Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology

by C. G. Jung

In this state she renounced her former retired life and liked to undertake adventurous excursions unarmed, through wood and mountain, on foot and horseback. In one of these excursions she encountered a large black bear, which she took for a pig. The bear raised himself on his hind legs and gnashed his teeth at her. As she could not drive her horse on any further, she took an ordinary stick and hit the bear until it took to flight. Five weeks later, after a deep sleep, she returned to her earlier state with amnesia for the interval. These states alternated for about sixteen years. But her last twenty-five years Mary Reynolds passed exclusively in her second state.

Schroeder von der Kalk[58] reports on the following case: The patient became ill at the age of sixteen with periodic amnesia, after a previous tedious illness of three years. Sometimes in the morning after waking she passed through a peculiar choreic state, during which she made rhythmical movements with her arms. Throughout the whole day she would then exhibit a childish, silly behaviour and lost all her educated capabilities. (When normal she is very intelligent, well-read, speaks French well.) In the second state she begins to speak faulty French. On the second day she is again at times normal. The two states are completely separated by amnesia.[59]

Hoefelt[60] reports on a case of spontaneous somnambulism in a girl who, in her normal state, was submissive and modest, but in somnambulism was impertinent, rude and violent. Azam's[61] Felida was, in her normal state, depressed, inhibited, timid; and in the second state lively, confident, enterprising to recklessness. The second state gradually became the chief one, and finally so far suppressed the first state that the patient called her normal states, lasting now but a short time, "crises." The amnesic attacks had begun at 14½. In time the second state became milder and there was a certain approximation between the character of the two states. A very striking example of change in character is that worked out by Camuset, Ribot, Legrand du Saulle, Richer, Voisin, and put together by Bourru and Burot.[62] It is that of Louis V., a severe male hysteric with amnesic alternating character. In the first stage he is rude, cheeky, querulous, greedy, thievish, inconsiderate. In the second state he is an agreeable, sympathetic character, industrious, docile and obedient. This amnesic change of character has been used by Paul Lindau[63] in his drama "Der Andere" (The Other One).

Rieger[64] reports on a case parallel to Lindau's criminal lawyer. The unconscious personalities of Janet's Lucie and Léonie (Janet, l.c.) and Morton Prince's[65] may also be regarded as parallel with our case. There are, however, therapeutic artificial products whose importance lies in the domain of the dissociation of consciousness and of memory.

In the above cases, the second state is always separated from the first by an amnesic dissociation, and the change in character is, at times, accompanied by a break in the continuity of consciousness. In our case there is no amnesic disturbance; the passage from the first to the second stage follows quite gradually and the continuity of consciousness remains. The patient carries out in her waking state everything, otherwise unknown to her, from the field of the unconscious that she has experienced during hallucinations in the second stage.

Periodic changes in personality without amnesic dissociation are found in the region of folie circulaire, but are rarely seen in hysterics, as Renaudin's[66] case shows. A young man, whose behaviour had always been excellent, suddenly began to display the worst tendencies. There were no symptoms of insanity, but, on the other hand, the whole surface of the body was anæsthetic. This state showed periodic intervals, and in the same way the patient's character was subject to vacillations. As soon as the anæsthesia disappeared he was manageable and friendly. When the anæsthesia returned he was overcome by the worst instincts, which, it was observed, even included the wish to murder.

Remembering that our patient's age at the beginning of the disturbances was 14-1/2, that is, the age of puberty had just been reached, one must suppose that there was some connection between the disturbances and the physiological character-changes at puberty. "There appears in the consciousness of the individual during this period of life a new group of sensations, together with the feelings and ideas arising therefrom; this continuous pressure of unaccustomed mental states makes itself constantly felt because the cause is always at work; the states are co-ordinated because they arise from one and the same source, and must little by little bring about deep-seated changes in the ego."[67] Vacillating moods are easily recognisable; the confused new, strong feelings, the inclination towards idealism, to exalted religiosity and mysticism, side by side with the falling back into childishness, all this gives to adolescence its prevailing character. At this epoch the human being first makes clumsy attempts at independence in every direction; for the first time uses for his own purposes all that family and school have contributed hitherto; he conceives ideals, constructs far-reaching plans for the future, lives in dreams whose content is ambitious and egotistic. This is all physiological. The puberty of a psychopathic is a crisis of more serious import. Not only do the psychophysical changes run a stormy course, but features of a hereditary degenerate character become fixed. In the child these do not appear at all, or but sporadically. For the explanation of our case we are bound to consider a specific disturbance of puberty. The reasons for this view will appear from a further study of the second personality. (For the sake of brevity we shall call the second personality Ivenes—as the patient baptised her higher ego).

Ivenes is the exact continuation of the everyday ego. She includes the whole of her conscious content. In the semi-somnambulic state her intercourse with the real external world is analogous to that of the waking state, that is, she is influenced by recurrent hallucinations, but no more than persons who are subject to non-confusional psychotic hallucinations. The continuity of Ivenes obviously extends to the hysterical attack with its dramatic scenes, visionary events, etc. During the attack itself she is generally isolated from the external world; she does not notice what is going on around her, does not know that she is talking loudly, etc. But she has no amnesia for the dream-content of her attack. Amnesia for her motor expressions and for the changes in her surroundings is not always present. That this is dependent upon the degree of intensity of her somnambulic state and that there is sometimes partial paralysis of individual sense organs is proved by the occasion when she did not notice me; her eyes were then open, and most probably she saw the others, although she only perceived me when I spoke to her. This is a case of so-called systematised anæsthesia (negative hallucination) which is often observed in hysterics.

Flournoy,[68] for instance, reports of Helen Smith that during the séances she suddenly ceased to see those taking part, although she still heard their voices and felt their touch; sometimes she no longer heard, although she saw the movements of the lips of the speakers, etc.