XI. The Principle of Dynamogenesis
Recessive, and especially dissociated systems, being dormant subconsciously, may become envigorated, may accumulate emotion, and when the opportunity comes, may react to external stimuli with vigor and energy. The attacks may occur like epileptic fits. They often so well simulate epileptic maladies that even good clinicians have classed such attacks under the term of larval epilepsy, psychic epilepsy, hystero-epilepsy, or psychic equivalent of epilepsy. This subconscious energy manifestation may be termed Dynamogenesis.
XII. The Principle of Inhibition
Self-preservation and the fear instinct inhibit associated mental systems, producing morbid states. Morbid mental states, however, are not produced by inhibitions, or repressions. It is only when the inhibitive factors are self and fear that a true morbid mental state, or neurosis arises. To regard self repression as a bad condition and leading to diseases is to misapprehend the nature of man, to falsify psychology, and to misrepresent the development of humanity. The self should not become hypertrophied. Self-preservation should not become overgrown. The self must be kept within limits. The self impulse should be kept under control by the individual. For true happiness is to be a law unto oneself. As the great Greek thinkers put it: Happiness is in self rule. The unruly are miserable. In fact, self-control is absolutely requisite to mental health, to sanity. Self-repression is requisite for happiness. Self-repression never leads to disease. It is only when self-repression is produced and dominated by selfishness and fear that morbid states of a psychopathic, neurotic character are sure to arise. It is not inhibitions that produce fear, but it is fear that produces inhibitions. To ascribe neurosis to self-repression and to conflict is like attributing malaria or tuberculosis to air and light.
XIII. The Principle of Mental Contest and Discord
Mental states associated with intense emotions tend to take a dominant lead in consciousness. This, however, may be totally opposed by the general character of the individual. In such cases the whole mental set, being in opposition to the total individuality, is in contest with the character of the person who is then in state of discord. A mental set in contest with the make-up of the person is usually inhibited, becomes subconscious, and as a rule fades away from the mind, often leaving no trace even in memory, conscious or subconscious. In some cases where a compromise is possible, a reconciliation is effected. The mental set is assimilated, and disappears from consciousness as an independent, functioning state.
When, however, the opposing or contesting mental set is based on a fundamental impulse and accompanying instinct, such as the impulse of self-preservation and the fear instinct, a total inhibition is not always possible, even a compromise may not be successful, because the mental set is in association with the core of the individual,—namely self-preservation. The contesting mental set remains, in what Galton terms, “the antechamber of consciousness.” The mind is in a state of tension, in a state of anxiety, in restless, uneasy discord, due to the fear instinct, the companion of the impulse of self-preservation. The contesting mental set, charged with intense fear emotion, presses into the foreground of consciousness, and a contest, a discord, ensues in the mind of the individual, a contest, a discord, a conflict which keeps the person in a state of indecision and lack of will power.
The partly inhibited, contesting mental set, when not fading away, may thus remain in the mind, and act like a splinter in the flesh, giving rise to a state of discomfort. This is just what happens when the individual has not been trained to assimilate fear states, and is unable to adjust fear reactions to the welfare of total psycho-physiological life activity.
In cases where the impulse of self-preservation and the fear instinct have become aroused, the contesting fear set of mental states presses again and again to the foreground of consciousness. When no compromise of the contesting states can be brought about, when the fear set cannot be assimilated, the mind is in a state of restless discord. It is not, however, the discord that produces the neurosis, it is the impulse of self-preservation and the fear instinct that constitute the cause of the psychopathic, neurotic condition.