LECTURE XVIIITHE PSYCHOGENESIS OF MULTIPLE PERSONALITY[264]The Case of B. C. A.
As an introduction let me say that in a previous lecture (The Unconscious, Lecture VIII) I pointed out that in a general way alteration of personality is effected through the primary organization by experience and later coming into dominating activity of particular unitary systems of ideas with their affects, on the one hand, and the displacement by dissociation or inhibition of other conflicting systems on the other. In slighter degrees and when transient this alteration may be regarded as a mood. When the alteration is more enduring, and so marked by contrast with the preceding and normal condition as to obtrusively alter the character and behavior of the individual and his capacity for adjustment to his environment, we have a pathological condition. When the alteration is slight and affects few systems it may be easily overlooked;or when it is accompanied, as it often is, by physiological disturbances, it may be so masked by them as to be mistaken for so-called neurasthenia. It is when the dissociation is so comprehensive as to deprive the individual of memory of his previous phase of personality, or of certain acquired knowledge or other particular experiences that the personality is easily recognized as a dissociated one. When the inhibiting or repressing force that induces dissociation ceases to be effective, that is when the dissociated systems come again into activity and repress the temporarily dominant systems, then the individual returns to his normal condition (in which he may or may not remember the dissociated state), just as a person returns to his habitual character after the passing of a mood. We may speak of the two phases—the normal and the altered one—as constituting togethermultiple personality. As these two phases may continue to alternate with one another they are also alternating personalities. The second or altered state is also sometimes called asecondary personality. There may be several such secondary personalities which may alternate with each other or the normal personality.
It should be noted that the formation of a secondary personality is primarily the result of two processes,dissociationandsynthesisthough it is subject tosecondary growththrough various processes. As a result of the first process, dissociation, systems of thought, ideas, memories, emotions and dispositions previously habitual in the individual may cease to take part in the affected person’s mental processes. The influence ofthese systems with their conative tendencies is therefore no longer for the time being in play.
When we pass in review a large number of cases, we find that the systems of ideas, which (through the dissociating process) cease to take part in personality, may be quite various. One or more “sides” to one’s character, for instance, may vanish, and the individual may exhibit always a single side on all occasions; or the ethical systems built up and conserved by early pedagogical, social, and environmental training may cease to take part in the mental processes and regulate conduct; or, again, the ideas which pertain to the lighter side of life and its social enjoyments may be lost and only the more serious attributes of mind retained. There may even be amnesia in consequence of dissociation for chronological epochs of the individual’s life, or for certain particular episodes, or for certain specific knowledge, such as educational acquirements (mathematics, Greek, Latin, music, literature, etc., or knowledge of a trade or profession, and even of language). Amnesia alone, however, does not constitute alteration of personality strictly speaking; for a person may have complete loss of memory for certain specific experiences without true alteration of character. It is of important significance, as we shall see, that the dissociated or inhibited[265]systems may include emotions, instincts and innate dispositions.
Examination of recorded cases shows too that besides mental memories, physiological functions may be involved in the dissociation. Thus there may be loss of sensation in its various forms, and of the special senses, or of the power of movement (paralysis), or of visceral functions (gastric, sexual, etc.). Dissociation may, then, involve quite large parts of the personality including very precise and definite physiological and psychological functions. We see examples of these different dissociations in numerous cases.
As to the mechanism by which pathological dissociation is effected, it may be well to point out here that there is no reason to suppose that it is anything more than an exaggeration of the normal mechanism by which, on the one hand, mental processes are temporarily inhibited from entering the field of consciousness, and, on the other, physiological functions are normally suppressed and prevented from taking part in the psychophysiological economy. (For instance, the suppression of the gastro-intestinal functions by an emotional discharge.) Every mental process involves the repression of some conflicting process; otherwise all would be chaos in the mind. And every physiological process involves some repression of another process. The movements of walking involve the inhibition alternatively of the flexor and extensor muscles according as which is active in the movement.
This principle is conspicuous in absent mindedness and voluntary attention when every antagonistic or irrelevant thought and even consciousness of the environment is prevented by a conflicting force fromentering the field of consciousness. In other words, every mental process involves a conflict and inhibition: in physiological terms a raising of the threshold of the antagonistic mental process in consequence of which it cannot function unless the stimulus be increased. This is a normal mechanism and process. The conditions which determine absolute and continuous dissociation or inhibition become the object of study.
By the second process, synthesis, particular unitary systems of ideas with the conative tendencies of their feeling tones rise to the surface out of the unconscious and become synthesized with the perceptions, and such memories and other mental systems and faculties of the individual as are retained. Thus it may be that unitary dispositions, sentiments and systems belonging to a particular “side” of the character—the amiable or the brutal, the unselfish or the selfish, the ungenerous or the generous, the practical or the idealistic, the literary or the business, the religious or worldly, the youthful and gay, or the mature and serious, etc., to any side may become uppermost and be the dominant trait of the secondary personality. Or it may be that the systems of ideas, disposition, etc., belonging to childhood and long outgrown, but conserved nevertheless in the unconscious, may be resurrected and becoming synthesized with other systems form a personality childish in character. Or, again, sentiments, thoughts, dispositions, tendencies, instincts which, though intimately belonging to the individual, have been restrained, repressed, concealed from the world for one reason or another, may, being set free through dissociationfrom the repressing thoughts, rise to the surface and take part in the synthesis of the new personality.
In other words there is a rearrangement and readjustment of the innate dispositions and those deposited by the experiences of life which go to form personality. Some by the process of dissociation are expelled from the personal synthesis; some which had been previously expelled (repressed) by education, maturity of character, direct volition, and other processes of mental development are brought back into it.
It is obvious that when such rearrangements and readjustments have occurred the mental reactions of the individual will vary largely from what they were before. The reaction to the environment will become altered. When systems which give rise to the habitual modes of thought are dissociated, naturally the reactions of the individual will not be influenced by them but by those of the new synthesis, and the character will be correspondingly changed. Inasmuch as out of the great storehouse of the unconscious any number of combinations of systems may be arranged, it is obvious that any number of secondary personalities may be formed in the same person. As many as ten or twelve have been observed.
A study of cases which have come under my personal observation, and the reports to be found in the literature of those cases of multiple personality which have been studied with sufficient intensity and exhaustiveness, allow these general and preliminary statements, which are little more than descriptive of the facts, tobe verified.[266]One of the best examples is the case of B. C. A. which I had an opportunity of studying over a long period of time, and to which reference has been frequently made. I shall take this as the object of our study in psychogenesis.[267]
This subject has herself written at my request two introspective analyses of her own case, one by the normal personality and the other by the secondary personality. These analyses are of great value.[268]They give different versions of the same facts in accordance with the differing memories, knowledge and points of view of the differing personalities. The second also gives an account of the claimed co-conscious life as experienced by herself and unknown to the normal personality. We cannot do better than take them as a basis for a genetic study of the case and reproduce portions of them here. In this study I have made use, in addition to this material, of a large numberof personal observations extending over five years, of numerous letters and analyses written by the subject at different times in her various phases of personality, of the memories in hypnosis, in which state many subconscious and dissociated perceptions and thoughts not otherwise remembered are brought to light, and of numerous analyses of her memories made on many occasions, at the expense of many hours of labor. Other sources of information have also been made use of. This investigation has resulted in a voluminous collection of records filling several large portfolios. In making the analyses and in many of the letters the subject, with extreme frankness and in the interests of psychology has gone in great detail into and has laid bare the most intimate facts of her mental life. This is true of each of the phases of personality, so that the point of view from which the same facts were seen in different moods has been obtained. This is a matter of no small consequence as the same fact often acquires a different aspect or meaning according to the view point of the mood in which it is experienced. A large amount of data pertaining to the inner life of the subject has thus become accessible. It is obvious that data of this sort are necessary if the psychological status of any given period of an individual’s life is to be related to antecedent mental experiences as etiological factors. But this sort of data is that which usually is most difficult to obtain. Our inner lives we keep hidden as in a sealed book from the world. In all published reports of multiple personality these data are lacking, the studies dealing almost entirely with such facts only aswere open to the observation of the investigator. It necessarily results from such a study of the inner life of a person living in the circle to which this subject belongs that many of the data are too intimate and personal for publication. However much one may be interested in science there is a point beyond which one shrinks from exposing one’s self in print. I am, therefore, at many points very properly limited to the use of general phrases and summarizing expressions instead of explicit statements of particular facts which, I am aware, would be more satisfactory to the critic. This limitation cannot be helped, but is probably compensated for by the fact that, if it did not exist, the subject would be one whose introspective observations would be of much less value.
I will only add to this statement that the data were not collected in support of a preconceived theory or even of a working hypothesis, but only after they were gathered—in fact, after much of this material was forgotten—were they brought together and studied. It was then found that when the different pieces of evidence were pieced together they allowed of only one conclusion, namely, that which the subject herself in the main reached independently as the facts were laid bare and brought into the field of her consciousness by the means I have described.
By way of preface to the subject’s introspective analyses I reproduce here the following remarks, which I wrote as an introduction to the “Life,” but slightly expanded and with a few verbal changes to make the matter clearer.
An account of the various phases of dissociated personality written by the patient after recovery and restoration of memory for all the different phases cannot fail to be of interest. If the writer is endowed with the capacity for accurate introspection and statement such an account ought to give an insight into the condition of the mind during these dissociated states that is difficult to obtain from objective observation, or, if elicited from a clinical narration of the patient, to accurately transcribe. In that remarkable book, “A Mind that Found Itself,” the author, writing after recovery from insanity, has given us a unique insight into the insane mind. Similarly the writer of the following account allows us to see the beginnings of the differentiation of her mind into complexes, the final development of a dissociated or multiple personality, and to understand the moods, points of view, motives, and dominating ideas which characterized each phase. Such an account could only be given by a person who has had the experience, and who has the introspective and literary capacity to describe it.
The writer in publishing, though with some reluctance and at my request, her experiences as a multiple personality, is actuated only, as I can testify, by a desire to contribute to our knowledge of such conditions. The experiences of her illness—now happily recovered from—have led her to take an active interest in abnormal psychology and to inform herself, so far as is possible by the study of the literature, on many of the problems involved. The training thus acquired has plainly added to the accuracy and value of her introspective observations.
A brief preliminary statement will be necessary in order that the account as told by the patient may be fully intelligible.
The subject was under my observation for about four years. When first seen the case presented the ordinary picture of so-called neurasthenia, characterized by persistent fatigue and the usual somatic symptoms, and by moral doubts and scruples. This condition, at first unsuspected, was later found to be a phase of multiple personality and was then termed and is described in the following account as state or personality A. Later another state, spoken of as personality B, suddenly developed. A had no memory of B, but the latter had full knowledge of A. Besides differences in memory A and B manifested distinct and markedly different characteristicsand traits which included moods, tastes, health, emotions, feelings, instincts, sentiments, points of view, habits of thought, and controlling ideas. In place, for instance, of the depression, fatigue, and moral doubts and scruples of A, B manifested rather a condition of exaltation, and complete freedom from neurasthenia and its accompanying obsessional ideas. A and B alternated during a long period of time with one another. After A, for example, had existed as a personality for a number of hours or days she changed to B, and vice versa. After the first appearance of B it was soon recognized that both states were only fragments, so to speak, or phases of a dissociated personality, and neither represented the normal complete personality. After prolonged study this latter normal state was obtained in hypnosis (c´), and on being waked up a personality was found which possessed the combined memories of A and B, and was free from the pathological stigmata which respectively characterized each. This normal person is spoken of as C. Normal C had, therefore, been split and resynthesized into two systems of complexes or personalities, A and B. Leaving out for the sake of simplicity certain intermediate hypnotic states, A and B could be hypnotized into a single hypnotic state which was a synthesis that could be recognized as a complete normal personality in hypnosis. All that remained to do was to wake up this state and we had the normal C. This process could be reversed and repeated as often as desired: that is, C could be split again into A and B, then resynthesized in c´ who when awakened became C again. This relationship may be diagramatically expressed as follows:[269]
The various traits which characterized and differentiated the different personalities will appear in the course of this genetic study. With this introduction we will proceed to the latter.
The first of the accounts above mentioned by thenormalpersonality, C, written after recovery, is in the form of a letter. She had complete memory for both her phases A and B. It will be noticed in passing that this normal self speaks of the phases A and B as herself, transformed to be sure, but still herself in different “states.” “As A,Ifelt” so and so, “as B,Ifelt” thus, etc. On the other hand, the secondary personality, B, in her account, always refers to the other personalities as distinct personages, and uses the third person “she” in speaking of them. In this matter of differentiation of personalities B was very insistent, maintaining, as has been frequently noted in other cases, that she had no sense of identity of her own self-consciousness with that of the others. “I am, at any rate, a distinct personality,” she remarks. In her consciousness there was no feeling that the self-consciousness of C and A was identical with her own, but the contrary. This frequent phenomenon presents a standpoint from which the problem of the “I” may be studied. What is it that determines the self-consciousness of an ego? We are not concerned with this old question at present, but it is worth notingthat cases of dissociated personality offer favorable material for the solution of the problem.
The following extracts from the accounts by “C” and “B” have been taken as a basis for our analysis which will further attempt to coordinate the two accounts and to clarify the psychological development of the case.
FROM ACCOUNT GIVEN BY THE NORMAL PERSONALITY C AFTER RECOVERY
FROM ACCOUNT GIVEN BY THE NORMAL PERSONALITY C AFTER RECOVERY
FROM ACCOUNT GIVEN BY THE NORMAL PERSONALITY C AFTER RECOVERY
My dear Dr. Prince,
You have asked me to give you an account of my illness as it seems to me now that I am myself and well; describing myself in those changes of personality which we have called “A” and “B.”
It is always difficult for one to analyze one’s self accurately and the conditions have been very complex. I think, however, that I have a clear conception and appreciation of my case. I remember myself perfectly as “A” and as “B.” I remember my thoughts, my feelings, and my points of view in each personality, and can see where they are the same and where they depart from my normal self. These points of view will appear as we go on and I feel sure that my memory can be trusted. I recall clearly how in each state I regarded the other state and how in each I regarded myself.
As I have said, I have now, as “C,” all the memories of both states (though none of the co-conscious life which, as B, I claimed and believed I had).These memories are clearly differentiated in my mind.[270]It would be impossible to confuse the two as the moods which governed each were so absolutely different, but it is quite another thing to make them distinct on paper. I have, however, been so constantly under your observation that you can, no doubt, correct any statement I may make which is not borne out by your own knowledge.
I am, perhaps, of a somewhat emotional nature, and have never been very strong physically though nothing of an invalid. I have always been self-controlled and not at all hysterical, as I would use the word. On the contrary, I was, I am sure, considered a very sensible woman by those who know me well, though I am not so sure what they may think of me now. I am, however, very sensitive and responsive to impressions in the sense that I am easily affected by my environment. For instance, at the theatre I lose myself in the play and feel keenly all the emotions portrayed by the actors.These emotions are reflected vividly in my face and manner sometimes to the amusement of those with me and, if the scene is a painful one, it often takes me a long time to recover from the effect of it. The same is true of scenes from actual life.[271]
Before this disintegration took place I had borne great responsibility and great sorrow with what I think I am justified in calling fortitude, and I do not think the facts of my previous life would warrant the assumption that I was naturally nervously unstable. It does not carry great weight, I know, for one to say of one’s self,—I am sensible, I am stable, I am not hysterical,—but I believe the statement can be corroborated by the testimony of those who have known me through my years of trial. The point I wish to make is that my case shows that such an illness as I have had is possible to a constitutionally stable person and is not confined to those of an hysterical tendency.
A year previous to this division of personality a long nervous strain, covering a period of four years, had culminated in the death of one very dear to me—my husband. I was, at the end of that period, 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. 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(5 years after the beginning of my husband’s illness), 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 was at this time that the shock which caused the division of personality occurred[resultingin period III].
Although this last statement is true so far as concerns the complete dissociation of personality which resulted in the birth of an independent alternating personality, the first beginning of the genesis of that personality can be traced back to a far earlier period when she was about twenty years of age, that is to saynineteen years before the final cleavage. These beginnings were an embryonic cluster or unitary complex of rebellious ideas, “floating thoughts, impulses, desires, inclinations” and intense feelings which came into being at this early period in consequence of an emotional trauma.
I propose to trace in the course of this study, first, the gradual growth by successive syntheses of this rebellious cluster with other idea-clusters during a period offourteenyears.
Second, its incubation, organization and segregation from the main personality during a second period offiveyears as a fairly well defined unitary complex known as theB complex.
Third, the culmination of the incubating process and,as the result of an emotional shock, final bursting into flower of the B complex as theB personality(i.e., nineteen years from the time of the beginning of disaggregation through rebellious thoughts).
Fourth, the reversion to the original personality, but now one so disintegrated, shorn and shattered by the segregation of the autonomous B complex and of certain instincts as to be a so-called secondary disintegratedpersonality,A.
Fifth, the alternation of these two strongly contrasted abnormal personalities.
Finally, the reintegration of the two abnormal personalities into one normal original personality, C.
In following the evolution of the personalities my main purpose will be to bring to light the psychological forces which brought about the disaggregation, on the one hand, and the synthetic construction of the new personal systems, on the other. The following arrangement of these changes in the personality by periods will be convenient for reference.[272]
All these changes from period I to IV inclusive were caused by emotional shocks awakened by a common factor in closely associated situations. In period IV the A personality had no amnesia for personality B. This amnesia developed in period V.
The writer C in her account passes over the early first period, but she remembers clearly the historical facts and has given a very precise description of them in the many analyses which have been made and recorded. Moreover in the second account,[273]written in the secondary B phase of personality, she recognizes the embryonic emotional complex of this first period, and its genetic relation to the later Bcomplex, and to her own still later developed Bpersonality. “This complex” she (B) wrote, “it seems to me is the same, though only slightly developed, as that which appearedlater and is described as complex B. In trying to explain this condition, which it seems to me was the first start of what ultimately resulted in a division of personality, I will divide the time into periods, and I will call this period I.” (This same division into periods I have thought it well to follow.) She also identified the ideas of this early complex with ideas and feelings which she still entertained and which formed a marked characteristic of her own dissociated (B) personality.
For the sake of clearness and simplicity of phraseology it will be well from now on to speak of the subject when in the dissociated B state simply as B, and when united in the normal state as C. In this way, as C points out, we shall avoid constant repetition and circumlocution in such phrases as, “when the subject was in the B state,” etc. You must not, however, be misled by the connotation of terms and read into this nomenclature more than the psychological facts warrant, or make distinctions of personality which transcend in any way psychological laws. Dissociated and multiple personality are not novel freak phenomena, but are only exaggerations of the normal and due to exaggerations of normal processes, and it is for this reason that they are of interest and importance. For, being exaggerations, they accentuate and bring out into high relief certain tendencies and functional mechanisms which belong to normal conditions, and they differentiate mental processes, one from another, which normally are not so easily recognized.
They are caricatures, so to speak, of the normal. Inone respect they may be likened to the staining of an anatomical specimen prepared for the microscope by which the various anatomical structures are brought out into strong contrast with one another and easily differentiated, like the boundaries of countries on a colored map. Without the staining all would have a homogeneous appearance and differentiation would be difficult. So, though a secondary personality is in one sense but a phase of the whole personality, it is characterized largely by an accentuation or domination of particular constituents to be found in the given normal everyday personality, and by the subordination or suppression of others, both being effected by the exaggeration of the normal processes of dissociation and synthesis. In such a secondary personality these constituents and processes are easily recognized though they may be hidden under normal conditions. In saying that a secondary personality is a phase of the whole personality the latter term—whole personality—must be taken in the sense of including all the past experiences of life which have been organized, deposited and conserved in the unconscious, and all the instincts and innate dispositions of the individual. These past experiences form, as we have seen,[274]a storehouse of formative material which, for the most part, under ordinary conditions, may lie dormant though potential; but any elements of this material may, under special influences, be awakened to activity and, uniting with particular constituents of the normal everyday personality, take part under the urge of their own instinctiveimpulses and dispositions in the formation of a new personality. The remainder of the normal personality then becomes submerged and dormant in the unconscious.
To return to the evolution of the B personality. If this final phase be correctly traced back 19 years to the early antecedent rebellious complex above referred to, we shall see that the evolution of multiple personality in this case passed through several successive stages and was of slow growth. Speaking generally, it may, indeed, be ascribed, primarily, on the one hand, to the disruptive or dissociating effect of continuousconflictsbetween the opposing impulses of innate dispositions and instincts (emotions), and, on the other, to the gradual synthesization of the components of personality repressed by these conflicts into the subconscious. The secondary incubation of these repressed and other deposited experiences of life followed, with the final setting free of all this formative material, when fully matured, by the force, awakened by a trauma, of the conative emotional impulses belonging to it. The analogues of these phenomena and mechanisms are observed in sudden religious conversion which in principle is an alteration of personality.[275]
All the historical evidence at hand, derived from searching investigation, goes to show that at the early period to which I have referred (period I) the subjectreceived an emotional shock, “which,” B wrote, “it seems to me, as I look at it now, resulted in the first cleavage of personality. This emotion was one of fright and led to rebellion [in the form of rebellious thoughts] against a certain condition of her life, and formed a small vague complex [of thoughts and emotions] which persisted in the sense that it recurred from time to time, though it was always immediately suppressed.”[276]And this vague complex of rebellious thoughts necessarily soon gave rise to and included other “floating thoughts, impulses, desires, inclinations,” all of which the subject suppressed or endeavored to suppress during a long period of years. “This complex,” she adds, as quoted above, “it seems to me, was the same, though only slightly developed, as that which appeared later, and is described as complex B.”
The “shock” when more deeply analyzed proved to be the excitation of certain emotions which, besides a mild degree of fright, were intense repugnance or disgust. They were a reaction to or defense against another affect, which was also excited and which we will term, in deference to our subject’s good taste, X. The emotion of repugnance was so intense as to require considerable fortitude to withstand and gave rise to much agitation. It accompanied a cluster of “rebellious” ideas awakened by the realization of an unexpectedly disagreeable situation and relation. This cluster I shall call therebellious complexto distinguishit from the later B complex into which it became constellated. This rebellious complex with the emotion of repugnance (instinct of repulsion) was of necessity frequently excited by the conditions of life and, therefore, of frequent recurrence, after the fashion of an obsession. After the first shock the fright naturally subsided, for one reason, from habituation to the conditions. The X affect, never experienced before, from the very first was repressed by the inhibiting force of the more intense emotion of disgust.[277]Fear also was involved in this repression, for there was a conflict between the opposing forces of conflicting emotions; and in such a conflict—as, for example, between fear and anger—the stronger tends to repress its antagonist and whatever it conflicts with. Consequently the recurring rebellious complex was habitually accompanied by repugnance alone. The exact constitution of this rebellious complex I am not at liberty to mention. It may have been a matter of mother-in-law, or of social arrangements, or particular duties and responsibilities, or something else—it does not matter and it is not necessary to say. It was a shrinking from a particular condition of her life. It was certainly not a wish unless this repugnance and “kicking against the pricks” can be twisted into its opposite as a wish to be free from the objectionable condition. Still less was it a morally unacceptable unconscious, being just the opposite; for both the rebellious thoughts and the wish to be free from the condition objected to were acceptable and justified to herself in her mind, and, inher secret thoughts at least, tolerated as natural and reasonable.[278]Nor was the X affect anintolerablewish. If a wish there was no reason why it should not have been gratified. Nevertheless, as B affirms, the rebellious thoughts were put out of mind, as thoughts of a disagreeable fact, as they arose from time to time; but this was only from a sense of duty in consideration of responsibilities undertaken. I could make this clearer if I were at liberty to enter into the details of these rebellious thoughts. Her life in every other respect was an unusually happy one, surrounded by all that one should desire, and included a devoted husband whom she loved, admired and respected. For these reasons alone she felt it a duty to suppress all expression of her rebellious feelings.
The main point, from the point of view of psychogenesis, is that at this early stage we have constantlyrecurring conflicts between the conative forces pertaining to emotions linked with sentiments of duty, loyalty, and affection, on the one hand, and those pertaining to the rebellious thoughts with corresponding desires, impulses, etc., reinforced with the emotion of repugnance, on the other. The former always won and the latter were inhibited or repressed into the unconscious. These were not the only rebellious thoughts that were repressed. There were others from which the original rebellion received accretions. That such constantlyrepressed thoughts with their strong feeling tones should be conserved in the unconscious was a psychological necessity, and also that they should emerge by the force of their own urge into consciousness from time to time like an obsession whenever stimulated by environmental and personal conditions. I may simply cite the two following simple examples.
The subject, governed by the maternal instinct, naturally loved to take care of her baby and “make things for him to wear, and fuss over them”; and yet there were “floating thoughts” of an opposite character which later, as will appear, emerged and became conspicuous in the B complex and B personality. “She was very fond of her father-in-law and did everything to make him happy,” and yet there were other thoughts which conceived of him as a “fussy old bother.” These again were represented later in the loss of sentiments of affection and in the point of view of the B phases. There was no real dissociation and doubling of consciousness; these conflicting attitudes and tendencies were, at least in the beginning until the later period of stress and strain when they eventuated in corresponding action, merelyevanescent thoughts, wishes and impulses which easily passed out of mind, or an undercurrent of thought such as all of us have more or less.
Later, when they became more insistent and persistent, they had to be repressed by an effort of will.
Then it followed that C, conscious of these contrary impulses, reproached herself for them, thought herselfwicked to have them, and when they became insistent repressed them. Their intrusion into consciousness was probably favored by a considerable degree of neurasthenia, for when she was ill they were more frequent and obtrusive, while with good health and happiness they disappeared, as is the case with all obsessing ideas.
The occurrence of such contrary impulses would probably have been of no account and nothing more would have been heard from them, as in the case of ordinary mortals, if it had not been for a period of stress and strain which she was destined to undergo. As it was, the awakening of these contrary thoughts and impulses was fraught with a danger to the psychical unity, a danger that actually materialized, namely: as these conflicting impulses, being also rebellious against the conditions of life, were constantly awakened contemporaneously with the specialized frequently recurring “rebellious complex,” the whole tended to become synthesized into a large complex which later, during the second period of stress and strain, became in turn the nucleus of a still larger complex (B). During this latter period, as we shall see, like the forces of a growing political revolution, the rebellious thoughts and impulses increased in number, frequency and intensity, until there were times when they acquired the mastery in the conflicts and repressed the previously opposing thoughts of duty, affection, etc., and dominated the personality. The effect of such intense conflict was to cause by repression a rift in the personality, i.e., to dissociate a large system of ideas (with their emotions),from other systems. All this will appear as we go on.
There is another point which it is interesting here to note. The secondary phase B looking back recognizes (i.e., has a sense of awareness) that the “rebellious thoughts” and the various contrary impulses were herself. “I was the rebellion;” “I think of the rebellion as myself;” “I was the rebellion which she kept to herself;” “The first complex formed a something I am;” “I think I am made up of all the impulses which began to come then;” "It seems to me, as I think of it now, that I was always there—sometimes more, sometimes less—in the form of conflicting impulses.“ In these and similar phrases B, over and over again, in numerous analyses at widely separated intervals, identifies these early conscious processes with her own individuality. Nevertheless, ”I was not anIthen, you know," she explains, “but to understand what I write you will have to call me so. I remember them now as my thoughts, but at that time I never thought of myself as a self.” “I never thought, ‘I’ do not like this or that then;it was like an impulse in the other direction.” Let it not be forgotten, then, that at the beginning the rebellious complex and impulses were not synthesized and segregated as an ego. Nevertheless, in fact, whenever she attempts to describe the early rebellious complex and the impulses she drops into the mode of saying, “I felt so and so,” and finds herself obliged to use this personal pronoun when thinking of these past thoughts, and the same is true when she speaks of the more fully developed subsequent B complex.
You will say that there is nothing particularly remarkable or unusual in this. We all think of our past thoughts as our own, even when they occurred, say, in absent mindedness when there was no consciousness of self.But the unusual thing is that B—the subject in the B phase of personality—does not think of C’s other thoughts or conscious experiences as her own.In fact she persistently refuses to recognize these others as hers. She has no feeling of their having belonged to her own consciousness. “They were not my thoughts,” she says. This is true of this other content of the conscious life of the early first period as well as of the later periods when the B complex and the B personality appeared. “Sheliked,” such and such a thing; “Ididn’t!” "Shethought,“ so and so; ”Ididn’t;" referring respectively to the thoughts of the dominant consciousness and the contrary thoughts. “Yet in referring to the Bcomplex,” she writes of the second period, “I find myself continually saying ‘I’; it is difficult not to do so. This, I think, must show the intimate relation between the two. I think of the B complex and I find I think of it as myself, although I do not think of A and C as myself, and they do not seem to be my own personality.”
This feeling by a secondary personality that certain conscious experiences belong, or belonged, to her own personal consciousness or ego and that others do not, or did not, belong is a common phenomenon in such cases and is of great significance. It is a phenomenon which justifies the inference that the relation whichone system of ideas bears to that which we call the ego is different from that of the other system; it is a phenomenon, too, which must be taken into account in solving the problem of the ego. When we study the records of cases of multiple personality we find as a frequent observation that the secondary personality distinguishes between the conscious experiences which belong to itself and those which belong to the principal personality, and to other secondary personalities, if more than one. This differentiation is based upon the feeling of a particular self-consciousness being attached to the former and not to the latter. The conception of self and the self-regarding sentiment differ markedly in their content in the different phases of personality. The analysis of their contents shows this to be the case: e. g., the contained images and affects. It is not, therefore, simply a matter of the experiences occurring at different chronological epochs. Indeed the two different sets of experiences may be synchronous, one being conscious and the other co-conscious.
I have passed over a question which is sure to be asked: Why did the “unexpectedly disagreeable” situation, whatever it was, occasion the “shock” and the rebellious complex? I may say frankly that the situation was not one which would induce such a disastrous effect in the ordinary individual. The answer is to be found in the principle of settings which give meaning to ideas. [Every idea over and above the sensory images which take part in its content has meaning; and the meaning is determined by antecedentexperiences (thoughts, perceptions, feelings, etc.) with which it is associated, i.e., in which it is set. An idea of a particular individual, for example, has one meaning for one person and another meaning for another according to the associated mental experiences of each. These experiences form the setting or context which determines the meaning, point of view, and attitude of mind towards any given object or situation presented to consciousness.][279]Whenever an emotional “shock” (one that is not a simple instinct reaction) occurs, this setting of antecedent experiences, organized with the idea and emotions, acts as a unitary complex, a psychic whole, and behaves as a sort of psychological torch which some later experience sets aflame, so to speak, as an emotional shock. Because of this setting the idea reacts in accordance with the emotions (fear, disgust, etc.) which the “meaning” includes, and induces a defense reaction. Now analytical investigation revealed settings to the “situation” dating in part from early childhood and in part from later experiences. An attitude of mind, therefore, already existed which was ready to react with the emotions (fear and disgust) which were excited by the meaning of the situation. It is easy to see, in the light of the actual facts, that if a certain factor of the situation had been altered, without altering the situation itself, its meaning would have been altered, i.e., it would not have awakened the setting built up by the experiences of life, and would not have excited the emotional response (shock) that ensued.