Fig. 19 shows the dream and hypnotic consciousnesses, after the pattern of Fig. 10. The stream of consciousness flows out of the paper, towards the reader. In <^, the dream consciousness, we have a single, narrow wave; the greater part of the bed of the stream is dry. The wave is nearly as high as the attention- wave in Fig. \o b. Below we have the hypnotic consciousness; a state of extreme attention, with the level of the ideas attended from depressed almost to disappearance.
(2) The 'influence' that the operator has over the Hypnosis subject IS an mfluence given him by the subject, i he h3,pnosis. condition of hypnosis lies in the subject, not in the personality of some other man. The operator has.
ft a 2/4 Abnormal Psychology it is true, two advantages. He asserts emphatically that he * can hypnotise '; and we all tend to believe an emphatic assertion, however groundless it may be. So we give him an influence over us, even before we have seen him. And the operator knows, from long experience with hypnotised subjects, how we shall most easily fall into the hypnotic state, how, i.e.^ our complete attention can best be secured: whether by coaxing or by bullying, whether by strokings that suggest the gradual flow of a power from him or by a smart stroke on the back of the neck that confuses us for a moment, etc. All the * methods' of hypno- tising are so many tricks to bring about the state of rapt and absorbed attention in the subject's mind.
Three corollaries follow from this statement of the condi- tions of hypnosis.
i^a) The presence of the operator is not required; one can hypnotise oneself. Tt- is only necessary to close the channels of sense against the variety of outside impres- sions (by sitting in a dark room, listening steadily to a faint sound, etc.), and to attend fixedly to the idea that one will fall into the hypnotic state: hypnosis results. This process is termed self-suggestion or autosuggestion, {b) Any normal person can be hypnotised, just as any normal person can dream. Only young children and idiots, who are * scatter-brained/ incapable of concentrated atten^ tion, are also incapable of hypnotisation. People differ in liability to hypnosis, as they do in liability to dreaming; but the difference is merely one of degree.
{c) Animals could be hypnotised, if they could be brought for a moment into the state of extreme attention. Indeed, by thoroughly and suddenly frightening an animal, one can set up a state (known as cataplexy) which is, at least, very similar to the hypnotic state. Seize a frog unexpectedly by § 114. Some Debated Questions of Hypnosis 275 a hind leg, as a heron would seize it: instead of struggling to escape, the frog becomes rigid, and remains perfectly quiet.
§ 1 14. Some Debated Questions of Hypnosis. — There are four topics, much discussed in the literature of hypnotism, about which it may be well to say a few words here. They are rapport and suggestion, double consciousness, terminal suggestion and the therapeutic value of hypnosis.
(i) All the phenomena of hypnosis can be summed Suggestion, up in the single word suggestion. The operator sug- gests to the subject what he is to see and do; the subject suggests to himself that he shall enter the hypnotic state. We have already had instances of suggestion in the Exercises appended to Chapter II.
Now it may easily happen, after the subject has Rapport, acquired a general belief in the ' powers ' of a par- ticular operator, that he passes to a very special belief in these powers. He believes — either be- cause the operator has ' suggested ' it to him, or because he has ' suggested ' it to himself — that no one but this operator can hypnotise him. It then follows, of course, that the required concentration of attention can be secured only when the operator is present. Thus arises the rapport, as it is called, between hypnotiser and hypnotised.
In other words, the rapport consists in an insistent belief, in the subject's mind, that one and only one man can hyp- notise him. There is nothing mysterious about it, any more than there would be about the contrary belief that a certain man could not hypnotise him. The rapport is often set up sciousness.
276 Abnormal Psychology by physicians, with patients who are undergoing hypnotic treatment, to avoid interference in the case by other oper- ators.
Double con- (2) We havc sccn that the subject who is aroused from the somnambulistic state has no memory of what has taken place during hypnosis. Oftentimes, however, memory is carried over from hypnosis to hypnosis; i.e.^ the subject, when rehypnotised, re- members what he saw and did in the previous state of somnambulism. We thus have an alternation of memories: waking memory, hypnosis, waking mem- ory continued, hypnotic memory continued, waking memory again, hypnotic memory again, and so on. This phenomenon has received the name of double consciousness^ and has been explained by the hypo- thesis that there are two * selves ' to every body, a primary (waking) self and a secondary (trance) self. The hypothesis is unnecessary. When we wake, whether from somnambulism or dreaming, wawake into a different world from that in which we have been; the functions of the cortex are altered; there is no reason why we should remember from the one state to the other. When we fall asleep again, or are rehypnotised, we go back into the unreal world; the cortex takes on its former functions once moreT there is no reason why we should not remember from the one state to the other.
Everyone knows how easily dreams are forgotten on waking. And most readers have, probably, had the experi- ence of a continuous dream, a dream that is continued from night to night. The reason that dreams are not more often continuous is that there is no regulation of the dream con- § 114. Some Debated Questions of Hypnosis 277 sciousness by attention; hence the course of the train of ideas may be deflected by the accidental stimulation of the moment.
The first time that the author ' took gas ' for a dental operation, he had a vivid and detailed dream. He has taken gas on three subsequent occasions; and each time the same dream has been repeated and continued. The incidents of the first dream can be traced to certain experiences of the waking life: so that it would be absurd to speak, in this case, of a double conscious- ness. Yet the continuance of memory from somnambulism to somnambulism is precisely parallel.
(3) If the operator suggests to a subject in the Terminal somnambulistic state that he do something so long ^^^sesion. after waking, — e.g.^ break a pane of glass at five o'clock, — the action is usually performed. Such a command is called a tenninal siiggestioft.
The explanation is that the operator's suggestion of the time at which the action shall be done serves as a bridge between the hypnotic and the waking consciousnesses. The time-idea is common to both. Hence, when the time comes round, the subject relapses (by association) into the hypnotic state, and obeys the suggestion. In the case of double con- sciousness, just discussed, no bridge has been built by the operator between the real and the unreal worlds.
(4) We come, lastly, to the question whether hyp- Hypnosis as nosis can be employed as a curative agent in the ^icagTm!"' treatment of disease. The answer seems to be that {a) derangements of circulation and secretion, and {b) habits like alcoholism, can be remedied and removed by hypnotic therapeutics. Just as a ^ sug- gestion ' will make us blush (circulation) or cry 2/8 Abnormal Psychology (secretion) in the waking life, so will the stronger suggestion of the somnambulistic stage work greater changes in blood-supply and glandular action. And just as a sharp rebuke will keep a child from repeat- ing an offence, so will suggestion restrain the drunk- ard and the morphine taker. On the other hand, (c) no amount of suggestion will cure typhoid fever or a broken leg; it is only functional disturbances that hypnosis can cope with. Nor is hypnotism of much use {d) as an anaesthetic; chloroform has stood the test of hospital practice far better. / Finally, {e) even at the best there are grave dangers connected with the therapeutic employment of hyp- nosis. The patient is always liable to suffer relapse; in time, he may fall a prey to a * hypnotic habit ' as afflicting as the alcohol or morphine habit of which he has been cured; and it has been observed, in some instances, that the unhesitating acceptance of the physician's suggestion has led to an equally un- hesitating acceptance of all statements, so that the patient loses power to distinguish between the proba- ble and the improbable, and believes fables. — On the whole, then, it may be doubted whether the remedy is not as bad as the disease.
Mental § 1 1 5. Insanity and its Conditions. — There is a P ° ^^' great difference between dreaming and hypnosis, on the one hand, and insanity, on the other, although all three sets of phenomena fall under the general heading of * abnormal psychology.' Dreaming and hypnosis are abnormal states of a normal mind; they show a deviation from the rule or norm of § 115. Insanity and its Conditions 279 function in a sound cortex. Insanity, on the other hand, is the sign of an unsound cortex, of a diseased or 'pathological' state of the brain. Hence while the discussion of dreams and hypnotism forms a sort of appendix to normal psychology, the discussion of insanity, in all its various modes, begins with the consideration of temporary disturbances of cortical action (dreaming, hypnosis, intoxication) and then runs parallel with the discussion of the normal mind: disorders of perception, of idea, of association, of emotion, of action, etc., are taken up in turn. It is clear from this that the subject is far too extensive for us to offer any adequate treatment of it here: the psychology of insanity, like child psychology and ethnic psychology (§§ 118, 120), requires a book to itself. We can do no more than note, in outline, the conditions of mental derangement and the typi- cal forms which insanity assumes.
It is important to understand the difference between a pathological state, and a state of temporary deviation from the norm in an otherwise sound brain. We may say, per- haps, that dreaming and hypnosis stand to insanity as a sluggish liver stands to small-pox or a crushed foot; as occasional alcoholic intoxication, with its elevation of mind, thickness of speech and unsteady gait, stands to the maud- lin besottedness and incapacity of the habitual drunkard; or as the tiredness of an athlete after severe exercise stands to the feeble inertness of old age. We shall, indeed, not be far wrong if, summing up in a single word, we describe the difference as that between a derangement of function and a derangement of structure.
The conditions of insanity are usually stated to be Heredity of two kinds: heredity and stress. We may inherit 28o Abnormal Psychology a badly made brain, a brain loosely put together of unstable tissue. In that case, a very slight shock will destroy our mental balance. As Dr. Mercier says: ''A jerry-built villa is liable to be blown down by a storm of wind, but nothing short of an earth- quake will destroy a well-constructed mansion." On the other hand, we may inherit a fairly well made brain, but the storm and stress of life may prove too much for us: in this case, too, we lose our sanity.
It is clear that these two factors must be sharply distinguished whenever we are attempting to give the conditions of a particular case of insanity. If I am trying to find out what drove John Smith mad, I must enquire (i) whether any marked tendency to insanity is shown by his family records, whether his brothers and parents and grandparents give evidence of ' good ' or ^ bad ' heredity, and (2) whether his own life has been peaceful or^-^stormy. But it is equally clear that, regarded historically, the two reduce to one: the badly made brain that is inherited by John Smith is due, in the last resort, to the stress laid upon his ancestry. Stress, then, is the general con- dition of insanity.
Kinds of The Stresses that condition insanity are classified by Dr.
stress. Mercier as follows: (i) Direct Stresses. — ^ Blows on the head, inflammation of the brain, the escape of blood into the rigid chamber of the skull, the pressure of a tumour [on the brain tissue], the ploughing-up of the brain-tissue by a clot, change in the composition of the blood [circulating in the brain],' etc.
(2) hidirect Stresses.
{a) Fiiternal. — ^Puberty, pregnancy, ulcer of stomach, tu- berculosis of lung,' etc.
§ ii6. TJie Chief Forms of hisaiiity 281 {b) External. — ^ Adverse circumstances, worries, anxieties, troubles of various kinds.'
§ 1 16. The Chief Forms of Insanity. — No two cases insanity of insanity are precisely alike, just as no two normal ^e^aiiTd minds are precisely alike. Hence any scheme or ^^^^y- classification of the typical forms of insanity must be a very rough and approximate affair; it will be useful to the psychologist merely as furnishing a sketch-map of a complicated and little explored region, and to the alienist merely as affording a means of pigeon-holing cases that are more or less similar. Accurate and scientific knowledge of the insane mind can come only by way of the detailed study of individual cases.
For our present purpose it will suffice to give a * working' list of the forms of insanity. The reader should be warned that the use of terms differs con- siderably in different authorities.
insanity.
I. Insanity as Imperfect Development. The chief Under this liead come the cases which rise, progressively,!^^^'^_^. from weak-mindedness through imbecility to idiocy. The idiot must be constantly looked after, as if he were a little child; he cannot learn to adjust himself to his surround- ings. '' If left by himself he will set himself on fire, or fall into the water, or cut himself, or get entangled in a machine, or come to some actual physical harm which could have been avoided by the exercise of rudimentary intelli- gence" (Mercier). The imbecile can do ^ odd jobs,' but is unable to plan or perform continuous work.
II. Insanity as Misdirected Development and Degeneration.
Under this head come the typical cases of insanity that are found in asylums: mania, melancholia, dementia, gen- eral paresis, (i) Mania is marked by mental exaltation; the maniac is restless, excitable, voluble, enthusiastic. It culminates } 282 Abnormal Psychology in acute delirium. Certain stages are characterised by delusions of grandeur.
(2) Melancholia is marked by mental depression; the melancholiac is inert, despondent, incapable of exertion, possessed by the idea of his sorrows. It culminates in stuporous melancholia. Certain stages are char- acterised by delusions of persecution, etc.
(3) Dcjnentia is marked by a mental enfeeblement; the dement is stupid, apathetic, helpless. It may appear as the direct result of stress (primary dementia) or as a consequence of mania or melancholia (terminal dementia).
(4) General paresis J or progressive paralytic dementia, begins very much as alcoholic intoxication begins: with im- pairment of memory, quick changes of mood, exalta- tion of mind, hesitancy of speech, loss of facial expres- sion. Then come delusions of grandeur, maniacal fits, unruffled self-satisfaction; and, on the motor side, laboured and interrupted speech, scratchy hand- writing, staggering gait. Finally, the patient becomes bedridden; he cannot turn himself, and can hardly swallow; mentality seems to cease altogether, — General paresis thus shows a gradual decay of the whole nervous system, from above downwards. A form of mania that is peculiarly dangerous to the community is epileptic?nania. The patient is liable to violent maniacal outbursts between the epileptic fits.
The name of paranoia or delusional insanity is some- times used for cases in which there are systematised delusions of grandeur or persecution, but no further im- pairment of mental function. These cases fall under the general heads of mania and melancholia.
Circular ijisanity is a form of insanity in which mania alternates with melancholia, with or without the interposi- tion of periods of sanity.
The study of Such a list as this is very far from being psychoinsani y. logically Satisfactory; it is hardly more than a table of contents, with all the reading to follow^. The facts studied in abnormal psychology are matters § ii6. The Chief Forms of Insanity 283 of detail; the progressive impairment of speech, of handwriting, etc.; the advance of a particular de- lusion; the gradual fall from a higher mental level to a lower as shown by defects of recognition, mem- ory, judgment, etc.; the phenomena of substitution (the recovery of a lost function by the use of parts of the brain which are normally employed in other directions), and so forth.
Let us take as an example the case of what is called aphasia^ Aphasia. loss of language. Aphasia may be produced under various con- ditions, and show itself in various ways. Three principal forms have been distinguished.
(i) Sensory or Amnesic Aphasia. — The patient can see printed or written words, but cannot understand, i.e.^ assimilate them; he is in the state of a child, before it has learned to read. He can, however, write from dictation; he can even write out his own ideas: but in neither case does he understand what he has written. This is word-blindness.
Or again: the patient can hear words, but cannot understand them; he is in the state of a child, before it has learned to understand what is said in its presence. There is this difference, however: the patient can read, can speak and can write; the only thing that fails him is the assimilation of heard words. This is word-deafness.
(2) Motor or Ataxic Aphasia. — The patient can understand written or spoken words, but cannot articulate. This is pure 77iotor aphasia.
Or again: he can understand, and can articulate; but cannot write what he wishes to write. This is agraphia.
(3) Sensori-motor Aphasia or Paraphasia. — The patient can understand what he sees and hears, and has the power to write and to articulate, but has ^ forgotten how ' to use voice and hand. His spoken and written signs, therefore, do not correspond to his ideas. Wishing to say: " Take that light out of my eyes!" he says: " Clean my boots by walking on them! " — and so on.
This classification is by no means complete; Dr. Bateman, in his book '^ On Aphasia or Loss of Speech," distinguishes no less than fifteen varieties of aphasia. It may be chronic or intermit- 284 Abnormal Psychology tent; the loss may be loss of substantives, or of proper names, or of a few words, or of certain letters; one word may be substi- tuted for another; a particular phrase or series of syllables may be used on all occasions in all meanings; the patient may be unable to name an object unless he can trace the outline of the written word with his finger or foot or tongue; objective speech may be lost, but subjective speech (oaths and interjections: § 88) remain; etc., etc.
It is clear that the detailed study of single cases of aphasia may throw light upon the mechanism of thought and of the asso- ciation of ideas in the normal mind.
Questions and Exercises (i) On waking from a visual dream, keep your eyes closed, and scrutinise the dots and splashes of colour that are sprinkled over the dark field. You will find that they correspond roughly in form and arrangement to the figures of the dream-scene. What does this prove?
(2) Write out a vivid dream, while it is fresh in your memory. Then work it over, and try to account for the sequence of ideas by the law of association.
(3) Watch your dreams for a week, and note whether they are all visual, or whether sounds, etc.^ occur in them. During the following week, fix your attention steadily, before you go to sleep, upon a certain sound, taste, smell, etc.; and note whether sounds, tastes, smells, etc., occur afterwards among the dream-ideas.
(4) The most general way in which mental derangement shows itself is in ^defective concentration of the attention' (Wundt). Apply this rule to the various forms of insanity described in § 116. Draw diagrams of the typical insane consciousnesses, after the pattern of Figs. 10 and 19.
(5) ^What strikes one most, on going through an asylum for the first time, is the wonderfully little difference, whether in looks or in conduct, that there is between the insane and the sane.' How is this possible?
(6) How do you explain the fact that certain butterflies, spiders, etc., ^ sham dead' when taken in the hand? And the similar fact that birds are ^ fascinated ' by snakes?
(7) What period of life may be said to show a ^ normal mania,' and what a ^normal dementia'?
Questions and Exercises 285 (8) What could a psychologist gain from an investigation of the expressive movements of deaf-mutes? (6/". § 88.)
(9) For the most part, ^ dreams are easily forgotten.' Yet some dreams are remembered, and remembered for a long time. Under what conditions does this happen?
References James, Textbook^ chs. viii., xii., xviii. (p. 301), xix. (pp. 308-310), xxiii. C. Mercier, Sanity and Insanity^ 1890. A. Moll, Hypnotising 1891.
Sully, Human Mind, vol. II., ch. xix:; and see refs. in Index. Wundt, Lectures, pp. 316-322, Lect. XXII. Wundt, Outlines, § 18.
i^ CHAPTER XV The Province and the Relations of Psychology The various psychologies.
Our own mind the standard of reference.
§ 117. The Scope of Psychology. — When we stated the problem of psychology, in § 9, we said that it would be impossible to treat of all the questions that confront the psychologist within the limits of a sin- gle volume {cf. § 115). And the first thirteen Chap- ters of this book have been confined to one special set of psychological problems: the problems of nor- mal, adult, human, individual psychology. In the last Chapter we have seen that over against normal psychology there stands a psychology of the abnor- mal mind, the facts of which must be explained in the light of the normal consciousness {cf. the ex- planation of hypnosis), while they, in turn, throw light on certain complicated phases of the normal mental life {cf, the facts of aphasia). The same thing holds of the other aspects of the psychology which we have reviewed. Over against adult psy- chology stand the psychologies of childhood and old age; over against human stands animal psychology 4^ and over against individual stands ethnic psychology It must not be supposed, however, that all these branches of psychology are equally independent, or equally far advanced. In the first place, no one of them can be pursued successfully unless the student have a knowledge of the psychology with which this § 117. TJie Scope of PsycJiology 287 book has mainly dealt. The normal mind of the civilised man is the standard of reference in all psychology. We can explain the minds of children, animals, societies, only by comparing what we know of them with the corresponding facts of the stand- ard mind. This truth cannot be too strongly em- phasised: psychological study must begin as the study of the normal adult mind by the method of experimental introspection. To enter upon child study, e.g.y without any such preparation, is to set about surveying a plot of ground before one has a unit of measurement.
Secondly, we know very m.uch more about the nor- Scientific mal adult mind than about the minds of the insane, ^^^^ ° ^^^' or of children and animals. This is natural: the only mind that a psychologist can observe directly is his own, a normal adult mind; all other minds must be observed indirectly, and (as has just been said) ex- plained in the light of the standard mind. So it hap- pens that these side departments of psychology have as yet been less thoroughly explored. Abnormal psychology has, undoubtedly, made most progress. Animal psychology is little more, at present, than a method and a string of facts. Child psychology and ethnic psychology consist of observations, new- made or gleaned from history, which are brought with more or less of probability under the accepted laws of biological evolution. ' Scientific ' psychology is, therefore, normal adult psychology; the other psychologies promise to be sciences, possess the ma- terials out of which sciences may be formed, but have not so far attained to scientific rank.
288 Province and Relations of Psychology Two branches of child psychology.
The reader will now understand how it is that a work dealing with the normal adult mind can be termed a work on ^psychology/ without qualification. This psychology is the psychology, scientific and standard psychology. The other psychologies must be marked off from it by adjec- tives as ^ ethnic/ ' senile/ etc., psychology.
§ 1 1 8. Child Psychology. — The literature of child psychology may be roughly divided into two parts. On the one hand we have records of the mental development of particular children; records which begin with birth, and are continued for months or years. On the other, we have statistical enquiries into the memory, imagination, etc., of school chil- dren, taken in classes and arranged in groups accord- ing to age and sex. In some cases, the material obtained is turned by the author to genetic account: that is, an attempt is made to trace the development of mind, the growing complexity of mental pro- cesses, and, perhaps, to parallel it with the fully formed mind of the animal or the savage, or correlate it with the increasing complexity of the bodily func- tions during the same period of life.
Child records of the first sort seem to begin with Charles Darwin. Although not published until 1877, his ^^ Biographi- cal Sketch of an Infant " {Mind, vol. II.) was written dowiT in 1840. It contains minute observations of the conduct of one of the writer's sons, and especially of the.move- ments that expressed the child's emotions, from birth up to the middle of the third year. Several similar records have now been published, as well as observations of a more limited character (on the development of children's draw- ings, the growth of colour discrimination, etc.).
Child studies of the second kind include enquiries into the contents of a child's mind, i.e., its stock of ideas and beHefs, on entering school; into the mental fatigue brought on by school work; into the child's ability to recognise tones, to estimate and remember the length of lines, etc.; into the instinctive fears of childhood; into the develop- ment of language and the appearance of self-consciousness in children; into children's lies; into the range of the childish imagination, etc.
Mental fatigue, e.g., has been investigated in four ways. Investigation (i) Arithmetical Method. The children are required to solve of fatigue simple arithmetical problems, at the^ beginning of the morning v.?u and at the end of each school hour. The solutions handed in at the different times are compared with regard to quickness and accuracy of work. (2) Me7nory Method. Series of words are read aloud by the teacher, at similar intervals, and written down by the children from memory. (3) Riddle Method. Printed pages of simple narrative are prepared, with words and syllables omitted here and there. The children are required to fill out the blank spaces, according to the sense of the narrative. (4) Method of Ctitaneoiis Space Perception. T'he experiment described as no. 6, p. 118, is performed at intervals, and the results of the trials compared. ^ Some part of this literature has the true scientific Two deside-