings forward mental images most nearly
related--those which fit in one or two respects,--and thus we have the birth
of analogy, "the inference of a further degree of resemblance from an
observed degree of resemblance."

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