From this standpoint the merit of the psychoanalytic school of psychiatrists consists in the study of the personality. I do not refer to theories or cures but to the method of studying the life-organization by an analysis of the wishes, by enlisting the participation of the subject, and using a special technic to revive all possible trains of memory. The defect of this particular practice has been its lack of objectivity. The operator has been using an interesting theory—sex as the basis of life-organization—and his methods have been adapted to the confirmation of the theory. More recently “recognition” has assumed a prominent place in the theory, lack of recognition being indicated as the source of the “inferiority complex.” But taken simply as cases the psychoanalytic records are increasingly important for the study of behavior. And the general method of psychoanalysis, or at least methods inspired by it, are being used with the best results in connection with delinquent children in the psychological clinics and by case-workers, as in documents No. 88 and No. 89.
But we cannot rely entirely on the spontaneous production of autobiographies nor upon the efforts of practical workers who make records with reference to equilibrating maladjusted personalities. Research into behavior problems through the preparation of records, including life-histories, should be associated with every institution and agency handling human material from the standpoint of education or reform, but in addition specialists in behavior, psychologists, social psychologists, sociologists, psychiatrists, social workers, should isolate and study selected personalities as the biologist studies selected organisms. Ordinary and extraordinary personalities should be included, the dull and the criminal, the philistine and the bohemian. Scientifically the history of dull lives is quite as significant as that of brilliant ones. The investigator may, of course, select cases having special significance; for example, secure the life-histories of the girls mentioned at the beginning of this chapter who were not influenced by the institution but made good in spite of the institution. The analysis, comparison, and publication of the various records would continuously influence social practice, as in the case of medical and technological research.
We saw in the records given at the end of the last chapter that very rapid and positive gains are being made in the treatment of delinquency, but for a fundamental control and the prevention of anti-social behavior a change in the general attitudes and values of society will be necessary.
Up to the present, society has not been able to control the direction of its own evolution or even to determine the form of life and relationships necessary to produce a world in which it is possible and desirable for all to live. Common sense has not been adequate to these problems. We have evidently overdetermined certain values and underdetermined others, and many important situations are undefined—without policy. The most general and particular studies of the wishes and the determination of the laws by which attitudes are influenced by values and values by attitudes, the development of a technic for the transfer of the wishes from one field of application to another, and the development of schemes by which not only the wishes of the individual may be sublimated but the attitudes and values of whole populations controlled will be necessary before we are able consciously to control the evolution of society and to determine an ideal organization of culture.
Among the general problems involved in the study of attitudes and values—the history of personality development and the measurement of social influences—are the following:
1. The problem of abnormality—crime, vagabondage, prostitution, alcoholism, etc. How far is abnormality the unavoidable manifestation of inborn tendencies of the individual, and how far is it a matter of deficient social organization,—the failure of institutional influences? There is a quantitative difference of efficiency between individuals, but if there is hardly a human attitude which if properly controlled and directed could not be used in a socially useful and productive way, must there remain a permanent qualitative difference between socially normal and anti-social actions?
2. The problem of individualization. How far is individualism compatible with social cohesion? What forms of individualism may be considered socially useful or socially harmful? What forms of individualism may be useful in an organization based on a conscious coöperation in view of a common aim?
3. The problem of nationalities and cultures. What new schemes of attitudes and values, or what substitute for the isolated national state as an instrument of cultural expansion, will stop the fight of nationalities and cultures?
4. The problem of the sexes. In the relation between the sexes how can a maximum of reciprocal response be secured with a minimum of interference with personal interests? How is the general social efficiency of a group affected by the various systems of relations between man and woman? What forms of coöperation between the family and society are most favorable to the normal development of children?
5. The economic problem. How shall we be able to develop attitudes which will subordinate economic success to other values? How shall we restore stimulation to labor? The bad family life constantly evident in these pages and the consequent delinquency of children, as well as crime, prostitution and alcoholism, are largely due to the overdetermination of economic interests—to the tendency to produce or acquire the largest possible amount of economic values—because these interests are actually so universal and predominant and because economic success is a value convertible into new experience, recognition, response, and security.