Had left their beauty on the shore
With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.”
The practical application of the theory to emotional outbreaks of everyday life.—The significance of these principles for our purpose lies in the fact that they enable us to understand numerous psychological events of everyday and pathological life that otherwise would be unintelligible. It is worth while then to study a little more closely the practical application in everyday life of this principle of settings before applying it to the more difficult problem of imperative ideas or obsessions.
No psychological event, any more than a physical event, stands entirely isolated, all alone by itself, without relation to other events. Every psychological event is related more or less intimately to antecedent events, and the practical importance or value of this relation depends for the individual partly upon the nature of the relation itself, and partly upon the ontological value of those anterior events, i.e., the part they played and still play in the personality of the individual. No event, therefore, if it is to be completely interpreted, should be viewed by itself but only in relation to preceding ones. For example: a husband good humoredly and thoughtlessly chaffs his wife about the cost of a new hat which she exhibits with pride and pleasure. The wife in reply expresses herself by an outburst of anger which, to the astonished bystander, seems an entirely unjustifiable and inexplicable response to an entirely inadequate cause. Now if the bystander were permitted to make a psychological inquiry into the mental processes of the wife, he would find that the chaffing remark had meaning for her very different from what it had for him, and probably also for the husband; that it meant much more to her than the cost of that hat. He would find that it was set in her mind in a number of antecedent experiences consisting of criticisms of the wife by the husband for extravagance in dress; and perhaps criminations and recriminations involving much angry feeling on the part of both, and he would probably find that when the hat was purchased the possibility of criticism on the ground of extravagance passed through her mind. The chaffing remark of the husband therefore in the mind of the wife had for a context all these past experiences which formed a setting and gave an unintended meaning to the remark. The angry response, therefore, was dictated by these antecedent experiences and not simply by the trivial matter of the cost of a hat, standing by itself. The event can only be interpreted in the light of these past conserved experiences. How much of all this antecedent experience was in consciousness at the moment is another question which we shall presently consider.
I have often had occasion to interpret cryptic occurrences of this kind happening with patients or acquaintances. They make quite an amusing social game. (A knowledge of this principle shows the impossibility of outsiders judging the rightness or wrongness of misunderstandings and contretemps between individuals—particularly married people.) To complete the interpretation of this episode of the hat—although a little beside the point under consideration: plainly the anger to which the wife gave expression was the affect linked with and the reaction to the setting-complex formed by antecedent experiences. To state the matter in another way, these experiences were the formative material out of which a psychological torch had been plastically fashioned ready to be set ablaze by the first touch of a match—in this case the chaffing remark or associated idea. This principle of the setting, which gives meaning to an idea, being the conserved neurograms of related antecedent experiences is strikingly manifest in pathological and quasi-pathological conditions. I will mention only two instances.
The first, that of X. Y. Z., I shall have occasion to refer to in more detail in connection with the emotions and instincts in a later lecture.[[162]] This lady, on the first night of her marriage, felt deeply hurt in her pride from a fancied neglect on the part of her husband. The cause was trivial and could not possibly be taken by any sensible person as an adequate justification for the resentment which followed and the somewhat tragic revenge which she practiced (continuous voluntary repression of the sexual instinct during many years). But the fancied slight had a meaning for her which did not appear on the surface. As she herself insisted, in attempted extenuation of her conduct, “You must not take it alone by itself but in connection with the past.” It appeared that during the betrothal period there had been a number of experiences wounding to her pride and leading to angry resentment. These had been ostensibly but not really forgiven. The action of her spouse on the important night in question had a meaning for her of a slight, because it stood in relation to all these other antecedent experiences, and through these only could its meaning (for her) be interpreted. As a practical matter of therapeutics it became evident that the cherished resentment of years and the physiological consequences could only be removed by readjusting the setting—the memories of all the antecedent experiences with their resentment.
The second instance was a case of hysteria of the neurasthenic type with outbreaks of emotional attacks in a middle-aged woman. It developed immediately, in the midst of good health, out of a violent and protracted fit of anger, almost frenzy, two years ago, culminating in the first emotional or hysterical attack. Looked at superficially the fit of anger would be considered childish because it was aroused by the fact that some children were allowed to make the day hideous by firing cannon-crackers continually under her window in celebration of the national holiday. When more deeply analyzed it was found that the anger was really resentment at what she considered unjustifiable treatment of herself by others, and particularly by her husband, who would not take steps to have the offense stopped. It is impossible to go into all the details here; suffice it to say that below the surface the experiences of life had deposited a large accumulation of grievances against which resentment had been continuous over a long series of years. Although loving and respecting her husband, a man of force and character, yet she had long realized she was not as necessary to his life as she wanted to be; that he could get along without her, however fond he was of her; and that he was the stronger character in one way. She wanted to be wanted. Against all this for years she had felt anger and resentment. She had concealed her feelings, controlled them, repressed them, if you will, but there remained a general dissatisfaction against life, a “kicking against the pricks,” and a quickness to anger, though its expression had been well controlled. These were the formative influences which laid the mine ready to be fired by a spark, feelings of resentment and anger which had been incubating for years. Finally the spark came in the form of a childish offense. The frenzy of anger was ostensibly only the reaction to that offense, but it was really the explosion of years of antecedent experiences. The apparent offense was only the manifested cause, symbolic if you like so to express it, of the underlying accumulated causes contained in life’s grievances.[[163]] After completion of the analysis the patient herself recognized this interpretation to be the true meaning of her anger and point of view.
Similarly in everyday life the emotional shocks from fear in dangerous situations, to which most people are subject and which so often give rise to traumatic psychoses, must primarily find their source in the psychological setting of the perception of the situation (railroad, automobile, and other accidents). This setting is fashioned from the conserved knowledge of the fatal and other consequences of such accidents. This knowledge, deposited by past mental experiences—that which has been heard and read—induces a dormant apprehension of accidents and gives the meaning of danger to a perception of a present situation, and in itself, I may add, furnishes the neurographic fuel ready to be set ablaze by the first accident.[[164]]
[155]. In that it takes into account only a limited number of the data at our disposal and neglects methods of investigation which afford data essential for the understanding of this psychological process.