1 .1.111, A B C OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS.—I.
AGREAT many people are just now discussing Psycho- Analysis at a disadvantage. Most of the books and even the articles written about this subject pass, the reader will notice, straight to a discussion of some such question as " Should the Psycho-Analyst tell ? " " Is Psycho-Analysis to be admitted to our public schools " " Domestic peace and Psycho-Analysis." Such books and articles, in the absence of any definition of Psycho- Analysis, or of the technical words employed, leave the reader with at best a vague sense of edification from having been a witness of profound discussion between better- informed persons. At worst he begins to suspect the writers of not being quite as scientifically minded as they would have us believe. The two following articles—by a beginner for beginners—are for those who want to read and still more to discuss Psycho-Analysis, but who are, in the first place, not sure if the whole subject is not slightly morbid, and who, in the second place, do not know where to begin.
First of all, what is meant by the word Psycho-Analysis The definition of a word should be a report on the facts. The word seems at present to be generally loosely used to signify the application of ordinary scientific methods to mental phenomena. After the Dark Ages people ceased once more to think of ordinary mental experience or mental disease as the work of inscrutable supernatural creatures, demons, incubi, witches, or, on the other hand, angels and guardian spirits. They then began to wonder what were the causes of the more striking mental oddities such as genius, madness, dreams, prophecies, or even such things as aesthetic pleasures. Physiologists were the first to take up the work of inquiry from a scientific point of view, and it was hoped that Phrenology would result at least in the cure of many forms of madness. But the study of bumps and even of brain-cells proved very disappointing, and men of science have now started along another line of inquiry. They have begun, like the poet and the novelist, to ask what are the " fantastic tricks which men play before high heaven. The Psycho-Analyst takes conduct as his data. He regards the facts and circumstances of the hallucination, or the loss of memory, or of the ability to repeat Paradise Lost at first reading as the facts to be studied. He does not measure the patient's head or feel his bumps. And here we must make a further explanation. It is sometimes assumed that Psycho-Analysis is only concerned with the abnormal. Why has this idea arisen ? In the first place, " They that are whole need not a physician." Again, when we want to study a piece of matter, we put it under a microscope to make it seem larger. When we are studying states of mind, it is often convenient, allowing for probable distortions, to consider cases in which ordinary mental processes are exaggerated or simplified. It is for this reason that cases of hysterical or shell-shocked patients are nearly always cited in books on Psycho-Analysis to illustrate an argument, and not because the science is ultimately concerned most with them.
Psycho-Analysts, then, are applying the ordinary methods of science to the facts of behaviour. First, that is, they are observing and recording facts of conduct in both normal and abnormal people. Secondly, they are trying to discover which, among these phenomena, are related to one another and to group them accordingly. Thirdly, to devise a hypothesis to explain as many as possible of the facts that have been found out and by means of which further facts (that for some reason cannot be demon- strated) can be inferred. Here, again, we find a stumbling- block for the non-scientist. We laymen demand far too much from a scientific hypothesis. We can put up with the complete obvious fiction of the Equator, but we distrust such equivocal things as Ether waves or Inhibitions which may or may not exist, but the assumption of whose existence is practically so useful to the scientist. But if we can tell a mineralogist or an entomologist that certain broad conclusions reached by means of Psycho- Analysis range a great number of apparently isolated facts into a coherent whole ; further, that with our hypo- thesis we can build syllogisms which generally prove to correspond to as yet unknown facts, he will be satisfied. And all this we can say of the initial steps which have been taken by Psycho-Analysis. When the layman wants to be sure that there is such a thing as a " complex " or a " repression " before he will allow it to be thought of, he is in reality confusing two groups of things—points of view and facts—and demanding proofs of the first which can only be demanded of the second. For convenience of dissection, then, Psycho-Analysts regard the personality as divided primarily into Consciousness and Subconscious- ness. They give the name of Subconsciousness to that part of the personality which is chiefly concerned with instinct. If the reader wishes to assure himself of the existence of this Subconsciousness, let him try the following experiment,* which will show him how easily his own Con- scious Mind may be cheated. Take a piece of paper, draw a circle on it, then draw a cross within the circle. Mark • From Charles Bandonin's Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion. (Allen and Undo. 15a. net.) the ends of the cross A, B and C, D, then take a long pencil, a piece of stick or a knitting needle and tie on to the end of it a piece of string about eighteen inches long. On the other end of the string tie some small, fairly heavy object if possible something bright—a small glass lustre off a chandelier, a locket, or a small brass ornament will do very well. Sit down with the piece of paper in front of you on a table, hold the pencil as if it were a fishing-rod, and let the little bright object dangle over the centre of the cross. When he is in position, the experimenter, without making any particular mental effort, must let his eye travel from A to B and from B to A, meanwhile holding the rod quite still. After about a minute, with most people, the little weight begins to swing from A to B and back again. When he is satisfied of this, if the experi- menter lets his eye follow the line C, D, the little plumb- line will be found also to change its direction ; again, if he let his eye travel round the circle it will follow the direction of his eyes again. There is, of course, nothing occult in the whole affair, but it is a rather striking proof of the way in which a perfectly normal, honest, well- intentioned person can be made to cheat by his Subcon- sciousness, for the experimenter will be ready to swear that he did not move his arm. It must here be noted, by the way, that occasionally, with excep- tional people, the little plumb-line will swing in the opposite direction to that followed by the eyes, but this is only a slightly more complicated mani- festation of the same phenomenon. Having satisfied ourselves of its reality, let us return to discussion of the Sub- consciousness. We are, for instance, very often not in the least aware that some action of ours springs from a primitive instinct like the instinct of self-preservation, of vanity, which psychologists know as " the self-regarding instinct" of hunger, or of sex instinct. But Psycho-Analysts have proved fairly conclusively that a great many actions for which we can afterwards give perfectly rational explana- tions are in reality prompted by these instincts. The reasons we give for them are thought of afterwards and represent what is called Rationalization—that is to say, the process of doing a thing and explaining it afterwards. Freud, the great Viennese pioneer of Psycho-Analysis, refers back nearly all such instinctive actions to sex impulse, but Jung, the Swiss professor, and most of the French and English research workers disagree with him in this respect. It is of course possible, as they point out, to say that when a man instinctively tries to prevent himself falling over a precipice he is actuated by sex impulse—the desire to continue the race. It is also possible to say that a mother's instinctive, passionate protection of her child is sex instinct ; but if such cases as these are attributed to sex impulse, the expression loses all the special sense in which we usually understand it. It is much simpler to say in such cases that the man and woman are actuated by the instinct of self- preservation and maternal instinct.
The Subconscious is then, roughly speaking, the primitive part of our nature, and in the ordinary civilized being the primitive part, though retaining its strong desire for the self-expression of action, stands, as it were, in fear of the conscious mind which controls it and which can sometimes be a very stern piaster. The Subconsciousness is very often obliged to disguise its manifestations, for they are frequently such as the moral or it may be over- sophisticated Conscious mind would by no means approve. For instance, in the books on Shell-shock published during the war we see cases cited in which a soldier was found to be suffering from, say, a watering of his right eye, or a tremor of one of his arms or fingers which effectually prevented his using a rifle. When, by some means or other, these afflictions were cured, he would be found to have become deaf or to suffer from fits of vomiting or some such trouble. When such cases were treated by a Psychologist, one of his first steps was generally to try to discover the nature of the patient's dreams. A case of this sort was reported from a hospital at Malta, where it was found that the soldier dreamt nearly every night with every conceivable elaboration of setting and story, dreams in which he figured as a Chinaman. Afterwards he dreamed stories in which he was a priest in some temple. The Psycho-Analyst diagnosed this state of things as a conflict between his Conscious and Subcon- scious mind. The Conscious mind was quite courageous and accepted as a matter of course that he should " do his bit " in the war. Not so the Subconscious. The Subcon- scious, being in fear of the Censorship of the Conscious, did not dare, as it were, to express its primitive abhorrence of danger quite directly ; instead, it managed to get partial control of the body, so as to produce the so-called functional symptoms, and of the mind at night in such a way as to hint to the top consciousness that he was really in a position which made it unnecessary for him to run into danger. In the stories it told him at night he was invariably a Chinese mandarin or a priest, persons who would be exempt from going to war. These dreams might also have, the physician thought, a further significance. They were intended to hint as a sort of concealed double entendre that the man was really a woman, for in both cases the long dresses were particularly clearly visualised and insisted upon. When the Psycho- Analyst informed the patient of what he believed was at the bottom of his trouble, the man was extremely worried, and much hurt because he feared the doctor took him for a coward, and thereafter, being on his guard, was able more effectively to censor the troublesome Subconscious. It was, as the reader will have perceived, just because the man was not a coward that the oonffict arose. Had his Con- sciousness been as determined as his Subconsciousness to get out of the war, he would almost certainly have been able, by hook or by crook, to find some work which kept him well out of danger. There were many jobs, at the base or as a cook, which provided a refuge for the man who " knew his own mind "—a pregnant popular phrase, by the by. In the case of the shell-shocked soldier which we have outlined, we have also a good example of the very simple curative methods often—or is it not too much to say nearly always ?—employed by the Psycho- Analysts.
Apparently, once the machinations of the Subconscious are brought to light we can generally deal with them ourselves. It is only when the plots of that Machiavelli are concealed from us that he can harm us. Once the gaff is blown we are masters again in our own house. In the case of children especially a great deal can also be done to educate the primitive Subconscious- ness and to make its desires less Neolithic. This is one of the functions of Pedagogics and Psycho-Analysis in alliance.
(To be continued.) E.-W.
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