SUMMARY AND GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
We may now bring this study of human personality to a close, incomplete as it is. We have not by any means exhausted all the factors of personality, but, guided by practical consideration, we have at least examined the chief of its fundamentals, more particularly those which are concerned in the disturbances which general psychopathology makes the object of study. Such a study should be undertaken preparatory to that of special pathology or particular complexes of disturbances of function (the functional psychoneuroses). The aim of psychology should be to become capable of being an applied science. So far as a science is only of academic interest it fails to be of real value to the world. Physics, chemistry, astronomy, mineralogy, geology, physiology, bacteriology, botany, and many departments of zoology, etc., can be applied, and other sciences at least tend to form our notions of the universe in which we live, and thus to mould our religious, philosophical and other conceptions. Until very recent years it was an opprobium of psychology, as studied and taught, that it had not becomedivorced from philosophy[304]and stood amongst the few sciences that could not be applied to practical life and was for the most part of academic interest only. Now, however, in the field of medicine psychology is fast looming to the front as of great practical interest—not the older psychology, but the new psychology of functions and mechanisms. In the field of human efficiency in the mechanical arts it is also fast becoming capable of practical application. With the above aim in view we have dealt in these lectures more particularly with those psychological activities a knowledge of which can be applied in the theory and practice of medicine. But as the laws governing the organism are general, not special, what has been found is as applicable to normal as to pathological life.
We have not attempted to enter the field of special pathology to study the psycho-pathology of special diseases. So far as this has been done it has been mainly for the purpose of seeking data. Our aim has been rather to obtain that knowledge of functions which will serve as an introduction to such medical studies. Even in this limited field there are any number of specific problems which have been scarcely more than touched upon and any one of which, by itself, would be a rich field of investigation.
It is well now, in conclusion, to make a general survey of the fields which we have tilled, and gathertogether into a whole, so far as possible, the results of our gleaning.
We have seen on the basis of the phenomena of memory that the “mind” includes more than conscious processes; that it includes a vast storehouse of acquired “dispositions” deposited by the experiences of life, and that these dispositions (by which mental experiences are conserved) may be regarded as chemical or physical in their nature, as sort of residua deposited (if we are asked to confine ourselves to terms of the same order) by the neural processes correlated with the conscious experiences of life. This storehouse of acquired dispositions provides the material for conscious and subconscious processes; and thus provides the wherewithal which enables the personality to be guided in its behavior by the experiences of the past. It provides the elements of memory which we know must be supplied by the mind in every perception of the environment—even the simplest—and which are required for every process of thought. Indeed throughout our review of processes and manifestations of mind, which we need not recapitulate, we have continually come upon evidences of these dispositions playing as I foretold in our first lecture an underlying and responsible part.
The fact that brain dispositions are of one order of events (physical) while psychological processes are of another (psychical) is in no way an objection to such an interpretation, as in this antithesis wehave only the old mind-matter problem—dualism, or monism, or parallelism.
We have also seen that in neural dispositions, whether acquired or innate, we have a conception of the unconscious that is definite, precise.
We have also reviewed the evidence going to show that though the main teleological function of the unconscious, so far as it represents acquired dispositions, is to provide the material for conscious memory andconsciousprocesses, in order that the organism may be consciously guided in its reactions by experience, yet under certain conditions neurographic residua can function as asubconsciousprocess which may beunconscious, i.e., without being accompanied by conscious equivalents. The latter were classed as a sub-order of subconscious processes. We saw reason for believing that any neurogram deposited by life’s experience can, given certain other factors, thus function subconsciously, either autonomously or as a factor in a large mechanism embracing both conscious and unconscious elements; and that this was peculiarly the case when the neurogram was organized with an emotional disposition or instinct. The impulsive force of the latter gives energy to the former and enables it to be an active factor in determining behavior. The organism may then be subconsciously governed in its reactions to the environment.
After a consideration of actions so habitually performed that they become automatic and free fromconscious direction (so-called habit-reactions), of actions performed by decerebrate animals, of cerebro-spinal reflexes, and many motor activities of lower forms of animal life, we came to the conclusion that they also were performed by unconscious neural dispositions and processes, analogous to, or identical with (as the case might be) the acquired dispositions and processes correlated with conscious processes. Many of them may likewise be acquired and in a pragmatic sense intelligent. We thus were able to broaden our conception of the unconscious and its functioning, and at the same time see the further necessity of distinguishing the unconscious as a subdivision of the subconscious.
Proceeding further we found that besides subconscious processes that are distinctly unconscious, there are others which are distinctly conscious (or at least unconscious processes with conscious accompaniments) but which do not enter the focus or fringe of awareness—in other words, true subconscious ideas. These were termedcoconsciousas a second subdivision of the subconscious. They may include true perceptions, memories, thoughts, volition, imagination, etc. As with unconscious processes, any conserved experience of life,under certain conditions and given certain other factors, may thus function coconsciously, particularly if organized with and activated by an innate emotional disposition. So we may have subconscious processes both without and with conscious equivalents. We have also seen that coconscious processes may exhibitintelligence of a high order, and the same thing is possibly true in a less degree of unconscious processes. We found evidence showing that a conserved idea may undergo subconscious incubation and elaboration, and that subconscious processes may acquire a marked degree of autonomy, may determine or inhibit conscious processes of thought, solve problems, enter into conflicts, and in various modes produce all sorts of psychological phenomena (hallucinations, impulsive phenomena, aboulia, amnesia, dissociation of personality, etc.).
We have seen how, by the use of the experimental method of “tapping,” and by hypnotic and other procedures, that this same autonomy can be demonstrated, manifesting itself by impulsive phenomena (writing, speech, gestures, and all sorts of motor automatisms) on the one hand, and sensory automatisms (hallucinations) on the other. And we have seen that by similar procedures, in specially adapted individuals, remembrances of coconscious processes that have induced identical phenomena can be recalled. With this precise knowledge of the processes at work these automatisms were correlated with the spontaneous occurrence of the same kinds of phenomena in the psychoses and in normal conditions. Their occurrence in all sorts of pathological conditions thus becomes intelligible.
Evidence has been adduced to show that life’s experiences, and therefore acquired dispositions, tend to become organized into groups. The latter, termed for descriptive purposes neurograms, therebyacquire a functional unity; and they may become compounded into larger functioning groups, or complexes, and still larger systems of neurograms. Whether their origin is remembered or not they become a part of the personality. Such complexes and systems play an important part by determining mental and bodily behavior. Amongst other things they tend to determine the points of view, the attitudes of mind, the individual and social conscience, judgment, etc., and, as large systems, may become “sides to one’s character.” When such complexes have strong emotional tones they may set up conflicts leading to the inhibition of antagonistic sentiments, and sometimes to the contraction and even disruption of the personality. All these phenomena can be induced by the artificial creation and organization of complexes and this principle becomes an important one in therapeutics.
When studying ideas we found that, besides sensory images, they have meaning derived from antecedent associated experiences that form the setting or context. Further evidence was adduced to show that this setting and the idea formed a psychic whole; but that often the former remained subconscious while the idea only, or the affect only, or both, emerged into the content of consciousness. The significance of this mechanism lay in the fact that it enabled us to understand the insistency of emotional ideas or obsessions. Indeed reasons have been given for holding that subconscious processes perform a part in most processes of thought.
Besides acquired dispositions, organized and, so to speak, deposited by life’s experiences, personality includes many that are innate, and therefore conditioned by inherited pre-formed anatomical and physiological arrangements of the nervous system. These function after the manner of a physiological reflex; and the theory was adopted that the emotions are the central elements in certain of such dispositions. These may therefore be called emotional dispositions or instincts. By the excitation of such emotional reflexes the organism reacts in an emotional manner to the environment.
In the organization of life’s experiences the emotional dispositions tend to become synthesized with ideas to form sentiments and therefore synthesized with the neurographic residua by which ideas are conserved. Thus, on the one hand, neurograms and systems of neurograms become organized with innate emotional dispositions, and, on the other, ideas become energized by the emotional impulsive force that carries the ideas to fruition.
As to general psycho-pathological and certain physiological phenomena, a large variety such as anxiety states, hallucinations, and automatic motor phenomena, are clearly the manifestations of automatic subconscious processes; some are the resultants of conflicts between the impulsive forces of distinctly conscious sentiments, others between those of conscious and subconscious sentiments; others are the physiological manifestation of emotional processes, conscious or subconscious. Some,indicative of losses from personality (such as amnesia, anesthesia, paralysis, altered personality, etc.), are the resultants of inhibitions or dissociations of acquired or innate dispositions, effected by the conflicting force of antagonistic factors. These resultants may or may not be associated with the excitation and dominance of complexes, or large systems of acquired dispositions. If so, moods, trance states, fugues, somnambulistic states, secondary personalities, and other hysterical states come into being. In all cases these various pathological conditions are functional derangements of the fundamental factors of a given human personality—expressions of the same mechanisms which the organism normally makes use of to adapt itself harmoniously to its own past or present experiences and to its environment.
Finally, out of the innate and acquired dispositions organized by experience to a very large extent into unitary dynamic systems human personality is constructed by the integration of these systems (and other dispositions) into a composite functioning whole. And according as certain systems acquire dominance and determine fixed and predictable reactions to the environment character traits are developed. But as personality is thus a composite, that is an integrated system of lesser systems these latter are capable of being reassembled or integrated in varying combinations into many and different composites and thus multiple personality may be formed. The forces which bring about the disintegration of the normal composite and the resynthesizing of the unitary systems into newpersonalities are to be found in the dynamic dispositions of conscious and unconscious mechanisms. And we have also seen that as the empirical ego is a unitary system organized by experience each personality may contain its own differentiated ego.
Viewing as a whole the phenomena we have studied, we see why it is that personality is a complex affair in that in its make-up there enter many factors, some acquired and some innate. Each of these is capable of more or less autonomy and upon their harmonious coöperation depends the successful adaptation of the personality to its environment. It is, we may say with almost literal truth, when these factors work to cross purposes that a personality ceases to be a harmonious whole; just as the individuals composing a group of persons, a football team, for example, when they fail to work together and each strives to fulfill his own purposes, cease to be a single team. Consciousness is not a unity in any sense that the term has any significant meaning beyond that which is a most banal platitude. The “unity of consciousness” seems to be a cant-expression uttered by some unsophisticated ancient philosopher and repeated like an article of faith by each successive generation without stopping to think of its meaning or to test it by reference to facts. Neither a reference to the evidence of consciousness or to its manifestations gives support to the notion of unity. The mind is rather an aggregation of potential or functioning activities some of which may combine into associative functioning processes at one time and some at another;while again these different activities may become disaggregated with resulting contraction of personality, on the one hand, and conflicting multiple activities on the other.
The unconscious, representing as it does all the past experiences of life that have been conserved, is not limited to any particular type of experiences; nor are the subconscious and conscious processes to which it gives rise more likely to be determined by any particular antecedents, such as those of childhood, as some would have us believe. Nor are these motivated by any particular class of emotional instincts or strivings of human personality. The instincts and other innate dispositions which are fundamental factors are, as we have seen, multiform, and any one of them may provide the motivating force which activates subconscious as well as conscious processes. Impelled by any one or combination of these instincts unconscious complexes may undergo subconscious incubation and in the striving to find expression may work for harmony or, by conflict with other complexes, for discord.
Having grasped the foregoing general principles governing the functioning mechanisms of the mind, we are prepared to undertake the study of the more particular problems of everyday life and of special pathology.
304. In most universities to-day Psychology is classed as a department of Philosophy! How long is this attitude to be continued?
304. In most universities to-day Psychology is classed as a department of Philosophy! How long is this attitude to be continued?