1. Subject systems: I find myself interested, for instance, in several fields of human knowledge; (a) abnormal psychology; (b) public franchises; (c) yachting; (d) local politics; (e) business affairs. To each of these I give a large amount of thought, accumulate many data belonging to each, and devote a considerable amount of active work to carrying into effect my ideas in each field. Five large systems are thus formed, each consisting of facts, opinions, memories, experiences, etc., distinct from those belonging to the others. To each there is an emotion and a feeling tone which have more or less distinctive qualities; these coming from the intellectual interest of abnormal psychology differing qualitatively from those of the “joy of battle” excited by a public contest with a railroad corporation or gas company, as it does from that of the exhilarating sport of a yacht race, or from the annoying and rather depressing care of business interests; and so on.
These five subject-complexes do not form independent automatisms or isolated systems which may intrude themselves in any conscious field, but comprise large associations, memories of experiences in a special field of thought. Within that field the ideas of the system are no more strongly organized than are ideas in general; but it can be recognized that the system as a whole with its affective tones is fairly well delimited from the other complexes of other spheres of thought. It is difficult, for certain individuals at least, to introduce the associations of one subject-complex into the focus of attention so long as another is invested with personal interest and occupies the attention of consciousness. They find it difficult to switch[[146]] their minds from one subject to another and back again. On the other hand, it is said of Napoleon that he had all the subjects of his experiences arranged in drawers of his mind, and that he could open each drawer at will, take out any subject he wished, and shut it up again as he wished. Ability of this kind involves remarkable control over the mind and is not given to all.
I have frequently made observations like the following on myself, showing the organization and differentiation of systems: I collect the various data belonging to one of the problems discussed in these lectures. I arrange all in an orderly fashion in my mind, work out the logical relations and the conclusions to which they lead, as well as their relations to other data and problems. The whole is then schematically arranged on paper to await proper elaboration the next morning, when it will be written out on waking, the preliminary mental arrangement having been done at night. A large complex has been created, the various details of which are luminously clear and the sequence of the ideas vividly conceived, the conclusions definite. There is, further, an affective tone of joy and exaltation which is apt to accompany the accomplishment of an intellectual problem and which produces a feeling of increased energy.
The next morning, as I awake and gradually return to full consciousness, another and very different kind of complex almost exclusively fills my mind, owing probably to the fatigue following the previous night’s work. All sorts of gloomy thoughts, memories of experiences better forgotten, course through the mind; and entirely different emotions (instincts), and a strong feeling of depression dominate the mental panorama. The whole—ideas, emotions, and feelings—makes a complex which has been experienced over and over again, and is recognized as such. The same old ideas, emotions, thoughts, and memories, conserved as neurograms, repeat themselves almost in stereotyped fashion. The mental complex has completely changed and the exuberant energy of the night before has given place to listless inertia.
All this is commonplace enough, merely morning depression you will say, due to fatigue; and so it is. But mark the sequel.
I now remember that I have a task to perform and before rising take paper and pencil, lying ready at my side, to write out the theme previously arranged in skeleton. But to my surprise I find that it cannot be recalled. To be sure, I can, by effort of will, recall individual facts, but the facts have lost their associations and meaning, they remain comparatively isolated in memory; all their correlated ramifications, their associated ideas and relations, which the night before stood out in relief and crowded into consciousness, have gone. The emotional tone and impulses which energized the thoughts have also disappeared, and with them the system of complexes as a whole. It has been dissociated, inhibited, repressed, and there is amnesia for it. With the fatigue depression a new system, with different emotions and feelings, now dominates the mind and the desired system cannot be switched in.
This amnesia is not one of conservation but one of reproduction; for later in the day the fatigue and depression disappear, a new energizing emotional tone arises and the sought-for system is switched in and returns in its entirety. With this change the depression system in turn disappears, and now it is difficult to recall it, excepting that as an intellectual fact I remember that such thoughts occupied my mind in the early morning hours. The two systems as a whole are distinctly differentiated from and alternate with one another.
All this is only expressing in somewhat technical language a common experience, as most people, I suppose, have such alternations of complexes. The facts are trite enough; but, because they are of common experience, it is well to formulate them and so, as far as possible, give precision to our conception of the psychological relations which have a distinct bearing on the principles of dissociated personality and other psychoses, on character and psycho-therapeutics. When, at a later time, we take up for study the subject of dissociated personality[[147]] we shall find that the dissociation of consciousness sometimes takes its lines of cleavage between systems of complexes of this kind.[[148]] And, above all, the formation of complexes is the foundation stone of psycho-therapeutics.
The methods of education and therapeutic suggestion are variants of this mode of organizing mental processes. Both, in principle, are substantially the same, differing only in detail. They depend for their effect upon the implantation in the mind of ideational complexes organized by repetition, or by the impulsive force of their affective tones, or both. Every form of education necessarily involves the artificial formation of such complexes, whether in a pedagogical, religious, ethical, scientific, social, or professional field. So in psychotherapy by artfully directed suggestion, or education in the narrower sense, complexes may be similarly formed and organized. New points of view and “sentiments” may be inculcated, useful emotions and feelings excited, and the personality correspondingly modified. Roughly speaking, this is accomplished by suggesting ideas that will form settings (associations) that give new and desired meanings to previously harmful ideas; and these ideas, as well as any others we desire to implant in the mind, are organized by suggestion with emotions (instincts) of a useful, pleasurable, and exalting kind to form desirable sentiments, and to carry the ideas to fulfilment. Thus sentiments of right, or of ambition, or of sympathy, or of altruism, or of disinterestedness in self are awakened; and, with all this, opposing emotions are aroused to conflict with and repress the distressing ones, and the whole welded into a complex which becomes conserved neurographically and thereby a part of the personality.
Under ordinary conditions of every-day mental life social suggestion acts like therapeutic suggestion. But the suggestions of every-day life are so subtle and insidious that they are scarcely consciously recognized.