Period I
The writer C in her account passes over the early first period, but she remembers clearly the historical facts and has given a very precise description of them in the many analyses which have been made and recorded. Moreover in the second account,[[273]] written in the secondary B phase of personality, she recognizes the embryonic emotional complex of this first period, and its genetic relation to the later B complex, and to her own still later developed B personality. “This complex” she (B) wrote, “it seems to me is the same, though only slightly developed, as that which appeared later and is described as complex B. In trying to explain this condition, which it seems to me was the first start of what ultimately resulted in a division of personality, I will divide the time into periods, and I will call this period I.” (This same division into periods I have thought it well to follow.) She also identified the ideas of this early complex with ideas and feelings which she still entertained and which formed a marked characteristic of her own dissociated (B) personality.
For the sake of clearness and simplicity of phraseology it will be well from now on to speak of the subject when in the dissociated B state simply as B, and when united in the normal state as C. In this way, as C points out, we shall avoid constant repetition and circumlocution in such phrases as, “when the subject was in the B state,” etc. You must not, however, be misled by the connotation of terms and read into this nomenclature more than the psychological facts warrant, or make distinctions of personality which transcend in any way psychological laws. Dissociated and multiple personality are not novel freak phenomena, but are only exaggerations of the normal and due to exaggerations of normal processes, and it is for this reason that they are of interest and importance. For, being exaggerations, they accentuate and bring out into high relief certain tendencies and functional mechanisms which belong to normal conditions, and they differentiate mental processes, one from another, which normally are not so easily recognized.
They are caricatures, so to speak, of the normal. In one respect they may be likened to the staining of an anatomical specimen prepared for the microscope by which the various anatomical structures are brought out into strong contrast with one another and easily differentiated, like the boundaries of countries on a colored map. Without the staining all would have a homogeneous appearance and differentiation would be difficult. So, though a secondary personality is in one sense but a phase of the whole personality, it is characterized largely by an accentuation or domination of particular constituents to be found in the given normal everyday personality, and by the subordination or suppression of others, both being effected by the exaggeration of the normal processes of dissociation and synthesis. In such a secondary personality these constituents and processes are easily recognized though they may be hidden under normal conditions. In saying that a secondary personality is a phase of the whole personality the latter term—whole personality—must be taken in the sense of including all the past experiences of life which have been organized, deposited and conserved in the unconscious, and all the instincts and innate dispositions of the individual. These past experiences form, as we have seen,[[274]] a storehouse of formative material which, for the most part, under ordinary conditions, may lie dormant though potential; but any elements of this material may, under special influences, be awakened to activity and, uniting with particular constituents of the normal everyday personality, take part under the urge of their own instinctive impulses and dispositions in the formation of a new personality. The remainder of the normal personality then becomes submerged and dormant in the unconscious.
To return to the evolution of the B personality. If this final phase be correctly traced back 19 years to the early antecedent rebellious complex above referred to, we shall see that the evolution of multiple personality in this case passed through several successive stages and was of slow growth. Speaking generally, it may, indeed, be ascribed, primarily, on the one hand, to the disruptive or dissociating effect of continuous conflicts between the opposing impulses of innate dispositions and instincts (emotions), and, on the other, to the gradual synthesization of the components of personality repressed by these conflicts into the subconscious. The secondary incubation of these repressed and other deposited experiences of life followed, with the final setting free of all this formative material, when fully matured, by the force, awakened by a trauma, of the conative emotional impulses belonging to it. The analogues of these phenomena and mechanisms are observed in sudden religious conversion which in principle is an alteration of personality.[[275]]
All the historical evidence at hand, derived from searching investigation, goes to show that at the early period to which I have referred (period I) the subject received an emotional shock, “which,” B wrote, “it seems to me, as I look at it now, resulted in the first cleavage of personality. This emotion was one of fright and led to rebellion [in the form of rebellious thoughts] against a certain condition of her life, and formed a small vague complex [of thoughts and emotions] which persisted in the sense that it recurred from time to time, though it was always immediately suppressed.”[[276]] And this vague complex of rebellious thoughts necessarily soon gave rise to and included other “floating thoughts, impulses, desires, inclinations,” all of which the subject suppressed or endeavored to suppress during a long period of years. “This complex,” she adds, as quoted above, “it seems to me, was the same, though only slightly developed, as that which appeared later, and is described as complex B.”
The “shock” when more deeply analyzed proved to be the excitation of certain emotions which, besides a mild degree of fright, were intense repugnance or disgust. They were a reaction to or defense against another affect, which was also excited and which we will term, in deference to our subject’s good taste, X. The emotion of repugnance was so intense as to require considerable fortitude to withstand and gave rise to much agitation. It accompanied a cluster of “rebellious” ideas awakened by the realization of an unexpectedly disagreeable situation and relation. This cluster I shall call the rebellious complex to distinguish it from the later B complex into which it became constellated. This rebellious complex with the emotion of repugnance (instinct of repulsion) was of necessity frequently excited by the conditions of life and, therefore, of frequent recurrence, after the fashion of an obsession. After the first shock the fright naturally subsided, for one reason, from habituation to the conditions. The X affect, never experienced before, from the very first was repressed by the inhibiting force of the more intense emotion of disgust.[[277]] Fear also was involved in this repression, for there was a conflict between the opposing forces of conflicting emotions; and in such a conflict—as, for example, between fear and anger—the stronger tends to repress its antagonist and whatever it conflicts with. Consequently the recurring rebellious complex was habitually accompanied by repugnance alone. The exact constitution of this rebellious complex I am not at liberty to mention. It may have been a matter of mother-in-law, or of social arrangements, or particular duties and responsibilities, or something else—it does not matter and it is not necessary to say. It was a shrinking from a particular condition of her life. It was certainly not a wish unless this repugnance and “kicking against the pricks” can be twisted into its opposite as a wish to be free from the objectionable condition. Still less was it a morally unacceptable unconscious, being just the opposite; for both the rebellious thoughts and the wish to be free from the condition objected to were acceptable and justified to herself in her mind, and, in her secret thoughts at least, tolerated as natural and reasonable.[[278]] Nor was the X affect an intolerable wish. If a wish there was no reason why it should not have been gratified. Nevertheless, as B affirms, the rebellious thoughts were put out of mind, as thoughts of a disagreeable fact, as they arose from time to time; but this was only from a sense of duty in consideration of responsibilities undertaken. I could make this clearer if I were at liberty to enter into the details of these rebellious thoughts. Her life in every other respect was an unusually happy one, surrounded by all that one should desire, and included a devoted husband whom she loved, admired and respected. For these reasons alone she felt it a duty to suppress all expression of her rebellious feelings.
The main point, from the point of view of psychogenesis, is that at this early stage we have constantly recurring conflicts between the conative forces pertaining to emotions linked with sentiments of duty, loyalty, and affection, on the one hand, and those pertaining to the rebellious thoughts with corresponding desires, impulses, etc., reinforced with the emotion of repugnance, on the other. The former always won and the latter were inhibited or repressed into the unconscious. These were not the only rebellious thoughts that were repressed. There were others from which the original rebellion received accretions. That such constantly repressed thoughts with their strong feeling tones should be conserved in the unconscious was a psychological necessity, and also that they should emerge by the force of their own urge into consciousness from time to time like an obsession whenever stimulated by environmental and personal conditions. I may simply cite the two following simple examples.
The subject, governed by the maternal instinct, naturally loved to take care of her baby and “make things for him to wear, and fuss over them”; and yet there were “floating thoughts” of an opposite character which later, as will appear, emerged and became conspicuous in the B complex and B personality. “She was very fond of her father-in-law and did everything to make him happy,” and yet there were other thoughts which conceived of him as a “fussy old bother.” These again were represented later in the loss of sentiments of affection and in the point of view of the B phases. There was no real dissociation and doubling of consciousness; these conflicting attitudes and tendencies were, at least in the beginning until the later period of stress and strain when they eventuated in corresponding action, merely evanescent thoughts, wishes and impulses which easily passed out of mind, or an undercurrent of thought such as all of us have more or less.
Later, when they became more insistent and persistent, they had to be repressed by an effort of will.