3. In entire accordance with the experimental results are certain pathological disturbances which from time to time interrupt the course of everyday life of this subject, O. N. These disturbances consist of one or more of the following: a dissociative state in which the pathological “b mood” is dominant; a lethargic state; twilight state; complete repression of certain normal sentiments and instincts; complete alteration of previously established points of view; morbid self-reproach; nervousness, restlessness, agitation; anger at opposition; indecision of thought, etc. Now, whenever such phenomena recur, with practical certainty, they can always be traced by the use of technical methods to a conflict with a turbulent sentiment (in which strong emotional tones are incorporated) previously lying dormant in the unconscious. Sometimes the turbulent sentiment can be definitely traced to childhood’s experiences. Very often it has been intentionally formed and put into her mind by the subject herself for the very purpose of inducing the repression of other sentiments, to which for one reason or another for the time being she objects, and of changing her habitual point of view. Her method of artificially accomplishing this result is exceedingly instructive. It is similar to the auto-suggestive process I have described in connection with the hypnotic experiments. Having first prearranged her psychological plan, she proceeds to put herself into abstraction and to “take out”, as she calls it, her previous sentiment (or instinct) and substitute an antagonistic sentiment. When she comes to herself out of abstraction, the previously objected to sentiment has completely vanished. If it is one concerning a person or mode of life, she becomes completely indifferent to that person or mode of life as if previously no sentiment had existed. If an intimate friend, he becomes only an acquaintance toward whom she has entirely new feelings corresponding to the new sentiment; if a physician, nothing that he says has influence with her, her new feeling, we will say, being that of resentment; if a mode of life, she has lost all interest in that mode and is governed by an interest in a new mode. Even physiological bodily instincts have been in this way suppressed. She has indulged this psychological habit for years. Again and again when she has exhibited these, and still other, phenomena, I have been able to discover their origin in this auto-suggestive procedure.
Some of the other phenomena I have just mentioned are more likely to be traced to autochthonous conflicts between everyday ideas—dissatisfactions with actual conditions of life, and wishes for other conditions, unwillingness to forego the fulfilment of certain wishes and accept the necessary conditions as they exist, etc. The natural consequence is restlessness, agitation, anger, indecision, etc. The dissociation of personality, with the outcropping of the “b mood,” follows—a conflict due to the excitation of certain childhood complexes, conserved in the unconscious and embracing sentiments in which are incorporated the instinct of self-subjection or abasement. This “b mood” is a study in itself. The self-reproaches are, I believe, also traceable to this instinct.
Conflicts may even occur between two processes, both of which are subconscious and therefore outside of the awareness of the subject. Thus, in B. C. A. I have frequently observed the following: while the right hand has been engaged in automatic writing, the left hand, motivated by a subconscious sentiment antagonistic to the subconscious ideas performing the writing, has seized the pencil, broken it, or thrown it across the room. The two conflicting systems of thought, each with its own sentiments and wishes, have been made to disclose themselves and exhibit their antitheses and antipathies.
The principle of emotional conflict and the phenomena we have outlined enable us to understand the mechanism of prolonged reaction time and blocking of thought observed in the so-called “word association tests.” These tests involve too large a subject for us to enter upon them here. Let it suffice to say that when a test word strikes an emotional complex the response of the subject by an associated word may be delayed or completely blocked. The emotional impulse which inhibits the response may come from an awakened conscious or subconscious memory.
The psychogalvanic reaction as physical evidence of actual subconscious emotional discharge.—This reaction may be also used to demonstrate that subconscious processes may actually give forth emotional impulses without the ideas of those processes entering the personal consciousness.
1. I may be permitted to cite here some experiments,[[242]] which I made with Dr. Frederick Peterson, as they leave the minimum of latitude for interpretation and come as close as possible to the demonstration of emotional discharges from processes entirely outside of awareness. Such a demonstration is important for the theory of subconscious conflicts.
The experiments were undertaken in a case of multiple personality (B. C. A.) with a view to obtaining the galvanic phenomenon from coconscious states. This case offered an exceptional opportunity to determine whether the galvanic reaction could be obtained in one personality from the dissociated complexes deposited by the experiences of the second alternating personality for which there was complete amnesia on the part of the first. These dissociated experiences, of course, had never entered the awareness of the personality tested, who, therefore, necessarily could not possibly recall them to memory. With the information furnished by the second personality, it was easy to arrange test words associated with the emotional ideas of the experiences belonging to this personality and unknown to the one tested.
Similarly it was possible to test whether galvanic reaction could be obtained from complexes—from subconscious complexes—the residua of forgotten dreams, as in this case the dreams were not remembered on waking. An account of the dreams could be obtained in hypnosis. The dreams were therefore simply dissociated.
Again we could test the possibility of obtaining reactions from subconscious perceptions and thoughts which had never arisen into awareness. The required information concerning these perceptions and thoughts could be obtained in this case in hypnosis.
Now we found that test words which expressed the emotional ideas belonging to a forgotten dream gave, in spite of the amnesia, very marked rises in the galvanic curve. The same was true of the test words referring to dissociated experiences belonging to the alternating personality for which the tested personality had amnesia, and of the subconscious perceptions. For instance (as an example of the latter), the word lorgnette, referring to a subconscious perception of a stranger unnoticed by the conscious personality, gave a very lively reaction.