IIIThe Evolution of the B Complex

DISSOCIATION

But the organization of an emotional complex was not the whole effect of these experiences. In addition, if the memories of B can be trusted—and I believe they can—there resulted in a minor degree a cleavage or dissociation of personality. This was not so pronounced as to give rise to noticeable pathological manifestations, but apparently sufficient to make at least a line of indenture, so to speak, which afterwards was easily broadened and deepened into a complete dissociation. This is not easy to demonstrate at this late date, but there are certain facts that have some evidential value.

In the first place, according to the evidence, there developed a tendency in what we have called the rebellious complex to take on independent activity, or an automatism after the nature of an obsession, outside the domain of the will and self-control. No amount of reasoning or of self-reproach sufficed to change the point of view. Like an obsession it would not down and recurred automatically.

In the second place, it seems, according to B’s memories, that the activity of the rebellious complex of ideas began to take place to a certain extent outside the focus of the attentive consciousness, in the sense that the personal consciousness was not conscious or aware of their presence. This means that at times when the ideas in question were not in consciousness, and therefore might be supposed to be dormant in the unconscious, they recurred nevertheless and were in subconscious activity, i.e., were co-conscious. Thisstatement is based upon the interrogation of B who to the best of her memory thought that the “rebellious ideas were split off and went on by themselves while the subject C was thinking of other things, without her being aware of them.” “They were co-conscious as I know it now.”

Too much weight should not be laid upon memories of this kind after such long intervals of time, and I would not be understood as doing so; but that the memories of this secondary personality may be given their just value it should be explained that, like some other secondary personalities, B’s memory embraces not only the mental states (thoughts, perceptions, feelings, etc.,) of the principal personality which were within the focus of attention, but those which were in the fringe or margin of awareness and those which were entirely outside, i.e., fully subconscious. This has proved to be the case by numerous test observations and experiments. B might, therefore, remember split off (co-conscious) rebellious states if they existed. One reason for this enlargement of the field of memory of this phase of personality is that besides being an alternating personality[280]she is a co-conscious personality. But this is another story which we shall have to postpone for the present.

In the third place, the constant invasion of the field of the personal consciousness by the contrary impulses, which I have already spoken of, suggest, if they do not establish, a certain degree of automatic activity arisingfrom the unconscious and dissociated from the rest of the conscious field. In the light of what has already been told and of later developments, to be described in the next lecture, the inference assumes a high degree of probability that these impulses were manifestations of ideas and feeling tones belonging to an earlier period of life—childhood or girlhood—which had been conserved in the unconscious and which now erupted into the field of the personal co-consciousness.

I do not want to make too much of these early tendencies to dissociation nor is the matter important. For historical comprehension, however, it is desirable that the facts should be mentioned for, if our interpretation be correct, they were evidently steps in the evolution of the final disintegration.

Thus matters went on during this first period, covering a span of 14 years; sometimes the rebellious complex, enlarged and constellated with conflicting thoughts, desires and impulses, recurred with frequency, and sometimes they remained dormant for considerable intervals, the state of general health apparently often being the conditioning factor.

At the end of the 14-year span—when thesecond periodbegins—the subject “received a great shock in the sudden illness of her husband. This illness was of such a nature that she knew no complete recovery waspossible and that death might result at any time.” This second shock aroused once more the emotion of fright, and the old rebellion and a certain apprehensiveness, a trait which is inherent to a marked degree in her character. During the following four years which covered the illness of her husband she was almost literally torn to pieces mentally by this apprehensiveness—always anticipating the inevitable hanging over her.

After the first two weeks, when her husband’s temporary recovery took place, the same old rebellious complex returned with intensified force as the condition that gave rise to it returned. But she repressed all expression of it, resolved that no one should guess her secret because she did not wish to give pain to another. So she kept her secret to herself, and what she kept to herself became thebeginningsof a new personality. “Then came the nervous strain of sorrow, anxiety, and care, and the inability to reconcile herself to the inevitable. This nervous strain continued for four years. C’s life during this time was given up entirely to the care of her husband; she tried to live up to her ideal—which was a high one—of duty and responsibility, and always having the sense of failure, discouragement and apprehension.” Necessarily she was cut off from the social world of gaiety by the care that devolved upon her or, considering her temperament, thought she was. A person of less intense feeling and governed by pure intellect quite likely might have reasonably arranged her life so that she could have both given all the care she wished to the invalid, on the one hand, and participatedin the pleasures of social life, on the other. But, like many anxious wives and mothers whom all physicians see, her anxiety and feelings were too intense for such cool reasoning, her mind became single tracked and she shut herself off from the world she loved. Consequently, during this period of stress and strain the old rebellious complex not only became intensified and more persistent, but also became enlarged and systematized with a still larger cluster of rebellious thoughts. To the old rebellion there was now added a rebellion against the hardness of fate which was about to cheat her out of the happiness which belonged to her, and still more against the new conditions of life as she found them. This is what the incurable illness of her husband meant to her.

She rebelled bitterly [B writes in a letter;] shecouldnot have it so and itwasso. No one knew what his illness was and she bent every energy to conceal his true condition. She blamed herself for his illness [in her ignorance of the pathology of disease], and after a time she began to have that sense of being double. More than anything else she wanted to be happy; she saw all happiness going and she couldnotlet it go—itmustnot—shewouldbe happy, and shecouldn’t. It was a fight with herself all the time. We were A and B then just as much as we are now. The part that afterwards became A doing all that a devoted conscientious wife could do, determined that her husband should never miss anything of love and care; and the part that afterwards became B rebelling against it all, not willing to give up her youth, longing for pleasure, and above all for happiness. To be happy, that was always the cry, and it was not possible.

It was a longing for conditions which in her mind seemed essential, and she could not accept the conditionsas they were. “It was a rebellion, a longing for happiness, a disinclination to give up the pleasures of life which the conditions required; and there was a certaindetermination to have these pleasures in spite of everything, and this resulted in a constant struggle between C and this complex.” It was that inability, which is so common and causes so much mental disturbance and unhappiness in so many people, to reconcile and adjust oneself to the actual situation of one’s life and accept it. And here, in the case of B. C. A., we recognize in the center of the rebellion of this second period of stress and strain, the same thoughts which had cropped up evanescently during the first period but now become more intense and persistent, more disturbing and the fundamental, cause of the inability to adjust herself to the situation.

These thoughts, however, were not tolerated by the subject and were put out of mind andrepressed into the unconscious by her rightmindedness. It thus became a matter of conflict between the light-hearted gay sentiments and temperament of inexperienced youth which, in ignorance of life, finds it difficult to accept its serious responsibilities, and the sentiments of honor, duty, and affection which were the dominating traits. These facts are too intimate to go into in greater detail, but each one will probably recognize in himself some such conflicting desires and tendencies.

This is the place to point out certain major traits in the character of B. C. A. which enable us to recognize more clearly the source of the conflicting impulses andhelp to make intelligible their uprushes. There were two strongly marked elements in her character which had always been noticeable and which, given the appropriate conditions, were almost bound to come in conflict. B. C. A. during all her girlhood days and early married life was noted for her happy, buoyant, lively, light-hearted disposition. She was ready at all times for pleasure and could not bear to give it up, and she had an unusually intense desire to be happy; she loved happiness and wanted happiness, and when happiness dominated, as it generally did in a person of such a disposition, she was filled with the “joy of life.” Responsive to her environment,[281]when her surroundings were sympathetic all the joy and mirth of her own personality was given out and reflected upon others. She was of an intense nature in that she felt all the anxieties, sorrows, and joys of life with great and equal intensity. But it was joy and happiness which appealed to her as the one thing she must preserve. This was one of her character traits.

On the other hand, the second trait was equally strong, namely, unreasonably high moral ideals, so high even in the little every day affairs of life that only a strong stern fanatic or ascetic could live consistently and perpetually up to them; she was intensely conscientious and high-minded with an almost inordinate sense of honor and duty; and there was also an overweening pride in her rectitude and moral ideals which sometimes seems to have transcended common-sense;and there was pride in her pride. Reserved and rather unapproachable to strangers she was affectionate to relatives and intimates.

These two traits of character if analyzed would be seen to be two great strongly contrasted unitary systems of ideas and sentiments with their respective emotions and feelings. They formed two sides to her personality, and the conflicts that ensued could be said to have been between the two sides.

To say that these two traits or groups of traits—love of the joy of life and conscientious devotion to duty—were combined in one person is not of course to mention anything out of the ordinary. What was out of the ordinary was the intensity with which each existed. Now that she has recovered from her illness and has reverted to the normal synthesized personality these traits are still easily noticeable. None but a person of unusually strong, fixed character, capable of holding an ideal continuously in mind, subordinating all else, could have downed the cry for happiness and lighter pleasures of life. When we come to the secondary split personalities we shall see that the splitting was between these two traits or systems; the elements of one gathering about itself associated elements, formed one personality with corresponding reactions to the environment, and the elements of the other in similar fashion formed the other personality. Thus stronger conflicts arose.

The recognition of mental conflicts as disturbances of personality and determinants of conduct is as old as literature itself. They have been the theme of poets,dramatists and fiction writers of every age. It has remained for modern dynamic psychology to study and determine with exactness the phenomena, discover the mental mechanisms involved and formulate the laws. One school, the so-called psycho-analysts, claims to find in practically all conflicts, a very complicated mechanism involving repression, unconscious processes (generally a sexual wish for the most part from infantile life) a “censor,” a compromise, conversion and disguisement of the repressed factor in the form of a psycho-neurosis, or other mental and physiological phenomena, substitution, etc. I have no intention of entering into a discussion of the correctness of such mechanisms. The sole point I wish to make is that, even if so, to find such mechanisms and results to be universal is the reductio ad absurdum just as it would be to find that a conflict between a policeman and a resisting rioter is always carried out by a process which is manifested by a black eye and cracked skull, arrest, trial and conviction of the rioter. The process of the physical conflict may be simple or complex and be manifested and terminated in many ways. It may be carried out by and result in simple dissociation of the rioter from the crowd and sending him home about his business.

So with mental conflicts which may be manifested in many ways and have various results. In previous lectures we have considered some of these ways and results. One way and mechanism is, as in the latter example of the rioter, the simple repression and dissociation of the weaker factor resulting in the dominationof the stronger, and the determination of conduct according to the impulses and tendencies organized within the mental system that has gained the ascendency. But in maintaining social law and order we may have to deal, not with a single rioter, but with a mob or organized rebellion. Then the repression of the uprising may bring into action more men and more systematized forces and may result in the repression of organized factions and an alteration of the social system. So mental conflicts may involve large systems and result in extensive rearrangements and repressions; in other words, an alteration with dissociation of personality. This was the mechanism and result in the case now under examination.

The conflicts were between the impulses or conative forces discharged from the emotions pertaining to youthful sentiments of pleasure and joy and play and ideas with exalting pleasure-feeling tones, all constituting wishes for the pleasures and happiness of youth—conflicts, I mean, between these forces and those of ethical sentiments of duty, together with other sentiments involving the emotions of affection, anxiety, sympathy, admiration, and depressing pain-feeling tones.For the time being, at least, the latter won and the former were repressed.But they were still there, conserved in the unconscious, ready to spring to life in response to a stimulus at any favorable opportunity when the repressing force of the will power was weakened by stress and strain. So we see that the conflicting wishes and impulses which jarred and threatenedthe mental equilibrium of the subject were, after all, only impulses or incursions from the unconscious of repressed antecedent mental experiences (wishes and conative tendencies) which were elements in the normal character.

Thus it came about that the original complex of rebellious thoughts against aparticularcondition had become slowly enlarged into a rebellion againstgeneral conditions, andconstellated with a number of specific wishes for pleasure (which were incompatible with her life) and their corresponding impulses into a still larger complex.

It is this latter that we have called theB complex.

It had become evolved and organized out of the original “rebellious” complex as its nucleus by receiving successive accretions from later rebellious ideas and wishes in conflict with the personality, much as the pearl in the oyster grows by successive accretions.

From one point of view it was a highly developed “mood.”

It was still under control but later, as we shall find, it was destined to assume autonomous activity and play a dominant rôle.

“C was still conscious of these thoughts, [B wrote in her account], but they represented to her the selfish and weak part of her nature and she tried to suppress them; tried to put them out of her mind but they still persisted, and she was always to a greater or less extent aware of them. There was no lack of awareness and no amnesia. As the months and years went on the sorrow and anxiety of the C group increased, and the conflictingthoughts andrebellionof the B group increased. C was ashamed of the latter and always tried to suppress such thoughts as they arose. If during those years anything happy had come to C the formation of this rebellious complex would, I believe, have been retarded, perhaps stopped altogether, but nothing pleasant happened; it was all grief, and everything went wrong.”

Notwithstanding the continuing stress and strain and lack of joy all probably would have gone well if C’s husband had recovered and she had retained her physical health. Returning to her normal life, she would have been only one more of those who have lived through a period of anxious perturbation. But unfortunately, as it happened, “C’s husband died suddenly away from home, the one thing she had [dreaded and] felt she could not bear.” She received the news over the telephone.

She did not recover [B states] from the shock and became more and more nervous, was very much depressed, easily fatigued, suffered constantly from headache, and was possessed by all sorts of doubts and fears, reproaching herself for things done and undone. She also overtaxed her strength in attending to business matters.

C’s physical health immediately and suddenly gave way. Her own account, already given, goes more into detail and lets us see the extent to which she was handicapped by physical and mental ill-health in her struggle against her rebellious impulses—against fate. She was not given half a chance. Her description of her condition at this period, as noted at the beginningof this account, is worth repeating here in this connection:

I was at that time in good physical health, though nervously worn, but this death occurred in such a way as to cause me a great shock and within the six days following I lost twenty pounds in weight. For nearly three months I went almost entirely without food, seemingly not eating enough to sustain life, and I did not average more than three or four hours’ sleep out of the twenty-four, but I felt neither hungry nor faint, and was extremely busy and active, being absorbed both by home responsibilities and business affairs. The end of the year, however, found me in very poor health physically and I was nervously and mentally exhausted. I was depressed, sad, felt that I had lost all that made life worth living and, indeed, I wished to die. I was very nervous, unable to eat or sleep, easily fatigued, suffered constantly from headache, to which I had always been subject, and was not able to take much exercise. The physician under whose care I was at this time told me, when I asked him to give my condition a name, that I was suffering from “nervous and cerebral exhaustion.”

It is always the case in so-called neurasthenic states that the power of self-control is weakened, resistance to obsessing thoughts diminishes and the latter tend to take on automaticity and invade and dissociate the personality. And there is also a certain degree of repression and dissociation of previously dominant systems of ideas. In other words every case of real so-called “neurasthenia” and hysteria is a greater or less alteration of personality.[282]

Accordingly, although at the beginning of period II the B complex was only a loosely organized system of rebellious thoughts, wishes and impulses recurringfrom time to time, this system now began in her physically and mentally weakened condition to acquire increased force, to invade the personal consciousness, and breaking through the repressing force of the will to gain autonomous sovereignty and temporarily to dominate the conduct. In the prolonged conflict the rebellion with its contrary wishes was at moments to gain the ascendency. In other words, these other elements came to the surface and gathered to themselves all the discordant elements of personality, much as a radical political party gathers to itself all the rebellious discordant factions that are in antagonism to the governing conservative party. In one sense another side to the character had become crystallized and autonomous, and, through the intensity of its feeling tones, became periodically dominant. But not without protest from the previously dominant elements of personality. This protest, however, had certain psychological peculiarities which show that the conditions were not quite as simple as this. I will speak of them later.

Soon the repressed wishes, impulses—the B complex—began to manifest themselves in a way which indicated that a definite dissociation had taken place, although as yet, as I have said, there was no secondaryselforIproperly speaking. All the previous undercurrents of thought—the intensified shrinking from the particular condition of life, the internal rebellion against the conditions in general, the disinclinations, longings, wishes, and determinations—had become synthesized, and began to form a separate train ofthought, so that at one and the same time there was a sense, as is so commonly felt in such cases, of a double train of thought; she had “a sense of being double.” It seemed to her, C, that there was “all the time a pulling in a different way from the way she had to go, a not wanting to live the life she had to live.” This “sense of being double” seems to have been so pronounced that to B, looking back upon it, it seemed as if these two trains of thought (the C personality and the B complex) “occurred concurrently and simultaneously, so that it could be said that one was co-conscious with the other,” just as much as when there is loss of awareness on the part of the principal consciousness for the coconscious train. In this case there was, however, at this time, no lack of awareness and there is nothing to prove B’s view of concomitance of different trains of thought rather than that the two trains did not rapidly oscillate or alternate from instant to instant.

The self-accusations and self-reproaches of the principal consciousness, C, rendered the pleasure impulses still more intolerable and tended the more to repress the rebellious train and thereby to disrupt further the personality and to crystallize the secondary synthesis. It became more than a matter of inner behavior of mental systems:the outward behavior became affected and changed.

For corresponding to this invasion and domination of the ideas of the B complex the behavior of C became altered, much to her amazement. That is, her conduct at times was governed by the impulses of her once repressedwishes and she found herself then doing things which normally she had not enjoyed or done.Her health and strength also, at such moments, became extraordinarily improved.

This alteration of conduct and character and health became more obtrusive and characteristic at a later date when the B complex had become developed into the B personality. But the alteration of conduct can be easily recognized at these earlier times if some of the previous minor characteristics of C in respect to this sort of behavior are understood.

Among these characteristics were a great dislike of riding on electric cars, an almost abnormal nervousness about bugs and mosquitoes—I always disliked going into the woods for this reason—an aversion to exercise in summer, and a fear of canoeing. I had never enjoyed sitting out from under cover or on the ground as the glare of the sun was apt to cause headache and I abhorred all crawling things. I was reserved with strangers and not given to making my friends quickly; devoted to my family and relatives, fond of my friends, and not in the habit of neglecting them in any way. I felt much responsibility concerning business matters and had given a good deal of time and thought to them. Many more peculiarities might be mentioned.

In the later B personality, as will be presently related, these and other traits were replaced by their opposites, but even at this earlier time the complete reversal of her tastes and behavior was obvious.

To my surprise [C states in her account] there were times when I did some of the things above referred to, such as sitting in the woods, etc. I felt a sense of wonder that I should be doing them and a still greater wonder that I found them pleasant. There was also asense at times of impatience and irritation at being troubled with business matters or responsibility of any kind and an inclination to throw aside all care. I wondered at myself for feeling as I did and rather protested to myself at many of my acts but still kept right on doing them. It seems to me that these ideas and feelings formed a complex by which I was more or less governed and that this complex gradually grew in strength and can be identified with that of the personality (B) which first developed.

A more interesting account of this change of conduct is given by B:

As she grew more and more neurasthenic, it seems to me as I look back upon it, theB complex grew stronger and more dominant, and with this increase of strength of this complex, C began to live a lifecorresponding to the impulses belonging to it—staying out of doors entirely—and then there followed much improvement in her health.[283]She took long rides on the electric cars, which she had always previously disliked intensively; she had always been very much afraid of a canoe, but now she went canoeing often and enjoyed it. She was surprised and astonished that she should enjoy these things, as it was foreign to her natural and previous ideas and inclinations. There was no change of character, properly speaking, but she did things she disapproved of and knew at the time that she disapproved of them. There was a recognition that she was doing things she would not previously have done, and she protested to herself, but even this half-protest was suppressed. She would say to herself, “Why am I doing these things? I never cared for them before. Why should I care for them now?” The old doubts and fears were at this time out of her mind. The personality was C, but influenced and dominated by the B complex of which, of course, she was perfectly aware.

What is here described is obviously a mood but a mood which included altered bodily as well as mental characteristics. The alternation of neurasthenic and healthy phases also became more obtrusive when the healthy mood became a personality. The apparent recovery then deceived the medical attendant.

In these quoted passages we have a description of the uprush from the unconscious and successful sovereignty of the conflicting B complex. Before continuing with our analysis two points are worth noting. First: With the winning of sovereignty by this system of ideas, the previously dominating system—or self—sank to an inferior position and assumed the protesting, one may say, the rebellious attitude. Like two adversaries in a wrestling conflict, in which first one then the other holds the vantage and each in turn yields before the superior force of the other, so it was turn and turn about, and now the rebellious complex becoming the victor, repressed the protests, the self-reproaches, doubts, fears, and scruples of the regularly constituted government.

Second: With the eruption of the B complex into the C personality it is interesting once more to note the increase of physical strength, and improvement in the general health. It was thought by her physician that it was really a condition of health which had supervened but, as will be seen, this was far from being the case; it was one of psychological disintegration. Nevertheless with the one system of ideas—the B complex—there were associated all the mental and bodily reactions of health, with the other complex the reactions characteristicof the neurasthenic condition. This alteration was still more noticeable later when the Bpersonalityerupted. The same phenomenon was observed in the case of Miss Beauchamp. With the appearance of the “Sally” complex all the neurasthenic symptoms vanished, and the personality became buoyant with health. Identical variations in health have been observed in other cases of dissociated personality; one phase of personality being characterized by an extreme hysterical condition, another by freedom from such symptoms (Felida X., Marcelline R., and others). This phenomenon is of great significance for the understanding of the neurasthenic and hysteric condition.

264. This study was first published in theJournal of Abnormal Psychology, Oct., 1919, but originally was written for this volume. It was omitted with other lectures from the first edition to limit the size of the volume.

265. Dissociation and inhibition are not coextensive terms for although inhibition implies dissociation, a dissociated element may not be necessarily inhibited as it may function subconsciously or independently of the personal consciousness.

266. Unfortunately most of the reported cases were not studied from a genetic point of view and the reports are too meagre to afford sufficient data for a study of this kind. But in many cases the principles can be recognized. In the article “Hysteria from the Point of View of Dissociated Personality,”Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Oct., 1906, I have given a synopsis in tabulated form of the reports accessible up to the date of publication.

267. I would refer those who are interested in this problem of personality to a similar but more exhaustive study of the case of “Miss Beauchamp” which I have recently published in theJournal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol. XV, Nos. 2 and 3, 1920. A descriptive account of the case was published in 1906:The Dissociation of a Personality; New York; Longmans, Green & Co., 1906.

268. Published under the title “My Life as a Dissociated Personality” in theJournal of Abnormal Psychology; Oct.-Nov., 1908 and Dec.-Jan., 1909.

269. The broken lines indicate dissociation; the solid lines, synthesis.

270. I have italicized a number of words and sentences not thus emphasized in the original account.

271. Sympathetically excited emotions (instincts).

272. The division into periods follows that given in the second account by B.

273.Journal Abnormal Psychology, Vol. III, No. 5, p. 311.

274. Lecture IX.

275. Prince:Jour. Abnormal Psychology. Vol. I, No. 1, 1906. Also,The Dissociation of a Personality, 2nd ed., Chap. XXI. James:Varieties of Religious Experiences.

276. I. e., “Tried not to think of it”; “put it out of her mind as a disagreeable fact.”

277. Instinct of repulsion (McDougall).

278. Nor were they the reaction to or the expression of a previously repressed sexual wish as any such wish would have met no conscious resistance. It is easy to see in the light of all the facts that, given a certain change in the conditions, or point of view, there would have been no shock and no rebellion.

279. Lecture X; also, “The Meaning of Ideas as Determined by Unconscious Settings,”Journal Abnormal Psychology, Oct.-Nov., 1912.

280. I use the present tense as more convenient although I am speaking of a past condition.

281. As illustrated by her responsive behaviour at the theatre (p. 558), as I have witnessed it there and socially.

282. “Hysteria from the Point of View of Dissociated Personality.”Journal Abnormal Psychology, 1906.

283. It is interesting to note the apparent paradox of an increasing physically neurasthenic phase coincident with an increasing physically healthy phase. With the subsidence of the latter the neurasthenic state became obvious.

Back to Index Next