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| author | www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> | 2026-05-06 04:42:55 -0700 |
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| committer | www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> | 2026-05-06 04:42:55 -0700 |
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diff --git a/78616-h/78616-h.htm b/78616-h/78616-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3e40ec5 --- /dev/null +++ b/78616-h/78616-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,11085 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no,date=no,address=no,email=no,url=no"> + <title> + The Social Basis of Consciousness | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 7%; + margin-right: 7%; +} + +h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +a {text-decoration: none;} +a:hover {text-decoration: underline;} + +p { + text-indent: 1.3em; + margin-top: .5em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .5em; +} + +p.noindent, .footnote p { + text-indent: 0; +} + +hr { + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + clear: both; + border: 0; + background: #bbb; + height: 1px; +} + +hr.chap {width: 50%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;} +@media print {hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} +hr.front {width: 10%; margin-left: 45%; margin-right: 45%;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +table td { padding: 0.25em; } + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} +.chapdesc {padding: 0.5em 4em 2em 4em;} +td div {padding-bottom: 1em;} + +.pagenum { + position: absolute; + left: 95%; + font-size: 70%; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; + color: #999; +} + +blockquote { + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 5%; +} + +blockquote.constrain { + margin: auto; + max-width: 25em + } + +.center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +ul.index { list-style-type: none; } +li.ifrst { + margin-top: 1em; + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 1em; +} +li.indx { + margin-top: .5em; + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 1em; +} +li.isub1 { + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 2em; +} + +/* Footnotes */ + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 85.5%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: 0.7em; +} + +.transnote {background-color: #eeeeee; + margin:3em; + padding: 1.5em 2.5em 1.5em 2.5em; + font-size:smaller; +} + +/* Poetry */ + +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry */ +.poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +figcaption {font-weight: bold;} +figcaption p {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: .2em; text-align: inherit;} + +.smaller {font-size:smaller;} +.xlarge {font-size:x-large;} +.larger {font-size:larger;} + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3.0em;} +.poetry .indent8 {text-indent: 1.0em;} +.poetry .indent10 {text-indent: 2.0em;} + + </style> +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78616 ***</div> + + + +<h1> +The Social Basis of<br> +Consciousness +</h1> + +<p class="center"> +A Study in Organic Psychology<br> +Based upon a Synthetic and Societal<br> +Concept of the Neuroses<br> +<br> +<span class="smaller">BY</span><br> +<span class="xlarge">TRIGANT BURROW</span><br> +<span class="smcap">M.D., Ph.D.</span><br> +<br> +<br> +NEW YORK<br> +HARCOURT, BRACE & COMPANY, INC.<br> +LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.<br> +1927 +</p> + +<hr class="front"> + +<blockquote class="constrain"> +<p class="center"><i>THE SOCIAL BASIS OF CONSCIOUSNESS</i></p> + +<p class="noindent">Chapter I, Part I, was first published in <i>The Journal +of Nervous and Mental Disease</i>, and Chapter II, +Part I, in <i>The Psychoanalytic Review</i>. Acknowledgment +is made to the Editors for permission to include +these papers in the present volume.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="center smaller" style="margin-top:3em;"> +PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY<br> +THE EDINBURGH PRESS, 9 AND 11 YOUNG STREET, EDINBURGH +</p> + +<hr class="front"> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent8"><i>I am that which began;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent10"><i>Out of me the years roll;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent8"><i>Out of me God and man;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent10"><i>I am equal and whole;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily;</i></div> + <div class="verse indent8"><i>I am the soul.</i></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0 right">“Hertha.”—<span class="smcap">Swinburne.</span></div> + </div> +<span class="pagenum" id="p_vii">[vii]</span> </div> +</div> + +<hr class="front"> + +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS"> + CONTENTS + </h2> +</div> + +<table> + <tr><td colspan="2" class="smaller tdr">PAGE</td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Preface</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_xv">xv</a></td></tr> + + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Introduction</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_1">1</a></td></tr> + + <tr><td colspan="2" class="chapdesc">Significance of Freud’s basic conception—Misconceptions +in psychoanalysis due to present personalistic basis—Psychoanalysis +entails the element of personal differentiation and +sponsorship presented in other therapeutic systems—Need for +abrogation of personal equation—Societal concept an outgrowth +of essential objective findings of Freud—This thesis +an initial presentation of an organismic interpretation of +human consciousness.</td></tr> + + <tr><td colspan="2" class="center larger">PART I<br> +THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE NEUROSES</td></tr> + + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Chapter I</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_9">9</a></td></tr> + + <tr><td colspan="2" class="chapdesc"> +<div class="center">PSYCHOANALYSIS IN THEORY AND IN LIFE</div> + +Theory of psychoanalysis rests upon conception that +nervous disorders are substitutive manifestation of repressed +sexual life—Sexuality itself, however, as now existing, +symptomatic of repression and quite preclusive of the organic +instinct of sex—Popular analytic view places a premium upon +the reaction embodied in normality but substitution and +repression in this collective reaction identical with the unconscious +of neurotic individuals—Substitution of self-image +for reality, present in reactions of normal, is not as yet +recognized by psychoanalysis—Psychoanalysis remains in so +far a theory only—In truth, the neurotic personality is index +of the urge toward an essential organic mode of consciousness—Continuity +with organic processes registered as subjective +feeling cannot be approached by objective methods—The +insanity of the individual not to be cured as long as there is the +insanity of the social mind about him.</td></tr> + + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Chapter II</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_32">32</a></td></tr> + <tr><td colspan="2" class="chapdesc"><div class="center">A RELATIVE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS: AN +ANALYSIS OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN ITS ETHNIC ORIGIN</div> + +The Newtonian system assumes an unqualified absolute +and fails to take account of factors operating within the larger +system in which it is itself an element—In the sphere of +psychic phenomena a similar system of absolutism dominates +our presumably conscious world—Analysis of our +<span class="pagenum" id="p_viii">[viii]</span>judgments reveals the assumption that the position intrinsic +to the observer is all-inclusive and authentic—But our +world of impressions is artificial and reflects the artificial +systematization that fails to include our own organisms—This +autocratic interpretation of life is based on a bidimensional +or image system which in its arbitrary and personal +evaluation distorts the universe of reality—Normality is +consensus comprising the personal absolute vested in the +unconscious of the collective mind—Need to replace pictorial +mode by organic coalescence in common affectivity—Personal +systems of men, single and collective, are but relative with +respect to an organic societal consciousness—Concept of +relativity of consciousness abrogates absolute standard +and embraces dimensional element of the system, individual +and social, of which we ourselves are a component part—Transition +from bidimensional (contemplation of aspect) to tridimensional +(participation in function) affords basis for +measuring deflections of personality, socially as well as +individually.</td></tr> + + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Chapter III</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_50">50</a></td></tr> + + <tr><td colspan="2" class="chapdesc"><div class="center">THE ORIGIN OF OUR INDIVIDUAL UNCONSCIOUS</div> + +Organic societal consciousness can be comprehended only +through subjective identification with it—Discussion of the +tridimensional reality of human consciousness with its three +determinants—Present phase of consciousness admits only +the bidimensional image—The position of the bidimensional +elements “right and wrong” as incorporated in the life of +the child—Advantage of the parent the real motive underlying +this moral bidimension—Long-continued experiments +with personal mood reactions as substantiation of view that +induced image of right and wrong is at the root of human +psychopathology—Non-inclusiveness of others is meaning +of unconsciousness, individual and social—Present social +adaptation is merely collective response, not societal extension +of consciousness—Substitution of the absolute of personal +interest for inclusive participation as relative elements affords +no basis for inclusion of larger whole in which the individual +is a contributing element.</td></tr> + + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Chapter IV</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_63">63</a></td></tr> + + <tr><td colspan="2" class="chapdesc"><div class="center">THE UNCONSCIOUS FACTOR WITHIN THE SOCIAL SYSTEM</div> + +Daily reactions betray state of anxiety in the social mind—These +anxieties, sponsored in earlier times by medical and +religious fetish, still substantiated by the systems of medicine +and religion—Organic analysis of the element of social +authority—The systems of psychoanalysis and the Roman +Church as paradigms—Factor of resistance in psychoanalysis +analogous to factor of doubt in religion—The systematization +comprising the social corporation of individuals as much an +aspect of the unconscious autocracy of the personal absolute +as the systematization of the individual—In the conflict +between these two mutually opposed absolutes (socially +systematized authority and the resistance of the individual) +there is an organic impasse. +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_ix">[ix]</span></p></td></tr> + + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Chapter V</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_78">78</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" class="chapdesc"><div class="center"> +SOCIOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS FROM A VIEWPOINT OF RELATIVITY</div> + +The established system demands conformity to its prescribed +norm—The limitation of life to a bidimensional +alternative of one’s own pleasure or one’s own pain results in +division of personality and in compulsion neurosis involving +the entire social consciousness—Bidimensional replacements +in social system found in art, science, education, marriage, +etc.—The mood alternations of the individual are but +obverse aspects of the same bidimensional portrait of personal +advantage—This element of unconscious alternation bars +unbiased observation of the personal absolute—In the field +of preventive medicine the personal cure of the individual +subordinated to safeguarding of community health—But +within the subjective sphere there is resistance to an +approach that would consider the individual’s position as part +of a societal unity because such an approach would menace +the illusion of personal prerogative—Psychopathologists +equally involved unconsciously in the social neurosis—In an +objective study of the neurosis the psychopathologist escapes +the subjective acknowledgment of its presence within +himself—Possibility of fundamental readjustment for dissociated +personality lies only in surrender socially of bidimensional +or pictorial illusion in favour of tridimensional +actuality.</td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" class="center larger">PART II<br> + +THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE NEUROSES</td></tr> + + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Chapter I</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_107">107</a></td></tr> + + <tr><td colspan="2" class="chapdesc"><div class="center">ANALYSIS OF FREUD’S DYNAMIC AND INDIVIDUALISTIC CONCEPTION OF THE NEUROSES</div> + +Freud’s theory assumes breach in integrity of consciousness +due to effort of delimited area to establish itself as a separate +self-governing unit—Distinction of Freud’s work lies in +conception of central totality of consciousness; limitation +of Freud’s work consists in assigning totality of consciousness +to single individual—Conception of totality of personality +tenable only from point of view of inclusive societal consciousness.</td></tr> + + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Chapter II</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_114">114</a></td></tr> + + <tr><td colspan="2" class="chapdesc"><div class="center">FORMULATION OF AN ORGANIC OR SOCIETAL BASIS OF INTERPRETATION</div> + +The mental life of the infant organism is wholly subjective +and is one with the organism’s inherent feeling—With entrance +of the ulterior motive appearing in the command and prohibition +of the parent there is the issue of personal gain or +loss (suggestion and repression)—Appearance of self-consciousness +and self-interest forces interruption of the organism’s +<span class="pagenum" id="p_x">[x]</span>societal life and a separation from its basic continuum—Maintenance +of separativeness of individual destroys organic +integrity—There is need to stand apart from self and view +it as element within the larger organism of mankind—Instinct +of tribal preservation and not self-preservation is the dominant +urge among us.</td></tr> + + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Chapter III</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_134">134</a></td></tr> + + <tr><td colspan="2" class="chapdesc"><div class="center">THE ORGANIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS</div> + +Development of the idea of the parallel between individual +and phyletic trends in unconscious manifestations—Unconscious +worship of self-image source of suggestion and +repression—Because of this self-image what man assumes to +be cerebration is fictitious brain-state withdrawn from +continuity with organic life—Where there is individual lesion, +separation among elements is followed by pain and recourse +to remedial aids, i.e. the organism as a whole demands relief—In +the organic societal whole the individual as separated +element is source of lesion but seeks to escape through +symbolic disguise the pain of his societal separation—Conflict +is between part and whole wherein individual is +embodiment of both.</td></tr> + + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Chapter IV</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_154">154</a></td></tr> + + <tr><td colspan="2" class="chapdesc"><div class="center">ORGANIC ANALYSIS OF REPRESSION AND OF THE +FACTOR OF RESISTANCE FROM THE SOCIETAL VIEWPOINT</div> + +The resolution of repression or resistance is regarded by +Freud as the essential problem of psychoanalysis—Neurosis, +according to Freud, is life’s repression of sexuality—According +to an organismic attitude repression and sexuality are +concomitant and are equally the results in the individual +of organic disunity and interruption of function—The biology +of resistance is found in the breach in individual’s continuity +with life as confluent, organic whole—Health or disease, +psychologically or physiologically, depends upon whether the +cell functions integrally or separatively, congruently or +resistantly—In social fabric each element is against each—In +our unconsciousness we deny the reality of this biological +phylum embodied in our organic consciousness and underlying +the processes of our individual mentation—Sexuality, currently +confused with sex, is egoistic, infantile expression and +antithesis of organic expression of sex—Only continuity +of the confluent subjective sphere can make possible an +analysis that will synthesize the scattered elements of personality.</td></tr> + + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Chapter V</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_165">165</a></td></tr> + + <tr><td colspan="2" class="chapdesc"><div class="center">ORGANIC ANALYSIS OF REPRESSION AND OF THE FACTOR OF RESISTANCE +FROM THE INDIVIDUAL VIEWPOINT</div> + +Transference is an unconscious condition which involves as +much the analyst as the analysand—Resistance and repression +are the factors in this mutual situation—Under +<span class="pagenum" id="p_xi">[xi]</span>present personalistic procedure in psychoanalysis the analyst +deals objectively with an inherently subjective situation—He +regards only the disparity of the patient and so preserves +the apparent differentiation which is the underlying cause +of the patient’s disorder—There is a confusion in psychoanalysis +due to the failure to discriminate between the +mother-image and the mother-organism—The analyst, being +socially dissociated, seeks to reinstate the comfort of his own +childhood through an unconscious self-interested response +(pleasure or displeasure) to the analysand—The transference +which is thus introduced by the unconscious attitude of the +analyst cannot be analyzed because of the analyst’s own +involvement—This is the impasse of the individualistic +analysis—From a societal viewpoint the analyst can be +interested only in the patient’s delusion of separateness and +will direct his endeavour to an understanding of the social +repression which dissociates them both from the common, +generic consciousness.</td></tr> + + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Chapter VI</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_177">177</a></td></tr> + + <tr><td colspan="2" class="chapdesc"><div class="center">THE DREAM AND ITS ANALYSIS IN AN ORGANISMIC +INTERPRETATION OF THE NEUROSES</div> + +To analyze the dream from a basis that is equally separative +and repressed is to exchange the symbols of the individual’s +repression for analogous symbols of the social repression—The +night’s reaction, being individual, and the day’s reaction, +being social, both represent an endeavour to adjust vicariously +man’s societal disunity—The affective or subjective +life cannot be adjusted through the study of the objective +mechanisms that merely reflect it but only through the +subjective (conscious) reabsorption within us of the affects +to whose suggestion the dream is the mirrored reaction—The +drama and the dream are identical in mechanism—An organic +mode of consciousness can regard with equally objective +clarity the vicarious processes of the day and of the night.</td></tr> + + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Chapter VII</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_187">187</a></td></tr> + + <tr><td colspan="2" class="chapdesc"><div class="center">THE BIOLOGICAL SUBSTRATE OF THE NEUROTIC +CONFLICT IN ITS ORGANIC SIGNIFICANCE</div> + +Two types of reaction: the <i>autocentric</i> who withdraws <i>in +toto</i> and has completely negative attitude toward his congeners, +and the <i>allocentric</i> who makes effort at social compromise +or adaptation (“sublimation”)—Both reactions equally self-centered: +autocentric (precoid, psychasthenic) showing adaptation +through individual dream; allocentric (hysteric, +hypomanic) through social dream—Biological substrate of +these reactions lies in lack of balance between cerebro-spinal +and sympathetic systems—In the preconscious form preserved +among animals no break between the two systems; there is +maintained rhythmic and harmonious co-ordination of response—Period +of Greek thought essentially allocentric; +Christianity essentially autocentric. + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_xii">[xii]</span></p></td></tr> + + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Chapter VIII</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_197">197</a></td></tr> + + <tr><td colspan="2" class="chapdesc"><div class="center">THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN SEXUALITY AND +SEX IN RELATION TO UNIFICATION AND ORGANIC MATING</div> + +Psychoanalysis, unconsciously influenced by a division +based on the bias of its own arbitrary alternatives, has +assumed contrasts of behaviour not warrantable from an +organismic conception—Such alternatives are “homosexuality” +and “heterosexuality”—The organic instinct of +mating has become distorted by the image system of “good” +(conceding social consensus) and “bad” (repudiating social +consensus)—Both types are response to social consensus and +are ego-sexual—Sexuality is effort of conjunction of peripheral +and visceral spheres while sex is effortless and non-personal +conjugation of organismic poles comprising male and female—Union +is of personality as realized in man and woman through +identification with life, the one embodying the peripheral, +allocentric component, the other the internal, autocentric +component—Organically, man is not opposite woman but +each is complement of other—Concept of intermediate +sex is misnomer for composite sex—Social demand of +oppositeness necessitates repression in male of female +component and in female of male component—In present +stage of society’s development marriage is mutual adjustment +of ego-sexual claims, a pooling of the private unconscious of +each where each withdraws from an organic place as a societal +element—Biological significance of unity of personality is +conception of <i>principle of primary identification</i>—Autocentric +types as Buddha, Plato, Christ, and allocentric personalities +of Socrates, Napoleon and Nietzsche equally manifest this +urge of the inherent organism of man—In organic integrity of +personality is societal instinct that is the composite life of +the race.</td></tr> + + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Chapter IX</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_221">221</a></td></tr> + + <tr><td colspan="2" class="chapdesc"><div class="center">ULTIMATE RESOLUTION OF THE SOCIETAL +NEUROSIS IN ITS SOCIAL IMPLICATION</div> + +Back of the pretence of the social mind lies a basis of social +fear and mistrust—The mutual accommodations of external +agreement used to cloak the introversion of the individual—The +development of group analysis permits study of the +resistance of the social consensus with respect to the individual +as well as the resistance of the individual with respect to the +social consensus—Group analysis, like individual analysis, +presents an unconscious and bidimensional situation involving +reaction clusters which constitute a pooling of the unconscious +of the several members—This group situation offers opportunity +to secure relative and societal background against which +the individual may view in impersonal perspective his habitual +arbitrary and personal evaluations—According to the group +or relative conception the causative element of the neurosis +is societal or phyletic and correction must proceed upon a +societal or phyletic basis. + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_xiii">[xiii]</span></p></td></tr> + + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Chapter X</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_238">238</a></td></tr> + + <tr><td colspan="2" class="chapdesc"><div class="center"> +ULTIMATE RESOLUTION OF THE SOCIETAL NEUROSIS IN ITS PERSONAL IMPLICATION</div> + +Demand for wider concept of organized consciousness of +man in order to replace disintegrating structures of present +social system—Need to dispel illusion of mental oppositeness +and the restraints of an alternative system of morality which +aims merely to establish temporary balance between its +opposites—Experimental basis for group conception here +formulated in practical experience of a few students—As the +societal and the individual are organically one in mode, the +unification of the individual is a step toward the unification +of the societal consciousness—Organismic (societal) group +differentiated from collective (social) cluster—The period of +man’s substitutive image-production first interrupted by +Darwin’s theory of evolution and further threatened by +Freud’s theory of the evolutionary processes of the unconscious—The +social basis of consciousness, however inadequately +formulated, invites an analytic approach to social +or mass reactions, exemplified in our national, political, +industrial and religious life.</td></tr> + + <tr><td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Index</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_253">253</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="p_xiv"></a><a id="p_xv"></a>[xv]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE"> + PREFACE + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>I do not know whether I can make clear in what manner +the conception embodied in the following pages first +arose. Conceptions derived from data of reason and +observation necessarily proceed from a mental basis. +Scientific and philosophical treatises are the outcome +primarily of scientific or philosophical ideas. With both +inductive and deductive methods of reasoning the conclusions +that flow from the assumptions are our accepted +basis of procedure. With the method of the present +study, however, we are upon other ground, for the +inception of this work was in no such wise; and yet to +say that it is based upon no conceptual premise would, +of course, not be true. The difference is that what follows +here has been the outgrowth of events that were prior to +and independent of any conceptual formulation of them. +Biological necessity preceded and argument followed +after. My meaning may for the moment be best understood +when it is considered that these events are the +processes of personal experience inseparable from the +sequences here embodied. While this is not the place for +detailing personal history, the presentation of a thesis as +intimate as this would not be complete without some +concrete account of its origin.</p> + +<p>Having years ago been “analyzed” in preparation for +my work in psychopathology, I had been for years duly +“analyzing” others. It unexpectedly happened one +day, however, that while I was interpreting a dream of a +student-assistant, he made bold to challenge the honesty +of my analytic position, insisting that, as far as he was +concerned, the test of my sincerity would be met only +when I should myself be willing to accept from him the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_xvi">[xvi]</span>same analytic exactions I was now imposing upon others. +As may be readily judged, such a proposition seemed to +me nothing short of absurd. Had I not been “analyzed”? +Needless to say I had heard this proposal from patients +many times before, but while my reaction to the suggestion +in the present instance was chiefly one of amusement, +my pride was not a little piqued at the intimation +it conveyed. So with the thought that in the interest of +experiment it could at least do no harm to humour for a +time the waywardness of inexperience, I conceded the +arrangement.</p> + +<p>Not many weeks after I had taken the patient’s chair +and yielded him mine I realized that a situation to which +I had agreed with more or less levity had assumed an +aspect of the profoundest seriousness. My “resistances” +to my self-appointed analyst, far from being negligible, +were plainly insuperable, but there was now no turning +back. The analysis proceeded on its course from day to +day and with it my resistances took tighter hold upon me. +The agreement to which I had voluntarily lent myself +was becoming painful beyond words. Whatever empirical +interest the situation may have held for me at the outset +was now wholly subordinated to the indignation and pain +of the position to which I had been brought.</p> + +<p>It is possible to indicate only in their broadest lines the +progressive events of these trying months. I need hardly +record the growing sense of self-limitation and defeat +that went hand in hand with this daily advancing personal +challenge, nor the corresponding efforts of concealment in +unconscious symbolizations and distortions on my part. +What calls for more vital emphasis, however, is the fact +that along with the deepening, if reluctant, realization of +my intolerance of self-defeat, there came gradually to me +the realization that my analyst, in changing places with +me, had merely shifted to the authoritarian vantage-ground +I had myself relinquished and that the situation +had remained essentially unaltered still.</p> + +<p>This was significant. It marked at once the opening of +<span class="pagenum" id="p_xvii">[xvii]</span>wholly new vistas of experience. In the light of its discovery +I began to sense for the first time what had all +along underlain my own analysis and what, as I now see +it, really underlies every analysis. I began to see that +the student before me, notwithstanding his undoubted +sincerity of purpose, presented a no less personal and +proprietary attitude toward me than I had held toward +him and that all that had been needed was the authoritarian +background to bring this attitude to expression. +With the consciousness of this condition I saw what has +been for me the crucial revelation of the many years of +my analytic work—that, in its individualistic application, +the attitude of the psychoanalyst and the attitude of the +authoritarian are inseparable.</p> + +<p>As from day to day this realization came more closely +home to me, and with it the growing acceptance of the +limitation and one-sidedness of the personalistic critique +in psychoanalysis, my personal self-vindication and +resistances began in the same measure to abate. At +the same time the analyst too, Mr. Clarence Shields, came +at last into a position to sense the personalism and +resistance that had unconsciously all along actuated his +own reaction. From now forward the direction of the +inquiry was completely altered. The analysis henceforth +consisted in the reciprocal effort of each of us to +recognize within himself his attitude of authoritarianism +and autocracy toward the other. With this automatic +relinquishment of the personalistic or private basis and +its replacement by a more inclusive attitude toward the +problems of human consciousness, there has been not +alone for myself but also for students and patients a +gradual clearing of our entire analytic horizon.</p> + +<p>It will later become clearer how this newer formulation +of psychoanalysis on the wider basis of its more inclusive +impersonal meaning has occurred entirely apart from +the commonly predicable processes of logic. Only the +accidental circumstance of a student’s protest against my +own personal bias, and my subsequent observation of an +<span class="pagenum" id="p_xviii">[xviii]</span>identical personalism in himself, as empirically disclosed +upon our interchanging places, are answerable for the +altered insight into psychoanalysis that the recent years +have afforded me—an insight which the investigations of +the small group of students working along analytic lines +identical with my own have more and more substantiated. +It was due, then, entirely to this unexpected turn of the +tables, which placed me in the rôle of the patient and +the patient in the analytic rôle, that I was fortuitously +launched into six years of social experimentation upon +the discrepancies of an individualistic analysis. If the +outcome of the process has been the retraction of my +earlier analytic outlook, it has not been the expression of +any personal acumen or distinctive asset on my part.</p> + +<p>The chance eventuality I have mentioned is alone responsible +for enforcing the relinquishment of my habitual +personalistic basis in psychoanalysis and bringing me to +feel the need of a more comprehensive interpretation of +the unconscious. Coming to sense, through a wider recognition +of the unconscious, the correspondingly larger +meaning of the consciousness of man, I have come to feel +the need of its more adequate interpretation in such an +organismic view as I have here attempted to outline +under the theme of “The Social Basis of Consciousness.”</p> + +<p>I cannot consistently cite authoritative reference in +support of this work. There is none. It is sponsored +alone in the spirit of common endeavour actuating the +group of students who have united in its common realization. +But if I am loath to shift to others the responsibility +for my own venturesomeness, I need not forgo the +pleasure of acknowledging—as I do with whole-heartedness—the +impetus that was given me in the beginning of +my psychoanalytic work through the sympathy and +encouragement of Dr. Adolf Meyer.</p> + +<p class="right"> + TRIGANT BURROW. +</p> + +<p> + <span class="smcap"><span style="margin-left: 1.0em;">The Tuscany,</span><br> + Baltimore, Maryland.</span> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_1">[1]</span></p> + + + <div class="center xlarge nobreak" id="THE_SOCIAL_BASIS_OF_CONSCIOUSNESS"> + THE SOCIAL BASIS OF CONSCIOUSNESS + </div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTION"> + INTRODUCTION + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>After sixteen years devoted to psychoanalytic work +based on the principles of Freud, I have come to a +position which differs so essentially from the followers +of Freud as well as from his dissenters, that I am +impelled to set down some account of the development +through which my conceptions have passed, and to +state as clearly as I can the position to which they +have led.</p> + +<p>The conceptions which Freud has brought to the study +of abnormal and individual psychology have been of +incalculable significance in aiding us to understand the +causes and mechanisms underlying mental disharmonies. +The personalistic basis, however, on which psychoanalysis +rests has not in my experience proved sufficiently broad +to meet the demands of a more inclusive societal psychology +in its application to the needs of human life. While, +in reconstructing the mechanics of the unconscious, +psychoanalysis has given the impetus to a truer comprehension +of the many distorted expressions of +individual mentation, it has not as yet really uncovered +the essential meaning of our human problems as +they touch the consciousness of man in its organic +reality.</p> + +<p>To speak, however, of the organic reality of life is to +enter upon a new universe of consciousness. It is to +acquire a wholly altered concept of the inherent consciousness +<span class="pagenum" id="p_2">[2]</span>of man. This concept is not one that is interpretable +upon our accustomed individualistic basis. As +its envisagement is societal, its realization must necessarily +be societal also.</p> + +<p>To-day it is not possible to contemplate the significance +of psychoanalysis without realizing the arbitrarily +constricted point of view that has come to characterize +the popularizations of psychoanalysis in their various +phases. Psychoanalysis possesses as yet no specific +definition. Personalistic in conception, it is personalistically +interpreted, and its variations are to-day as +whimsical as they are many. By one process of handling, +psychoanalysis has become closely allied with Mysticism +and New Thought, by another with propagandist measures +for scientific birth-control, by a third with an authenticated +programme of sexual licence, and with all it is +but a new form of application of the old programme of +palliative medication.</p> + +<p>If, however, the essential truth of Freudian psychology, +like all vital scientific movements, has been attended by +personalistic misconception and even by the cruder aims +of individual exploitation, it has been equally attended +by a genuine scientific concurrence of spirit such as alone +animates the disinterested conscience of the laboratory +investigator. In the midst of the cheap and shifting +divagations of a day, there have remained the sounder +interpretations of at least a few outstanding investigators. +While neither Freudian nor anti-Freudian, there are those +to whom I, as well as others, owe the inspiration of those +more thoughtful evaluations that are based upon a +steadfast fidelity to the inclusive spirit of an evolutionary +interpretation of human pathology, sociological as well as +biological. It is these few students who, I feel, will +welcome an interpretation of our human processes that +offers a more inclusive, organic comprehension of our +mental life.</p> + +<p>But before undertaking the study of the organic psychology +of man, it will be necessary first to establish a position +<span class="pagenum" id="p_3">[3]</span>that is based upon an organismic⁠<a id="FNanchor_1_1" href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> or societal viewpoint +as contrasted with a position based upon a viewpoint that +is systematized and personal. Many years of psychoanalytic +practice have led me to the conviction that the +basis of Freud’s psychology is inadequate to render completely +conscious those disorders of the personality the +essential meaning of which is their unconsciousness. +The following essay, therefore, is an attempt to offer a +more adequate concept of the essential consciousness of +man than I feel has been attained through the interpretations +of the unconscious patterns embodied in the present +system of psychoanalysis. I have come to feel that what +we have called analysis in the sense of our present personalistic +systems is just another application of the +method of suggestion, and that with us analysts, as with +others, the method involves a situation in which we are +as truly the unconscious dupes of the suggestive process +we employ as are the unconscious subjects upon whom +we employ it.</p> + +<p>After all, it is the fallacy of personalism and of differentiation +in our human relations which is the essential +element in our unconscious agencies of suggestion, and I +cannot doubt that this same fallacy underlies no less the +constructions upon which we rest our analytic procedure. +In the work of psychoanalysis as in our human endeavours +everywhere, there enters unavoidably the personal bias +that is inseparable from the position of observation concomitant +to the observer. It is to abrogate this prejudice +of personal partisanship and differentiation besetting the +intrinsic system of psychoanalysis as well as of our +private dogmatizations elsewhere, that I have undertaken +the investigations of which this study is in part +the outcome.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_4">[4]</span></p> + +<p>With the growth of my experience in psychoanalysis, +the factor that has exerted the deepest influence in +altering my outlook upon the problems of the neuroses as +upon the processes of life generally has been the gradual, +if reluctant, elimination of the personal equation in +relation to those problems. By the personal equation I +mean the unconscious and arbitrary tendency within us +all to adopt <i>a personally systematized mental attitude</i> +toward life in substitution for the physiological reality of +life itself. The technical procedure of Freud necessarily +rests upon this extrinsic mental attitude, whereas in the +work of my students and myself during the past several +years our position has tended increasingly toward the +more inclusive fulfilment of the personality as a whole. +Only in an inclusive analysis are our affects experienced +upon a basis that is common and organic. Accidental +diversity cannot issue out of organic unity. When the +elements of consciousness will be truly unified, an association +of conscious personalities will be unified also. The +reason why there are to-day as many systems of psychoanalysis +as there are psychoanalysts, is that our assumed +principle of conscious unity is in reality but a personal +principle of differentiation and unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>Let me say at once, however, to anyone who may have +lacked the opportunity or the candour to verify within +himself the essential objective findings of Freud, and who +is disposed to read into this thesis a vindication of his +personal reaction against Freud’s formulations, that he +will find this study in nowise adapted to assuage his +sense of outrage to injured sensibilities. Whatever may +be the value of this work, in the spirit of its presentation +it is in no sense a personal discrimination against the +teaching of Freud but rather it is the acknowledged outgrowth +of that teaching. If in our widened outlook we +have outgrown the personal interpretations of psychoanalysis, +there is due our full acknowledgment that it is +to those interpretations that our position owes its rise. +Far, then, from representing an antagonistic exclusion of +<span class="pagenum" id="p_5">[5]</span>Freud’s theory of the unconscious, our position embodies +the wider inclusion of it in what I feel is its more comprehensive +interpretation on the basis of a societal concept of +consciousness.</p> + +<p>In psychoanalysis as in the social systems amid which, +unconsciously, we are continually moving, we tend to +gravitate toward an assumed static centre or toward a +so-called personal cause that is coincident with our +assumption of an absolute universe of consciousness. +This gravitation toward a personal centre of consciousness +embodies, in reality, a system that represents but +the unconscious projection of our own ego. We substitute +this delusion of an artificial world of causality for the +reality of a universe of spontaneous sequence, not realizing +that we ourselves are the subjective expression of the +same organic sequence which we observe objectively in +the world about us. When we have learned to accept +inherent sequence as organically necessary, we shall no +longer enforce unconscious causality as presumably +inevitable.</p> + +<p>It is this very general fallacy of personal sponsorship +which constitutes the intricate disguise of our social unconscious +and which in our personalistic outlook we have +not yet begun to grasp. Ourselves unwitting participants +in this illusion of personal determinism, we have +not yet begun to compass the <i>system of unconsciousness</i> +that lurks beneath its gratuitous assumption of personal +agency.</p> + +<p>With a view to the analysis and replacement of this +absolute or self-determined attitude among us I have +here offered what I conceive to be the more universal +and encompassing interpretation of the common and +organic consciousness of man. As, however, the field of +Organic Psychology has yet to take a recognized place +among us, and as it is a conception that is circumscribed +only by the limits of life itself, naturally this initial step +toward its establishment offers but a tentative view as to +its real scope and meaning. Representing scarcely more +<span class="pagenum" id="p_6">[6]</span>than a preliminary outline, this work will be seen to +embody but the merest syllabus in relation to further +works based upon an organismic theory of consciousness, +that doubtless will gradually be contributed to the +increase of our understanding of life, both individual +and social. In its present form the thesis here developed +was first outlined in 1923.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_7">[7]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_I"> + PART I + <br> + THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE NEUROSES + </h2> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="p_8"></a><a id="p_9"></a>[9]</span></p> +<div class="chapter"> + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I"> + CHAPTER I + <br> + PSYCHOANALYSIS IN THEORY AND IN LIFE + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>Now that the excitement following the inundation of +psychoanalysis has died down and the clinical territories +most affected have been once more built up and restocked, +it is interesting to witness the changes wrought in different +quarters as a result of the general havoc to habitual prepossessions. +As we stand amid the debris of past conceptions +there is no question but that the sudden descent +upon us of Freud’s postulates has destroyed many old +landmarks that shall not be restored and that it has +brought in a wealth of new material that has altered no +little the configuration of the old.</p> + +<p>As I happen to have been of those who were carried in +upon the current of the general onsweep of new interpretations +ushered in by Freud, my experience forms the +record of a reaction to that movement that is internal +because it is from the vantage-ground of a participant +in it. Many of these interpretations are of epoch-making +significance in their approach to mental disharmonies, +but many, being immature and unsound, only obstruct +the passage that psychoanalysis has contributed so +splendidly to open. And so my position may be of interest +to others who, like myself, have earnestly tried to bring +order and a permanent coherence out of the large mass of +conceptions that cluster about Freud’s dynamic idea.</p> + +<p>The theory of psychoanalysis rests on the conception +that nervous disorders are the substitutive manifestation +of a repressed sexual life; its basic position is that this +substitutive factor is responsible for neurotic processes +and that it is the sexual impulse for which recourse is +sought in the process of substitution. This position of +<span class="pagenum" id="p_10">[10]</span>psychoanalysis is, in its essential significance, now generally +accepted—the position, namely, which affirms the +factor of replacement as the essential account of nervous +manifestations and assumes the urge of the sexual +instinct as the element replaced.</p> + +<p>While, with other psychoanalysts, I am in full accord +with this thesis, my finding in regard to the relation of +these two propositions to one another is so entirely at +variance with the prevailing psychoanalytic view, and +alters so fundamentally for me the ultimate interpretation +of psychoanalysis in its bearing upon the problems +of consciousness, that I shall make clearer the ideas +expressed in this work if, at the outset, I may state +briefly in what manner my interpretation of this relation +differs from the accepted conception.</p> + +<p>The difference lies in the fact that I do not regard this +replacement as <i>primarily</i> a replacement for sexuality as +we now know it. On the contrary, sexuality, as manifested +to-day amid the sophistications of civilization, is +itself a replacement for the organic unity of personality +arising naturally from the harmony of function that +pertains biologically to the primary infant psyche. This +original mode I have referred to in a previous work as +the preconscious, and this preconscious mode⁠<a id="FNanchor_2_2" href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> I regard as +the matrix of the mental life. The spontaneous process +of the organism’s unhindered growth through the gradual +development of experience or awareness from this unitary +mode as a basis is, in my interpretation, the meaning of +consciousness. The whole meaning of sexuality on the +other hand is substitution, compensation, repression. In +a word, sexuality, as it has come to exist socially to-day, +is identical with the unconscious, while a unification of +personality is alone to be found through eliminating the +recourses of substitution and sexuality and thus reuniting +the elements of the conscious and organic modes now +<span class="pagenum" id="p_11">[11]</span>kept asunder through the interposition of the unconscious.</p> + +<p>Hence the modern substitutions existing under the +name of sexuality, whether repressed or indulged, are +but a symptom of this denial of man’s organic affective +life. Sexuality, as it now exists, is not only utterly unrelated +to sex but it is intrinsically exclusive of sex. Sex +is life. It is life in its deepest significance. Sex is the +spontaneous expression of a natural hunger. In the +instinct of sex there is felt a yearning from the depths +of man’s organism for mating and reproduction, while +sexuality is the personal coveting of momentary satisfaction +in mere superficial sensation. By sexuality, then, +I mean something very different from sex. I mean the +restless, obsessive, over-stimulated quest for temporary +self-gratification that everywhere masquerades as sex +and is everywhere substituted for the strong, simple, +quiet flow of feeling that unites the organic and the conscious +life in a single stream and is the expression of +personality in its native inherency.</p> + +<p>With this altered conception other modifications have +followed which necessarily entail a distinct departure +from certain accepted psychoanalytic formulations. The +organic denial and the restless compensations and substitutions +comprising the unconscious are, in essence, the +psychology of the mental reaction-average known as +normality. The popular analytic view places a premium +upon this manifestation of the collective unconscious and +assigns the criterion of normality as the desired goal of +adaptation for the neurotically repressed personality.</p> + +<p>I cannot accept this view. For an analysis of the social +unconscious shows that the collective reaction embodied +in the adaptations commonly accepted as normal betrays +a tendency to repression and replacement that is no less +an indication of disease-process than is the reaction presented +in the individual neurosis. Indeed, from the point +of view of constructive consciousness and health, our so-called +normality is, of the two, the less progressive type +<span class="pagenum" id="p_12">[12]</span>of reaction. In truth, normality, in evading the issues of +the unconscious, envisages less the processes of growth +and a larger consciousness than the neurotic type of +reaction, which, however blind its motivation, at least +comes to grips with the actualities of the unconscious.</p> + +<p>It is the hall-mark of normality that, suspecting nothing, +it takes itself completely for granted. In the spirit of +true conformity, it accepts its expressions of the vicarious +at their face value and assumes the burden of its self-inflicted +compensations with entire complacency. The +neurotic, on the other hand, at least senses the inherent +discrepancy in his life. He at least demurs in so far as +to withhold assent from the mass-compromise embodied +in the substitutions and connivances of the social unconscious. +In a word, it is the distinction of the neurotic +personality that he is at least consciously and confessedly +“nervous.”</p> + +<p>This, as far as I can see, is the chief distinction between +the condition represented in normal adaptations and that +represented in the neurosis. The distinction lies merely +in the greater weight of numbers. Normality, in its +numerical strength, concedes acceptance to the average-reaction +and so yields it right of way. In normality the +unconscious carries the day, while in the neurosis it is +pushed to the wall. The distinction psychologically lies +in the successful compromise of the one as contrasted with +the enforced doubt and self-questioning of the other. +On the one hand there is the compact security of the +social polity; on the other, there is the more sensitive +isolation and uncertainty of the individual unit.</p> + +<p>From the point of view of life, therefore, many of our +normal reactions are psychologically as truly a manifestation +of the distorted and substitutive as are those +more isolated manifestations we commonly stigmatize +as neurotic disharmonies. I cannot see but that the +element of the repressed and substitutive on which is +based Freud’s theory of the neuroses is an element that +<span class="pagenum" id="p_13">[13]</span>underlies the expression of consciousness in all phases of +its manifestation and that hence underlies also the phase +represented in normality. In brief, normality too is +nervous. Normality too, since it is actuated no less +from motives of the ulterior and vicarious, even though +it supposedly represents the criterion of adult consciousness, +is no less an expression of the distorted and symbolic. +This distortion is to be seen upon every hand in the +restless greed and obsessive self-seeking that underlie the +national, industrial, political, social and religious possessivism +and competition which are the typical psychology +of the normal mind, notwithstanding its plausible exterior +of human progress and universal goodwill. Universality +and goodwill are not there. These are but the manifest +symptoms embodied by the social personality after it +has undergone the distortion represented in the substitutive +reactions characteristic of the social neurosis, +that is, after it has been subjected to the mechanism of +diplomatic repression and modification. What is there, +in reality, is the will-to-self and the particular aim which +best serves the narcistic advantages of the individuals +comprising the social unit in question. The mechanism +is identical with that which underlies the individual +neurosis, namely, the covert aim toward the satisfactions +of self which constitute unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>Normality too, then, is neurotic. Normality too has +its repressions and its substitutions, its secret symbols +and equivocations. The difference is that as normality +possesses the warrant of the institutionalized and current, +it enjoys the protection of the consensus. And just as +the neurotic fails to comprehend the meaning of this +vicarious manifestation in its individual expression within +himself and is a prey to the inscrutable symptoms in +which his organism finds its compensations, so we, who +are accounted normal, as little suspect the meaning of +this same symptomatology existing in its social expression +within ourselves. The neurotic resolutely defends his +unconscious duplicity behind an ingenious charade of +<span class="pagenum" id="p_14">[14]</span>unconscious symbolism, and we no less resolutely defend +ours through recourse to an identical device. But if we +will look beyond the narrower confine of the clinic and +face squarely the logical issue of Freud’s thesis, we cannot +avoid the conclusion that it is an indictment of man’s +consciousness in its entirety. Hence normality too must +make answer for its complicity in the unconscious ruse +of substitution and evasion which we observe in its +more intense reaction as the introversions of personality +presented in the obviously arrested expression we call +neurotic.</p> + +<p>If anyone is disposed to question this view, let him +consider but one symptomatic reaction recently manifested +throughout the social organism. Could there be +anywhere imagined an unconscious reaction more wasteful +and destructive or one of wider scope or severer intensity +than the symptom-reaction represented by the war +that has recently convulsed the world? Or consider the +equally unconscious expression presented in the tendency +to religious emotionalism that has followed in the wake of +this world-war, with the corresponding effort towards +compensation and self-propitiation through recourse to +the sentimental and spiritualistic. Yet all the while the +existence and the significance of the unconscious motives +that are latent in the two extremes of emotional reaction +underlying these manifest expressions have not yet begun +to be suspected and reckoned with on any clear, conscious, +analytic basis.</p> + +<p>What, then, is the meaning of this tendency to substitution +as shown in the reaction of the social as well as +of the individual organism? If sexuality is the element +substituted for, what is the psychology of this factor +called sexuality? What is its meaning? In analyzing +the unconscious of the neurotic personality it has become +gradually clearer to me that the factor underlying and +actuating the conflict Freud describes as repressed +sexuality is nothing else than the personal desire of +ascendancy or the lust of acquisition <i>concomitant with +<span class="pagenum" id="p_15">[15]</span>the organism’s unconscious reversion upon its own +image</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_3_3" href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + +<p>Sexuality, then, is but a larger word for self. Sexuality +is the effort to limit life to the ends of personal aggrandizement. +It is the greed of the self-limited personality to +compass the whole, as contrasted with the societal personality +that is encompassed by the whole. But, since +the unconscious is the same under all forms, self or +sexuality, with its pride of possession, its lust of gain, is +no less the unconscious element underlying the psychology +of the normal reaction-average. And precisely as in the +individual reaction these unconscious wishes are manifested +only in the disguised symbols and substitutive +equivalents portrayed in neurotic symptoms, so too in +the social organism these egocentric interests antagonistic +to consciousness and growth venture to express themselves +only in the corresponding substitutions of the mass +unconscious.</p> + +<p>Thus the unconscious represented in the social reaction +we call normality is no whit different from the unconscious +represented in the individual reaction observable +as the neurosis. We are habitually deceived by the +give-and-take policy of normal adaptation with its secret +covenant of good manners and outward forms. But the +apparent difference between the social and the individual +neurosis consists merely in the fact that the poignancy of +the conflict underlying the symptomatology of the social +personality is largely mitigated and condoned by reason +of the wider numerical distribution of the social organism +and the consequent freer dissemination of the elements +involved.</p> + +<p>But, though of wider distribution, there underlies the +expressions of normality no less of conflict and repression +than exists in the acuter expression seen in the individual +neurosis. In the personality of the more sensitive or +feeling type we think of as neurotic, this tendency to self-acquisitiveness +<span class="pagenum" id="p_16">[16]</span>or sexuality and its organic incompatibility +with the physiological inherency of life become, as +it were, stalled and impacted within him; while in the +social organism the discrepancy of personality, occasioned +by its sexuality or pride of ascendancy, apparently entails +no such organic blocking as that occurring in the individual. +But the pain and impaction are present nevertheless, +and are betrayed no less in the recourse to the substitutive +and symbolic manifestations, characteristic of our prevalent +social hysterias, not to mention the more violent +disorders that crash upon the world in the reactions of +political and industrial dissension and in the fiercer +paroxysms of war.</p> + +<p>Such is the meaning of our so-called normality. To a +degree that is quite unsuspected by us its psychology is +unconsciousness, and the psychology of unconsciousness +is the psychology of the self-image secretly worshipped +under the habitual guises of symbolism and replacement. +It is time we should recognize that this recourse to the +vicarious image is the psychology of many of the reactions +of the normal as well as of the neurotic, that in ourselves, +no less than in the neurotic, there is the putting forward +of that which <i>stands for</i>—the exploitation, under countless +different aspects, of that which may be adroitly put +<i>instead of</i> rather than the simple acceptance of that +which <i>is</i>.</p> + +<p>Part of the purpose of the present study, however, is to +try to bring into clearer light a substitutive reaction that +is much nearer home. As psychoanalysts we need to take +into account a distortive process that has a much closer +bearing upon ourselves and our responsibility toward the +problems of our common social consciousness. For, of +all the forms of substitution to which normality has +recourse, the form that seems to me of deepest significance +for us and that presents the most vital need of analysis +and understanding within ourselves, is the vicarious +expression growing out of the tendency to an extrinsic +approach to the problems of consciousness that has come +<span class="pagenum" id="p_17">[17]</span>to be embodied in the formulated <i>system</i> of psychoanalysis.</p> + +<p>In the whole symptomatology of normality with its +social expression of the vicarious there is no symptom-complex +that is of greater significance than that embodied +in the attempt to apply to the reality of human life the +<i>system</i> of human life offered in psychoanalysis as it is +to-day interpreted and applied. For a system of psychoanalysis +is itself but a substitution for life, a theory of +life in place of life itself. The theory of psychoanalysis +sets out with a premise; life does not. Psychoanalysis +offers a solution; life is its own solution.</p> + +<p>It is not theory as theory at which I demur; it is theory +as application to the needs of human growth. From the +point of view of the theory of psychoanalysis this therapeutic +recourse in the treatment of nervous disorders +seems to me completely adequate and true; but from the +point of view of life I have come to regard the application +of the system or theory of psychoanalysis to the problems +of individual needs as an utterly futile procedure. I have +come to feel that what is here of value in the text-book is +utterly worthless in our daily relation to human personality.</p> + +<p>I would not, of course, be understood as repudiating +theory as such. Seen clearly as the extrinsic expression +it is, theory undoubtedly has its place, but its place is +not in the earnest relationship of one human being to +another such as obtains in the confidence and communication +offered in the actuality of psychoanalysis. It has +not yet been recognized, however, that we who are +psychoanalysts are ourselves theorists, that we also are +very largely misled by an unconscious that is social, that +we too are neurotic, in so far as every expression but that +of life in its native simplicity is neurotic. Our disharmony, +however, is a phase of that widely diffused neurosis that +exists under the prevailing social consensus represented +in the normal adaptation.⁠<a id="FNanchor_4_4" href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_18">[18]</span></p> + +<p>And so, as I now see it, there is no more subtle form of +substitution or one that is more successful in its capacity +to evade the censor of consciousness and obtain the stamp +of genuineness than the symptom represented in the +<i>theory</i> of the reactions of human beings as a replacement +for the reality of these reactions in life itself. Personal +experience compels me to concede that it is such a symptom +that is comprised in the theory of psychoanalysis as it is +widely operative in the consultation rooms of psychoanalysts +to-day.</p> + +<p>We have assumed that, in envisaging the unconscious, +psychoanalysis presupposes a more inclusive position +than is generally characteristic of the theoretical or +systematized clinician. But it is a far-reaching commentary +upon the analyst’s capacity of discrimination +that he still presumes to analyze another on the basis of +a system or theory, as though a neurosis which is an +essentially subjective condition were of the nature of an +objective bodily lesion. A dissociation within the personality +may find its analogy in a bodily lesion but never +its understanding. In the field of objective phenomena, +theory is entirely commensurate with its application. +After all, the theory of a mechanism is but the description +of the principle of its operation. In the objective world +such an objective description presents no discrepancy. +It is the application of the objective method to an +objective principle. The theory of the hydraulic press is +perfectly consistent with its application. Between theory +and application there is here complete conjunction. No +disparate element intervenes to mar the transition from +the descriptive to the practical.</p> + +<p>So too with the theory of psychoanalysis as long as it +pertains to the objective viewpoint of the text-book. +But in the subjective sphere a totally different situation +is presented. In dealing with life in its actuality, we are +not dealing with the descriptive and objective. Human +life is subjective. It is something experienced, something +felt. Life is not theoretical; it is actual. It is +<span class="pagenum" id="p_19">[19]</span>not descriptive; it is dynamic. Human life <i>is</i>; it is +not a <i>theory</i> of what is. Life, as it is felt, is our ultimate +subjective actuality. Subjectivity or intrinsic feeling is +the very basis of life. As such, feeling is life’s reality +and no theory of feeling is an adequate substitute for this +reality. And so the objective theory of psychoanalysis +or the objective theory of the motives of human life is +wholly inapplicable to the subjective experience or to +the actuality of human life as it is felt in individual +personality.</p> + +<p>We have not begun to reckon in the least understandingly +with the nature of the subjective as contrasted with +the objective sphere of life. We are, in fact, quite naïve +in our attitude toward the whole subjective field, preferring +to adopt toward it either a mood of beatific +reverence and mysticism, in which we conjure unwarranted +images of “psychic phenomena” that are +allied with man’s pseudo-religious vagaries, or we adopt +a pseudo-scientific attitude which repudiates as nonexistent +or regards as unworthy of serious thought any +phenomena that do not lend themselves to objective +observation. Neither position seems to me tenable. +We may dismiss at once the attitude of the occultists, for +mysticism entertains no argument. But there is the +need to consider very seriously the subjective field of +scientific reasoning and to keep clearly before us the +distinctive and impassable interval between the subjective +and objective domains of scientific inquiry.</p> + +<p>It is most true that objective observation is the sole +method whereby we may obtain knowledge concerning +the phenomenal world. This is true whether the knowledge +concern substances themselves or the manner of +their interaction. But we forget that knowledge thus +gained is always knowledge <i>concerning</i>. If I consider +any object—a book, a flower, or a stone—all that my +knowledge will ever yield me is restricted to the attributes +that pertain to the substance in hand. I observe that +the stone is smooth, hard, ovoid. Submitting it to +<span class="pagenum" id="p_20">[20]</span>certain physical and chemical tests I learn still further +about its qualities, and so, little by little, bring myself +into ever closer touch with the object in question. But +always my data furnish only <i>closer touch with</i>. The +essential matter informing the substance we recognize as +stone remains as inaccessible at the conclusion of an +ultimate analysis as in the beginning. It is still knowledge +<i>concerning</i> and my facts, however widely accumulated, +are but attributive. Thus the <i>essential</i> nature of +the objects about us is not to be approached by a method +that is <i>unessential</i> or attributive.</p> + +<p>The same circumstance confronts us in dealing with the +phenomenal world of our own experience. Here too we +proceed upon the method of objective inquiry—a perfectly +legitimate field of “observation.” We posit and +collate all manner of phenomena and note no end of +“reactions.” But always we are restricted to a knowledge +<i>concerning</i>, to data <i>in regard to</i>. In brief, we remain +apart from—are ever outside of the reaction observed. +Not that we may hold the attitude of the philosophers +and assume the “existence” of a “metaphysical essence” +that is inaccessible to us. We need rather to recognize +that the alleged essence is merely that organic condition +of matter with which our conscious processes are not +organically continuous. There are, however, organic +conditions or processes with which our consciousness is +continuous—namely, the organic processes occurring +within our own bodies and registering themselves within +us as feeling. It is this continuity registered within us +as feeling that is an essentially subjective state of mind +and that must not be confused with the objective state +of mind that merely registers impressions of the observable +action or outer condition of such feeling processes. This +subjective continuity is organic and inherent. True, it +is possible through a shunting of interest or attention +(repression or misplaced affect) to divert the course of +our organic processes from their natural perception in +consciousness. But this artificial situation through which +<span class="pagenum" id="p_21">[21]</span>we divert organic process from conscious participation +and acknowledgment is the condition of unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>My whole contention is precisely this: we are constantly +attempting to deal objectively or attributively with +experiences that are subjective and essential. We fail to +understand that our knowledge <i>about</i> our feelings is but +attributive, that it brings us no nearer the feelings themselves; +that our feelings are essential, physiological and +that we may no more know our essential feelings through +<i>observation</i> of their <i>attributes</i> than we may reach the +essence of any object about us through a knowledge of +<i>its</i> attributes.</p> + +<p>The basis of this essay is precisely the recognition of +this impossible breach between the condition of consciousness +produced through a knowledge <i>about</i> feeling and +the condition of consciousness that is the feeling itself, +between the state of mind that is <i>commentative</i> and the +state of mind that is <i>functioning</i>. The former is objective, +the latter is subjective. The failure of our psychological +methods to recognize this intrinsic distinction is to my +mind the failure of our entire approach to the problems +of mental and social disharmony. It is this unwitting +substitution of the <i>theory</i> of human feelings for the +unannotated experience of the feelings themselves as +recorded in our interactive functioning as human beings +that is the impossibility of our present “method” of +psychoanalysis.</p> + +<p>This position is for me an all-important one. Upon the +acceptance or rejection of it, I believe, depends the +growth or the decline of psychoanalysis as an agency of +release for the intrinsic needs of the neurotic personality. +To-day, under the impetus of psychoanalysis in its +theoretical or vicarious form, we are carrying theory to +the point of absurdity. There is now, for example, the +psychoanalytic theory of the nursery. Anxious young +mothers are running about looking for texts which will +serve them as guides in the love of their children. They +are diligently searching upon every hand for the latest +<span class="pagenum" id="p_22">[22]</span>approved theory of maternal love. And in response to +the demand the popular literature is supplying them +with full details. But there are no librettos of the +nursery. Baedekers to motherhood are not to be had. +The motherhood that is true is a subjective relationship, +and it is only subjectively that it can be felt and understood.</p> + +<p>I shall not forget the experience told me by a patient +whose mother, actuated by the theory of motherhood +in its highest “scientific” interpretation, undertook to +enlighten her upon the significance of sex. The incident +left the most painful impression upon her. The mother, +having gathered courage for the performance of her +maternal duty, delivered her errand with a punctiliousness +which from the point of view of technique was +irreproachable. She spoke out of the strictest regard for +the theory of motherhood. But unfortunately her theory +left out of account an item that needs to be reckoned +with, namely, the native simplicity of the consciousness +of childhood. The woman spoke out of the theory of a +truth, but her child listened with the organic susceptibility +of truth itself. The mother had not accepted +within herself the actual significance of life, and so, in +accordance with the formality of a theory, was vicariously +imposing its acceptance upon her child. But childish +perception pierces the veil of pedagogic finesse. The +rigid demeanour of her instructor readily disclosed the +discrepancy between the verbal recital and the utter +lack of conscious acceptance within herself. For the +child, now a middle-aged woman, the moment was an +unforgettable one. She had witnessed in her mother an +outrage to organic truth, and the shock of that experience +caused a psychic disunity between mother and child +from which there resulted an introversion of personality +that covered half a lifetime. And so, while the theory +of the nursery is from the point of view of theory wholly +irreproachable, it is from the point of view of the nursery +wholly absurd.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_23">[23]</span></p> + +<p>A lesson which parents have yet to learn is that the +child is closer to the heart of things than the grown-up—that +the consciousness of childhood stands in a far more +truthful relationship to the actuality of life, as it is, than +the consciousness of the conventionalized and sophisticated +adult. For years it has been my feeling that +beneath the conflict of the neurotic personality there is +reiterated an urge toward the expression of this primal +inherency of consciousness. To-day, it is more than +ever my view that in the neurotic reaction there is expressed +an inherent plea for the native simplicity and +truth of this organic consciousness. It becomes more +and more clear to me that the pain of these personalities +is due solely to the organic discrepancy of an unconsciousness +and indirection within themselves, and that essentially +their urge is to bring themselves again into harmony +with the law of their personality by reuniting the needs +of their consciousness with the needs of their organic life.</p> + +<p>As Nietzsche says: “May there not be—a question +for alienists—neuroses of health?”⁠<a id="FNanchor_5_5" href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> This question for +alienists is indeed a vital one but it is one which, as far +as I am aware, has not as yet even dimly occurred to us. +There is nowhere, it may be noted, a clearer argument +for Nietzsche’s hypothesis than Nietzsche’s own neurosis. +Unfortunately, however, alienists are still as little interested +in the positive processes that bespeak the organism’s +conscious health, as physicians in general are interested +in the positive processes that insure the organism’s +physical health. But, as long as the collective social +mind remains the collective unconscious mind, it is not +to be expected that we shall approach the unconscious of +the individual, in either its psychic or in its somatic +aspect, from the basis of an inclusive consciousness and +health. The question is often asked whether insanity +will ever become curable. The answer can only be that +<span class="pagenum" id="p_24">[24]</span>the insanity of the individual cannot be curable as long +as there exists the insanity of the social mind about him. +It is not humanly possible for the psychiatrist to remedy +conditions of mental disorganization as long as he himself +is part of a disorganized social mind.</p> + +<p>If the psychoanalyst, in applying to the lives of his +patients a theory of life, is himself unconsciously resorting +to the self-protection of the substitutive and symbolic; +if the blocked personality of our patients meets with a +blocking in ourselves, with a compromise, a theory, a +something which stands as a <i>sign for</i> rather than that +which <i>is</i>—a situation which offers a compromise mechanism +identical with that for which they have sought aid from +us—then clearly the way is not yet open for the release +of the conflict within these personalities. For a patient +may be untrammelled only in so far as the analyst is +himself untrammelled.</p> + +<p>In taking this attitude I do not make any personal +claim for myself. This position is not one to which I +have come through the success of my work but rather +through its failure. For in the measure in which I have +adhered to the dictates of a preconceived normality, in +just that measure has my work defeated itself. Though +I have for some time theoretically disavowed the mental +status represented in the normal reaction, I have tended +unconsciously all the while to ally myself with this +standardized brand of unconsciousness and thus, in my +own work, have inclined to hold to a theory of life rather +than to its actuality. Not, then, with the neurotic alone, +but with us all, it would seem that consciousness is +mainly employed in efforts of self-protection and evasion. +Truly, consciousness makes cowards of us all. But this +is not consciousness in the sense of life and growth; it +is consciousness in the sense of retention and self. It is +not a free consciousness; it is consciousness with a +reservation. It is not true consciousness; it is unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>In accordance with such a mode of consciousness each +<span class="pagenum" id="p_25">[25]</span>of us is elbowing for a place for himself. Each is seeking +more territory for his own expansion. Each of us is an +unconscious overlord striving to secure the supremacy +of his own “personality.” Universal and normal as this +reaction is, its tendency is obsessive and ill. I do not +believe that life is aggressive and that growth is concerned +for itself. Personality is impersonality. What is +needed is the quiet acceptance of life in its actuality. +In this and this alone lies the opportunity for freedom and +growth.</p> + +<p>We hear much to-day of the technique of psychoanalysis. +In truth there is no such thing. It is just another defence +mechanism, just another resistance to the actualities of +life. As in all instances of therapeutic specialization, the +technique of psychoanalysis has become a fetish with us. +It has become a veritable complex, a disorder from which +I find patients actually suffering. The situation is quite +ridiculous. The more I think of it, the more I am convinced +that the so-called technique of psychoanalysis is +but another hobgoblin wherewith the unconscious tendency +of professionalism with its egoistic striving for +preferment contrives to preserve its own separateness and +distinction. I confess that, in my own unconsciousness, +I have more than once laid stress upon the importance of +the analytic technique. But let us not be misled by +what is called the technique of psychoanalysis. It is but +another subterfuge for the reality of life. A technique of +psychoanalysis is no more possible than a technique of +love or of friendship or of motherhood. There is a +technique and a very difficult technique of the <i>theory</i> of +psychoanalysis. But that is quite a different thing. +Psychoanalysis itself or, as its name implies, the loosening +or freeing of consciousness is nothing else than the conscious +acceptance of life. As such, it is the exact contrary +of the objective and technical. Life is not a technique. +It does not express itself in terms of technique. Technique +is an objective instrument. Life is a subjective experience. +It is a joy or a sorrow, a disappointment or an +<span class="pagenum" id="p_26">[26]</span>aspiration, and it can no more be handled from the point +of view of technique than it can be handled with the +scalpel of the anatomist.⁠<a id="FNanchor_6_6" href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<p>From these and similar reflections I have come to +regard the formality of applying a system of psychoanalysis +to the life of an individual as an actual hindrance rather +than as an aid to the true expression of his personality. +It is but an added repression, blocking the very way it +attempts to open. For to meet the unconscious of a +patient with unconsciousness within oneself, is only to +answer symbolic substitution and indirection with the +same substitution and indirection in an altered, more +subtle, socially plausible form.</p> + +<p>The whole meaning, therefore, of an analysis that is +actual and not theoretical is the realization and acceptance +on the part of the analyst of the utmost unconscious +symbolization and distortion within himself. The analysis +of a patient is the analysis of oneself. It cannot be +otherwise. And when I say analysis, I do not mean +an analysis that is a mere unconscious concession to +normality—a giving vent to the egoistic erotism of the +individual by diffusing it among the widely distributed +elements of the social personality in the manifold distortions +of sexuality. I mean an analysis of personality +in its widest expression—an analysis through which the +individual comes into the conscious acceptance not only +of the repression or distortion that is personal and that +is comprised within the individual introversion we know +as the neurosis, but of the distortion or substitution of +personality that is social and that constitutes the confederacy +of unconsciousness popularly endorsed as +normality.</p> + +<p>The prime requisite for clear, free, untrammelled work +in the analysis of human personality is the unqualified +<span class="pagenum" id="p_27">[27]</span>rejection of the unconscious compromise embodied in +the social reaction of normality. The analyst who is +not himself capitulating to the concession of the social +unconscious will repudiate the attitude of the psychotherapist +whose criterion is the restoration of his patient +to a condition of normality, and will take his stand +against any recourse that is based upon a programme of +compromise and habituation. He will see that normality +is merely unconsciousness on a co-operative basis and he +will not be deceived by its insidious offers. It is only +through such an attitude of complete freedom within +oneself that it is possible to offer the opportunity of freedom +to the personality of the neurotic patient, the very +heart of whose disharmony lies in an inner repugnance, +however bewildered and confused, to the untruth of the +social unconscious comprising his milieu. Viewed analytically, +normality is but the self-flattery through which +we pretend we are not unconscious. By so pretending, +however, we are only furthering our tendency to deeper +unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>As long as there is self-protection, there is self-limitation; +as long as there is self-limitation, we are necessarily +setting a limitation to the possibility of growth and consciousness +in others. Only through rejecting such protection +may we come to accept the testimony of the +unconscious within ourselves. Otherwise, we ourselves +become the inhibitors rather than the liberators of consciousness; +we who are psychoanalysts become mere +guardians of disease-processes instead of the willing +repositories of these unconscious factors, as they exist +in others, through our understanding and acceptance of +these processes as they exist within ourselves. For consciousness +grows upon the medium of consciousness. It +cannot be nourished upon an extraneous soil. Theories +of consciousness are extraneous. In the presence of the +actuality of life, theories of life become mere intellectual +snobbery. Being wise, sophisticated and remote, they +are inadequate to meet life in its native simplicity. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_28">[28]</span>Bearing the testimonials of authority, the credentials of +office, they do not come low enough. These insignia of +rank only tend to intimidate personality in its natural +simplicity. What is needed for the release of the neurotic +individual is the personality who imposes nothing of his +own and thus allows the completest opportunity for the +unfolding of the repressed and introverted personality of +others.</p> + +<p>As psychoanalysis develops and our understanding +deepens, it will be seen that it is not scientific equipment +alone but also directness of outlook that make the psychoanalyst. +It will be seen that the personalities who are +adapted to an understanding of the needs of human life +will not necessarily occupy places of importance amid the +distractions of affairs, but that their place may be an +unobtrusive one in which understanding for understanding’s +sake will be their sole concern. The various rules +laid down by medical or other syndicates with a view to +determining what are the literal qualifications for a psychoanalyst +are wholly beside the point.⁠<a id="FNanchor_7_7" href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> The qualifications +for understanding are not literal. Although we may +formulate the most meticulous of programmes setting +forth the requirements of tuition, it will be found that +personality will, in the final count, override them all. +Besides, I cannot think that it is due entirely to the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_29">[29]</span>accidents of chance that the spokesman for the adoption +of this or that recipe as a prerequisite to “sound training” +in psychoanalysis should unfailingly submit a menu that +tallies in detail with his own catalogue of merits. After +all, psychoanalysis is a very large name for a very simple +thing. I well know that this statement offers a delectable +morsel to any who are disposed to misinterpret my meaning. +It will be readily regarded as recklessly casting +aside as valueless all the years of my own medical and +psychological training. But the responsibility for such +a misinterpretation rests upon those who are unable to +distinguish between the culture that is applied academically +and the academy that is applied culturally. All +that I mean is that whosoever follows the calling of +psychoanalysis is merely one who seeks to understand +and accept life as it is without intruding himself or +imposing his view or exerting his authority. Indeed +psychoanalysis is essentially the abrogation of authority. +For the psychoanalyst is not content but receptacle. +Lacking method or design he offers nothing, but is the +recipient of all there is of human experience as subjectively +substantiated within himself.</p> + +<p>But there enters here a consideration of vital importance +and one that has not yet been adequately reckoned +with and understood. If the psychoanalyst is to be the +recipient, there must be those who stand to him as +recipient also. If he is to understand, he must be understood. +If the life of the analyst is to be a reality and not +a system, he himself must in reality participate in the +life in which he invites others to participate. If it is his +thesis that human life cannot subsist alone, that communication +is life, that it is the very meaning of consciousness, +neither can he subsist without communication.</p> + +<p>And so there need to be in the life of the analyst the +personalities with whom he may share, with whom he +may communicate, who accept him and are accepted by +him in turn. For to analyze is to be analyzed, to understand +is to be understood. Needless to say these are +<span class="pagenum" id="p_30">[30]</span>conclusions to which I have not come alone. I could not +have. They are the outcome of my own opportunity of +participation and expression, as the need of communication +has come to unfold itself in my own experience.</p> + +<p>Clearly, then, we who stand as the promoters of a new +and untrammelled consciousness must look carefully into +our own lives to discover whether we ourselves, as part of +the social consciousness, are not theorists rather than +unified personalities actuated solely by the law of understanding +and of growth within ourselves. Clearly, we +ourselves must realize the completely vicarious and +repressed element underlying the expression of unconsciousness +embodied in the social unrest of normality, +and, fearlessly repudiating this collective reaction of +substitution and evasion, break completely with the +popular policies of compromise and untruth underlying +it. In this course we shall take our stand for the freedom +and clarity of a mode of consciousness that aims solely +toward the growth of self-understanding and communication. +For life is not a system, it is not a technique. +Life is simple, and its course is one of quiet flow. In so +far as psychoanalysis is technical, it is not life. In so far +as its aim is normality, it is not free.</p> + +<p>The choice is an unequivocal one. It is a choice between +expediency and truth, between fixity and growth. For +the habitual or normal mind whose criterion is expedience +the choice is already determined; but for the personality +that is sensitive to the values of life, the choice of growth +is no less inevitable. It is organically so. Hence it is +for each of us to make his choice on which side he will +take his stand—whether, adhering to a theory of life, he +will blindly protect himself against the recognition and +acknowledgment of the vicarious element of normality +and compromise within his own unconscious, or whether +he will stand for a mode of consciousness that flings away +every habitual protection and accepts only the conditions +of life as they unfold themselves in the development +of his own personality as well as in that of others. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_31">[31]</span>The outlook is really not ambiguous. The question is +whether life will be a theory or system corroborated by +the technical outfit of the consultation room or whether +it will be the deeply fulfilled experience that comprises +consciousness in its organic reality.</p> + +<p>The definite biological theory on which this thesis +rests implies an organic or societal continuum as the +essential basis of consciousness. To understand this +theory we shall be helped if, in the beginning, we will +seek to replace the more or less arbitrary divergences of +personal outlook with a conception that attempts to +stand far enough removed from this personal mode to +contemplate within its more ample formulation the +personal outlook as well. For this purpose we must +discover, as far as possible, our tendency to personalistic +delimitation—a tendency due to the unconscious systematization +of the restricted individual unit—and in this way +approach consciousness anew from the more inclusive +basis of its societal meaning.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_32">[32]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II"> + CHAPTER II + <br> + A RELATIVE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS—AN + ANALYSIS OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN ITS ETHNIC + ORIGIN + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>In presenting a psychological discussion that presupposes +the altered basis of the relativists, I am under no illusion +as to the wide disparity between the mathematical conception +of the relativists in regard to the universe and the +clinical preoccupations of a psychopathologist. It is now +conceded, however, that the theory of relativity is not +without its revolutionary influence upon our scientific +thought processes generally. And so, although I am not +competent to an appreciation of the theory of relativity +in the objective sense of the physicists, I hope I shall +not seem presumptuous in attempting a discussion of +consciousness that demands as its basis a viewpoint that +is analogous to theirs.⁠<a id="FNanchor_8_8" href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>As I understand it, the inadequacy of the Newtonian +system of astronomy is its autogenous exclusion of data +requisite to a principle which presupposes a basis of +universal applicability. Assuming an unqualified absolute +to reside within the limits of its own circumscribed area, +it posits a principle which fails to take account of factors +<span class="pagenum" id="p_33">[33]</span>operating within the larger constellation wherein its own +system is but a contributory element. So that, in +estimating the components requisite to a more inclusive +scale of computation, the Newtonian postulate omits to +reckon with the principle of the time-space element that +is constitutive of the extension intrinsic to itself and +that is, therefore, mathematically indispensable in an +encompassment of the universal and all-inclusive astronomical +purview with respect to which its own system +becomes but relative and extrinsic.</p> + +<p>Little by little the necessities of a widening outlook +have demanded a gradual broadening of conceptual +principles generally. Of late I have been led to views +that appear to warrant the conclusion that, in the sphere +of psychic phenomena no less than in the realm of physics, +a system of absolutism, preclusive of data existing outside +its own autogenously circumscribed principle, wholly +dominates our presumably conscious world. Accordingly, +if we are to reckon with consciousness upon a true and +inclusive basis, it is required that the system of absolutism +thus embodied shall give way to a conception of relativity +in the conscious sphere comparable to the principle of +relativity in the physical universe.⁠<a id="FNanchor_9_9" href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>I do not see why, in his mental and emotional reactions, +man may not so far free himself from the traditional +superstitions of imbued inference as to recognize at last +that, even with respect to conceptions that are the basis +of his own mental operations, there is a difference between +the values that <i>seem</i> and the values that <i>are</i>. I do not +see why he may not recognize that processes which he has +<span class="pagenum" id="p_34">[34]</span>hitherto regarded as habitually inevitable are not by any +means organically necessary, but that the two may in +fact be essentially contradictory one of the other. If in +the objective world man may ungird himself of the +accustomed limitations of a hitherto accepted Euclidean +geometry, may he not within the sphere of his subjective +consciousness also rid himself of prepossessions which, +though they appear to us now as no less basic, may +ultimately prove equally non-essential?</p> + +<p>We have recently waged a world-war which, according +to the <i>state of mind</i> of its participants prior to its occurrence, +was the admittedly inevitable recourse, but which, in +the opinion of thinking men subsequent to its enactment, +is now equally admitted to have been a wholly unnecessary +eventuality. How then, upon our present basis of +mentation, may we conclude what is an adequate criterion +by which we may determine a dependable process of +thinking? If we may know our states of mind only +after we have vented the emotions that first incited them, +of what use is it to know them? If states of mind can +produce calamities that gather their toll of human life +by the millions and we can, by subsequently taking +thought, come to regard them as unnecessary, what must +be felt toward states of mind that have produced such +calamities? Surely it is not the part of intelligence to +feel regret of a disaster only after the disaster has befallen. +If disaster need not befall, would it not be wiser to +deplore it beforehand and so avert the disaster? This +would seem the logical course, but the truth is that the +logical course is not accessible to man in his present +state of unconsciousness. Man may think logically but +he cannot be warranted to act logically. For, in his +present stage of development, his actions are predominantly +under the guidance of his emotions and his thought +can therefore only follow after.</p> + +<p>Consciousness is the individual’s acquiescence in +sequences that are determined by the necessities of +organic law. Unconsciousness is the individual’s resistance +<span class="pagenum" id="p_35">[35]</span>to these organic processes. As consciousness is +anterior to its own realization, so unconsciousness ever +follows in the wake of its own event. We think to-day +only in terms of what ought to have been yesterday, and +the event of to-morrow embodies again the reaction to +the issues of to-day. Thus our actions are always but +the unconscious reflections of the day preceding, and in +our unconsciousness it is only in the aftermath of the +morrow that we interpret the omens of to-day.</p> + +<p>If man’s judgment is competent to apprehend the data +of events subsequent to their occurrence, why may it +not be equally possible, through our prior apperception of +the mental states leading up to them, to envisage the +same events with the same clarity anteriorly and thus +forestall the useless mistakenness and destruction that +now follow inevitably with their enactment? Surely it +is clear that, in continuing to preserve unaltered this same +state of mind whose world-wide consequences we have +just witnessed, we may be, at the present moment, preparing +a similar if not a yet greater catastrophe, the while +we are at the same moment as completely oblivious of it. +Indeed, from a position that is anterior to the emotional +inducements to which our mental states are inevitably +subject in our present absolute view, it will be seen that +an unconscious and destructive disposition toward life is +as inseparable from an absence of self-cognizance on the +part of the social mind as the factors of disintegration +and unconsciousness are inseparable within the life-sequences +of the individual unit.</p> + +<p>In its necessary limitation with respect to the relativity +of consciousness in its universal compass, the constellated +system of processes which at present comprises the +sphere of the mental life will, in my view, ultimately +appear analogous to the traditional system of Newton +with respect to the universe of relativity in the encompassment +of objective mathematics. As in the intrinsic +principle of absolutism comprising the Newtonian system +of gravitation, so in the self-determined principle of +<span class="pagenum" id="p_36">[36]</span>absolutism, comprising our present system of psychology, +a dimensional factor has been left out of account, the +inclusion of which completely shifts the basis of former +calculations and so distorts our habitual reckonings as +to demand the fundamental reconstruction of accepted +values.</p> + +<p>But while the principle of relativity comprehended by +the objective formulae of the physicists is mathematically +beyond my reach, the conception of relativity within the +subjective life appears to me not only compellingly clear, +but organically necessary. Indeed, in the absence of this +conception of the relativity of consciousness, it is no +longer possible for me to reckon adequately with the +processes of the mental life. For in default of a working +basis broad enough to embrace the dimensional element +of the system, individual and social, whereof we ourselves +are a component part, there is lacking the scientific +comprehensiveness requisite to a universal principle of +evaluation.</p> + +<p>It is worthy of note that between the objective or +mathematical theory of relativity of Einstein and the +subjective or organismic theory of relativity here considered +there is to be traced, however inconclusively, +a philosophical parallelism that is significant.⁠<a id="FNanchor_10_10" href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> My feeling +<span class="pagenum" id="p_37">[37]</span>is, though as yet it is little more than an intimation +with me, that this cosmological parallel between the +subjective and objective spheres of relativity marks a +concomitance that is consistent throughout. I do not +see how it could be otherwise since the subjective and +the objective spheres of life, embodying the bipolar +aspects of the phenomenal world, represent but obverse +phases of one and the same universe. The analogy that +interests me here, however, has to do with the feature +that is equally the basis of the two modes of relativity, +namely, the feature which entails the abrogation of +absolute standards of evaluation and the recognition of +the kinetic factor that is organic to both. In the objective +interpretation of astronomy this factor comprises the +mathematical space-time coefficient of the physicists’ +fourth dimension; and in a subjective interpretation of +consciousness it comprises correspondingly the kinetic +element that determines the functional coefficient of the +organic life as a whole.</p> + +<p>The thought represented in “the organic life as a +whole” is, like the inclusive scheme of the physicists, to +be understood only by exclusion, that is, by exclusion of +a point of view that is <i>not</i> organic, or by exclusion of the +absolute system, individual and social, comprising our +<span class="pagenum" id="p_38">[38]</span>present static basis of consciousness. As this organismic +conception of consciousness is relativity itself within the +subjective sphere, its encompassment can no more be +apprehended in our present scheme of psychological +evaluation than the relativity of the physicists can be +apprehended on a static Newtonian basis.</p> + +<p>Einstein’s theory of relativity is not intelligible on +the absolute basis of the older system of astronomy, of +which conception the newer mathematical theory is, by +reason of its wider inclusiveness, the logical replacement. +Likewise, the theory of subjective relativity or the +organismic conception of consciousness cannot be understood +on the basis of the absolute principle resident in +the Freudian conception of the unconscious, of which +principle the organismic conception is, by inclusion, the +more encompassing formulation.</p> + +<p>Hence this organismic conception of consciousness, subsumed +under the postulate of relativity, will be understood +only as we discard entirely the absolute conception represented +in our present system of psychology. Because of +our own absolutistic basis, we do not realize that the +absolutism intrinsic to the dynamic system of our present +individualistic conception of consciousness maintains a +position that is relatively not less static than the older +descriptive systems of consciousness in relation to the +dynamic psychology of Freud. The Freudian system is +dynamic in respect to the system it has superseded but +static in respect to the principle by which it must now +in turn, I believe, be superseded, precisely as our own +Newtonian system is dynamic with respect to the older +Ptolemaic system of astronomy it has transcended but +static with respect to the mathematical principle of +relativity which now in turn has transcended it.</p> + +<p>Of course, the fact that the intrinsic limitation of our +astronomical systematization has led us arbitrarily to +regard time and space as absolute entities, rather than +as the functional co-ordinates of matter, has no immediate +bearing whatever beyond the need of adjusting a quite +<span class="pagenum" id="p_39">[39]</span>infinitesimal error in the astronomical reading of certain +minimal deflections. It does not in the least alter the +practical conduct of human affairs. For the grocer and +the apothecary our standards remain undisturbed. So +also in the more intimate adaptations of our human +relations, the absolute basis of mensuration that has +actuated our reckonings with respect to the objective +world about us has not for a moment touched our subjective +mode or the affective sphere of our living. But +when this artificial basis of self-determined absolutism +operates within the organic sphere of man’s affective life, +wherein is the very centre of his being, there are recorded +errors whose consequences reach to the core of life itself. +It is here, in the absolute system of evaluations pertaining +to the affective reactions of human conduct, that +there is needed the correcture in reading the deflection, +both individual and social, that comprises man’s unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>We have yet to learn that it is in the common affects of +men that there resides the basis of their collective biology. +Only in the affective reactions comprising the native, +organic continuum of life may we trace the menstruum +of our human consciousness. And so, in approaching +the affective or organic implications entailed through +the arbitrary systematization that is our own absolutism, +we are entering upon the study of the distorted sensations +and reactions in which is embodied, I believe, the essential +pathology of consciousness represented in the neuroses.</p> + +<p>In considering the conception of the relativity of consciousness +we shall acquire a clearer insight into the more +comprehensive scheme subsumed under it, if we will +begin with an analysis of the rudimentary processes +comprising our personal judgments and consider the +elements into which our primary impressions may be +resolved.</p> + +<p>Our judgments are formed from the material of our +impressions or, as we say, we reason from observation. +This being so, what must be the substance of our observations +<span class="pagenum" id="p_40">[40]</span>and what the nature of the processes of reason thus +derived? To observe is to stand apart from and record +the impressions reflected to us from the object observed. +So that upon consideration our observations are seen to +consist of the <i>reflected images</i> or mental <i>pictures</i> of the +world of objects by which we are surrounded. That is to +say, impressions of objects consist of the aspect or surface +which is reflected to us from them and which is thus +mirrored in the reflecting surface of our own perceptions.</p> + +<p>But in this very process of observation an unwarranted +assumption has already been posited in advance—the +assumption, namely, that the position intrinsic to the +observer is an all-inclusive and authentic one. Already it +presumes a universe of which the onlooker’s own self-limited +position is the basis. It does not account for the +integral component that is the observer’s own organic +dimension. In brief, the very point of view of the observer +lays claim to the prerogative of an absolute cosmogony +whereof he is himself the unconsciously static, self-determined +centre. Whatever the point of view, it is invariably +“the point of view” of the observer. So that in constituting +ourselves perceptual foci from which, according to +our self-appointed terms, we look out as from a background +upon the phenomena of life, we have unconsciously +become artificially detached spectators of a merely static +<i>aspect</i> of life. This is what I mean by the autogenous +exclusion of data extrinsic to the self-determined system +of which we ourselves are only a part, but which, in the +light of the relativity of consciousness as a whole, is +revealed, on the contrary, as an arbitrary system determined +by our own static absolutism. Regarded from the +point of view of relativity, to adopt such a detached, +observational outlook toward life is to view it in the +merely flat, bidimensional plane of the image. It is not +to experience life through participation in the extension +of its full-dimensional actuality.</p> + +<p>Upon analysis, then, our world of subjectively tabulated +impressions becomes but an artificial world reflecting the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_41">[41]</span>artificial systematization that is our own detached observation +of it. Our unconsciousness is our failure to realize +that bidimensional reproductions of actuality are not +actuality. Our own organisms as well as the surrounding +objects of actuality are elements that are equally to be +included in the organic continuum of our human experience. +The mental pictures comprising our bidimensional +<i>impressions</i> of objects, however adequate as pictures, are +not adequate as expressions of actuality in the sense of +the dynamic extension comprising our own organic +inclusion.</p> + +<p>Contrary, therefore, to the casual assumption current +among us, we do not apprehend the objects about us as +they exist in their cubic outline, but only in the bidimensional +“foreshortening” that is our own mental +or pictorial impression of them. Our so-called objective +apperception of the world of actuality is in fact superficial +and unreal. Our alleged world composed of impressions +is pictorial rather than actual. It is static rather than +kinetic. In consequence of the bidimensional visual +plane in which our objective fields are reflected, it is +inevitable that our environmental actuality should appear +in the form of pictures before us. Looking out upon the +world from a bidimensional basis, we can perceive it +only in terms of the reflected image formed upon our own +bidimensional mental background. It is due also, then, +to this contributing factor of a flat or reflected visual +image within ourselves that there is registered within +ourselves a flat or reflected mental image of the world +about us. For in virtue of the bidimensional picture in +which our impressions are necessarily reflected, our +mental perception of objects is likewise necessarily +pictorial and bidimensional.⁠<a id="FNanchor_11_11" href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p>Such is the probable ethnological account of this misconstruction +<span class="pagenum" id="p_42">[42]</span>of actuality that underlies our mental world. +The significance of such a pictorial and artificially foreshortened +representation of the objective world and its +mental influence in foreshortening the tridimensions of +actuality in general cannot be overstressed. We need to +realize the circumstance of our remote or bidimensional +position of merely mental or impressionistic observers. +From this position the mentally reflected and artificially +pictorial outlook with which the world of solidarity is +individually viewed by us represents but the portrait +of life whereof the reality is the inclusiveness of life as +experienced through our subjective continuity as functional +elements in the organic whole. So that while it is most +true that we reason from observation, yet if our observation +is imbued with a bidimensional or superficial bias, +then our reason is also influenced by this same bidimensionally +imbued bias. If our observation is not subjectively +inclusive of the objective world about us, in the +same measure our judgments are not inclusive of it.</p> + +<p>It is this non-inclusiveness of consciousness that constitutes +our mental systematization. In this perceptual +relationship to life, due to our detached basis of interpretation +of it upon grounds of the apparent aspect +<span class="pagenum" id="p_43">[43]</span>rather than of its solid actuality, consists the arbitrary +absolutism of our present system of consciousness. Due +to this organic misconception of consciousness, we habitually +prefer the picturesque semblance of the aspect to the +pragmatic inclusiveness of the actual. This is why we +tend to explain life rather than to live it. This is why the +adduced hypothesis of life counts with us more than life +itself. But an account of life that does not include the +consciousness that is our own kinetic function and +repudiate the static pictures of life arbitrarily projected +by us does not compass life in the full orb of its rounded +actuality. A principle of life that does not embrace the +principle arising out of the bias of our own self-made +systems of personal absolutism and unconsciousness is +not adequate to encompass life in the rounded sum of +its functional inclusiveness. It is needful to recognize +that, in the unconscious absolute underlying the personal +relatedness of each of us to every other, there is involved +an organic <i>resistance</i> or a mutual repulsion among the +elements of the societal personality that forms an impasse +to its concerted function. On the contrary, in the mutual +inclusiveness of our individual organisms as elements +within the confluent sum we thus compose, there is +embodied the organic continuum that underlies the +societal organism of man as a whole. It is this homogeneous +substrate of man’s consciousness in its totality +that is implied in the principle of the relativity of consciousness.</p> + +<p>If, however, an ethnological account is adequate to +explain the remote, pictorial relation in which we stand +with respect to the world of objective actuality, such an +account is not adequate to an understanding of the +pictorial view we have unconsciously come to assume +toward the world of subjective actuality or in relation +to the organisms with which we constitute a common +species and with which, being subjectively akin, we are +organically identical. If phylogenetic theory accounts for +the deflections from reality of the reactions of consciousness +<span class="pagenum" id="p_44">[44]</span>in the large, it does not account for the deflections of +consciousness in the particular reactions of the personality +that determine our relations to our individual fellows. +Thus far we have considered this absolute system comprising +our personal basis only in relation to the objective +world or to the world of things; we have not yet considered +it subjectively or in relation to the individuals +with whom a common affectivity renders us organically +identical. It is only within the subjective sphere of our +affects, representing man’s organic racial continuum, +that this distortion of our outlook is manifested in its +deepest poignancy.</p> + +<p>It is, therefore, only in its ontogenetic mode that we may +fully realize the organic deviations within the consciousness +of man, due to his bidimensional and unreal apperception +of his fellows, and to his consequently false inferences +resultant upon an artificially remote and pictorial +attitude toward them. It is here alone, I believe, that is +to be traced the philosophy of the deflections observable +in the above-mentioned reaction of personal resistance as +it appears not only in the difform reaction characterizing +the isolated personality of the neurotic individual, but +also in the uniform reactions presented in the <i>relatively no +less deflected group-expressions comprising the collective +personality of the social consensus</i>. It has become more +and more clear to me that it is this error of our mental +refraction, due to the subjective deflection comprising the +bidimensional judgment of each in assuming a pictorial +rather than a real relationship to others, that is the +essence of our resistances. In this surface reflection, that +is the personal attitude of each toward every other and +that embodies the psychology of our resistances, is +represented man’s traditional systematization, both individual +and social. For, in judging or viewing life on the +<i>absolute</i> basis of how it appears to <i>me</i>, I automatically +render it beholden to my personal interpretation of it. +In my autocratic attitude of onlooker I necessarily +repudiate the inherency of the individual or object +<span class="pagenum" id="p_45">[45]</span>looked on. Thus, as the self-assumed centre of the +universe, the individual is completely detached psychically +from the organic actuality of everything within his +observation, and, in his present mental attitude, whatever +he thinks that he knows and feels is unconsciously constrained +by the illusory supremacy of his personal wish. +This is the insidious fallacy of the reflected aspect. This +constitutes the personal absolute or systematization which, +in dominating our present mode of consciousness, completely +distorts the universe of reality. It is such a +reflective attitude of personalism and unconsciousness +that is our exclusion of data that lie outside the system +intrinsic to ourselves and that may be included only in +the fuller comprehension of an organic relativity.</p> + +<p>This reflective attitude entails an autocratic interpretation +of life on the basis of one’s own personal evaluation, +and its effect is to sever the natural bond between the +elements of the societal body. As the inevitable concomitant +of this habitually reflective attitude toward +life there is mental dissociation rather than an assimilative +participation such as may only be realized in the inclusiveness +of consciousness as an organic whole. Only an +organic coalescence in our common affectivity, as contrasted +with our present attitude of detached, bidimensional +perception of one another, will open the course +to spontaneous development in yielding the natural way +to the instinct of mating and reproduction wherein alone +is the basis of a constructive societal life. For resistance +is of the affective life. It is a phenomenon that is essentially +organic in that it marks an obstruction within the +societal personality of man in the relation <i>inter se</i> of the +elements, individual and social, of which our societal +personality is composed. In our blind inversion of the +essential processes of life, we fail to recognize that there +can be no healthful growth of the organism apart from +the soil to which it is indigenous. If isolation and an +artificial medium are death to the growth of vegetation, +they are death no less to the societal instinct of our +<span class="pagenum" id="p_46">[46]</span>common consciousness in which is found the natural +medium for the growth and activity of man. In the +measure in which we allow ourselves to participate in +and become intrinsic and contributory elements in the +world of organic actuality about us, will our pictorial +mode of envisagement yield place to the subjective experience +of a dimensional inclusiveness that is complete in its +actuality. To view the world of actuality in its merely +static, cross-sectional appearance is to know only the +photography of life. Its kinetic reality may be known +only through the subjective inclusion of our organic +participation in it.</p> + +<p>We cannot return too often to original sources in +repudiating conceptions whereof they are the basis. +We experience reality only in the measure in which we +disavow the symbols of unreality. In proportion as we +apprehend subjective fallacy may we encompass the +reality underlying it. It is where our conceptual constructions +of life leave off that our constructive conceptions +of life begin. We have seen that the mathematicians +have come to regard as theoretically worthless those +objective calculations whose standards of evaluation are +not measured in accordance with the principle of an +inclusive relativity. Likewise a formulation of values in +the subjective sphere of consciousness lacks an adequate +principle of evaluation if it does not rest upon the relative +principle comprising the organic and inclusive conception +of consciousness in its societal totality.</p> + +<p>If, in the dissociation of the consciousness of man from +his organic individuality, he is unconsciously assuming a +personal absolute that is merely a reflection of the mass +absolute assumed by the collective social unconscious +about him, then what we call the consciousness of man +with its presumable function of dependable evaluation +is at all times but a system of images, and his vaunted +prerogative of a personal absolute is only a dissociative +reaction due to his own secondarily adaptive systematization. +Upon this basis, what we call our opinions are, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_47">[47]</span>after all, not our opinions, and our so-called beliefs are not +beliefs at all. For all our formulations and systematizations +with respect to human consciousness are but rationalizations +serving as convenient foils for the blind assertion +of the personal absolutism that is but the autocratic +prerogative of our own dissociation, both individual and +social.</p> + +<p>While theoretically, the objective findings of Freud +are of unquestionable validity throughout, as has been +fully corroborated through the repeated investigations of +those of us who have studied the manifestations of the +unconscious in ourselves and in others, my researches +within the last years have convinced me that our objective +finding is not the point—that what we have called the +objective evidence has been all along but our personal or +adaptive evidence and that, being unconsciously based +upon habitual bidimensional inference, this basis has no +relation whatever to life in its organic inclusiveness. +The system of Freud is thus adequate only on the adaptive +basis of normality. <i>By normality I mean the consensus +comprising the personal absolute vested in the unconscious +of the collective mind determining the social average</i>.</p> + +<p>It is disconcerting, I know, now that we have but +recently settled ourselves to enjoy in comfort the established +principles of Freud’s psychology, to think that we +may be compelled through the requirements of wider +accommodation to seek other ground. Nevertheless, if +the position in which we have settled to study the complexes +of men is itself just another complex of the social +mind whereof the individual mind we would study is +but a reproduction, it is clear that we have no choice but +to recognize the autonomy of our absolutistic values of +reckoning and to readjust our measures of consciousness +in accordance.</p> + +<p>Surely, if the whole meaning of our mental orientation +is a disorientation, if our rationality is everywhere but +irrationality, if with all of us alike the vicarious image +comprising the reflection of our systematized selves takes +<span class="pagenum" id="p_48">[48]</span>precedence over the native reality of our primary organic +individuality, there is no other course than that we wipe +the board clean and approach the problem of consciousness +completely anew. For, clearly, since our present process +of mentation is not spontaneous or from within out, it is +necessarily adaptive or from without in. Hence, as the +reflection of the absolute principle that is the personal +basis of each, it can never lead to a realization of the +relativity of our conscious life nor to the acceptance of +the organic individuality that is the all-embracing life +of man in the inclusive principle wherein alone his consciousness +truly resides.</p> + +<p>It is the position of this thesis that, when we neglect +to take account of the <i>organic mass consciousness of man</i> +to which the personal systems of men, single and collective, +are but relative, we fail to reckon with a significant +dimension entering into the determination of the +subjective life of man. On the basis of the time-space +extension of the astronomers’ fourth dimension it is +possible to compute errors of deflection only through a +conception of the universe which regards our own planetary +system as a function of and hence relative to a more +encompassing programme of planetary motion. Concomitantly, +it is possible to evaluate accurately man’s +place in the subjective scheme of consciousness only +through a conception which regards his present personal +and social absolute as being itself relative to a more +comprehensive background comprising the relativity of +man’s consciousness as a whole. There is the need to +recognize that in the sphere of consciousness, as in the +realm of physics, it is in the kinetic dimension comprising +the organic participation and inclusiveness of +life itself that consists the functional component which +actuates the other three dimensions and which, in uniting +all, embodies the relativity of consciousness as an organic +reality.</p> + +<p>In this transition from bidimensional picture to tridimensional +actuality, from contemplation of aspect to +<span class="pagenum" id="p_49">[49]</span>participation of function, a gulf is spanned that bridges +a most significant hiatus in the course of man’s evolution. +It is no less an interval than that which separates the +mode of man’s unconsciousness from the mode of his +consciousness. For in this transition we are no longer +dealing with the mere static dimension of the pictorially +reflected <i>image</i> of actuality, but there enters the kinetic +extension of an organic inclusiveness corresponding to +the functional or space-time extension of the physicists’ +universe of relativity—a universe which, in the psychological +no less than in the physical sphere, entails the +abrogation of our prevailing system of absolutism and +its replacement through the conception of the relativity +of the conscious life as a whole.</p> + +<p>With a view to measuring the deflections of personality, +by and large, in the light of the relativity of consciousness, +it is necessary that they be regarded first in the concrete +expression of their individual and social forms, and that +subsequently we study these aberrations of consciousness +in the yet wider expression of their sociological implications +generally.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_50">[50]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III"> + CHAPTER III + <br> + THE ORIGIN OF OUR INDIVIDUAL UNCONSCIOUS + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>In the preceding chapter I attempted to indicate the +analogy between the principle of relativity as set forth +by the physicists and what I described as the principle +of relativity in the sphere of consciousness. If the +bipolar concomitance there outlined in its phylogenetic +aspect possesses sufficient warrant, a no less consistent +parallelism should be traceable in an ontogenetic concurrence +of the two theories as we come to consider the +principle of the relativity of consciousness in its individual +implications.</p> + +<p>If it is true in an ethnic comparison of mental values +that a basis of absolutism is no more tenable in computing +aberrations occurring in the sphere of consciousness than +in the sphere of physics, it must also be true that a basis +of absolute evaluation is inadequate to account for +deflections of consciousness in its individual application. +It is admitted that in the physical universe a principle of +absolutism requires to be abandoned and a revaluation +of standards established in its stead because it fails to +take account of data extrinsic to its own static dimensions. +Likewise, it would seem that, in the concomitant +sphere of consciousness, an absolute basis of determination +would be equally inadequate to reckon with data +exclusive of its own absolute principle of measure and +that, accordingly, there is here too demanded a restatement +of values in terms of a more comprehensive conception.</p> + +<p>In such an outlook the requisite readjustment is of so +wide a scope that I do not find it easy to contemplate, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_51">[51]</span>far less to actualize. It involves no less a task than that +of placing the fulcrum of one’s mental processes upon a +basis that lies outside the habitual domain of one’s +individual consciousness. For this reason the conception +of the organic inclusiveness of consciousness, here understood, +is, from our present individualistic viewpoint, a +most difficult and elusive one. It is a conception that is +not possible of comprehension on the basis of the static +and absolute principle of consciousness that is our present +mode of evaluation. In this conception, the evolution of +individual knowledge enters the organismic sphere of the +relative and subjective. It is only relatively, therefore, +or through our subjective identification with it that we +may participate in its meaning. As this subjective +experience is the flux of life itself, as it is this component +that is consciousness in process—the organic tide whose +stream we ourselves are, the while we are carried along +upon it—this experience is an extension which is, of its +essence, inaccessible to objective cognition. This is the +veil which life in its subjective reality draws across its +features, rendering their meaning for ever imperceptible +to objective observation. Except through the faint +intimations of analogy, I cannot, of course, claim to do +more than merely indicate the existence of this subjective +extension. So that I must ask the reader to +concede me the fullest measure of his hospitality by +following my trend with the utmost intuitive participation +on his own part. It is, after all, only in common that +we may sense our common part in respect to the relativity +of consciousness as a whole.</p> + +<p>The child that is born amid the cultural influences of +civilization comes at an early age to learn the names of +things. With these labels he acquires his objective +identification with the world about him. In these symbols +are the talismans that insure the safety of his future wayfaring. +They are indispensable to his proper equipment +and an early adeptness in their use is a wise and salutary +provision. In this same school in which the child is +<span class="pagenum" id="p_52">[52]</span>taught the handy designations for the objects surrounding +him, he learns also to recognize the nameless signs +of a certain immanent category called “right and +wrong”—signs which, through the accidental empiricism +of spontaneous trial and error, he comes likewise to sense +and gradually to incorporate into the code of his +adaptation.</p> + +<p>As with others, who have been inured to a curriculum +of daily adaptation from the impressionable years of +earliest childhood, so with ourselves, it is well-nigh +impossible to study the virgin soil of consciousness from +our present adaptive premise without vitiating our +conclusions with the bias of our own adaptation. And +yet it is clear that an analysis of the reactions of consciousness, +which fails to include the primary elements +of which it is composed, leaves out of reckoning the +basic ingredients of a structure which we are supposedly +analyzing in its elementary content.</p> + +<p>For the past three years I have been occupied with +the daily challenge of my own habitual processes of +adaptation—an inventorial procedure, be it said, which +proved of the utmost discomfort in the necessity it disclosed +for the fundamental reduction of personal assessments. +The outlook of these inquiries, even though they +mark as yet but the merest beginnings, will at least +denote a tendency that cannot, I think, be without +interest nor, I hope, without incentive in the further +approach of others toward an envisagement of consciousness +in its ultimate, pre-adaptive composition.</p> + +<p>The present study, then, forms part of the altered +conceptual insight into consciousness that was gradually +induced through the spontaneous sequence of a long +continued and uninterrupted experiment in individual +reaction. The experiment consisted in repeatedly testing +the personal reflex under the hourly present conditions of +mood-variation due to the accidental release of affective +stimuli arising from circumstantial and unpredictable +sources both internal and external to the ego. The unprepossessing +<span class="pagenum" id="p_53">[53]</span>details of this brief excursion into the +underworld of personal motivation must be reserved for +some subsequent chapter. I am now concerned with the +complete shift of basis which these experiments have +forced me to take account of in my attempts to reckon +with the recurring problems of consciousness as they +are presented in the daily routine of my analytic +work.</p> + +<p>Within the scope of the present thesis we shall have to +do solely with the mental reaction inculcated under the +manifesto of our early induced presentiment of “right +and wrong” or of “good and bad” with its concomitant +incitement to <i>hope</i> or <i>fear</i> as reflected in the unconscious +attitude of <i>praise</i> or <i>blame</i> surrounding the child. It is +my conviction, based on the subjective test of personal +experimentation, <i>that the deeply entrenched root of our +human pathology is to be traced alone to the conflict incurred +through this suggestively induced image of right and wrong +and that it is profitless, therefore, to seek beyond the impasse +of this unconscious alternative for the ultimate source of +neurotic reactions</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_12_12" href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<p>Because of some element implicit in the behaviour +determining the “right” or “wrong” adaptation of the +individuals surrounding the child in the formative period +of his early growth, something is imposed upon him that +operates to check spontaneous impulse. The check I +am speaking of does not consist in the interdiction +itself. Our admonitory “do” or “don’t” is in itself quite +harmless. Indeed these positive and negative commands +may serve an undoubtedly useful end. I have never +known of untoward nervous manifestations occurring +among animals because of the restraining warnings of +maternal solicitude. On the contrary, such mediation +commonly proves an effective safeguard against misadventure. +Of the inhibiting influence itself, therefore, +I am not speaking. What I have in mind is something +<span class="pagenum" id="p_54">[54]</span>far subtler than this. It will demand our most searching +scrutiny if we are clearly to apprehend its meaning.</p> + +<p>As I see this miscarriage of instinct incurred through +our embargo of good and bad, it is the cunning <i>pretence</i> +underlying the interdiction which induces the reaction +that works mischief in the child’s organism. It is the +insidious intimation of benefit or of harm inherent in +the tabooed act itself that is the pernicious instance. +The destructive occasion lies in the implied premium or +forfeit appertaining to the act as it recoils upon the child +in automatic retaliation. I believe that it is due to this +enforced superstition of an arbitrary “good and bad” +that there have been wrought the spurious reactions of +our human consciousness. I believe that the utterly +specious system of behaviour, which surrounds us as +social beings on every hand, is definitely due to this +falsely imbued suggestion of retributive sequence which, +as commonly inculcated in early childhood, has been +prompted through the implied mediation of invisible +moral agencies. I furthermore believe that it is this +pretence, and its unconsciousness, that is the basis of our +adaptation, both individual and social, as embodied in +the artificial code of morality represented in the collective +unconscious of our present-day civilization.</p> + +<p>What the adult arbiter of the child really has up his +sleeve is the child’s conformity to <i>him</i> and <i>his</i> convenience. +Accordingly, the parent or guardian lays +down the proposition that a good little boy doesn’t +destroy costly bric-à-brac or that only a bad little girl +would play in the mud with her nice clean rompers on. +Both these postulates are utterly false as every sponsor +for them knows. But that is not the point. The point +is that such statements are incomparably adapted to the +ends of adult commodity. The truer rendering of the +proposition in either instance would be to the effect that +the misdemeanour in question would occasion inconvenience +or chagrin to the parent. But so sincere a +statement on the part of the parent might alienate the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_55">[55]</span>child’s jealously coveted affection, as we commonly term +the infantile dependence we secretly tend to beget. +Hence, the real motive of interdiction must be hidden +from the child and a comprehensive edict cunningly +invoked such as will place an effectual check upon him +and yet amply safeguard the parental interest. It is +this bogus morality which, by our unconscious social +consent, the conscripted phantom called “good and bad” +is unanimously commissioned to represent.</p> + +<p>Because of this attitude of pretence in others whereby +the child is tricked into complicity with the prevalent +code about him, there is begotten this self-same reaction +of pretence within him. This illusion that is in the air +he learns to assimilate from others through imitative +affinity, and from now forward the ruse becomes self-operative. +What began as a social coup is continued as +an individual policy. The silent intimation of a mysteriously +pervasive immanence of “good and bad” having +now been engendered, the child henceforth responds +automatically, not alone to the signals of make-believe +about him but to the signals of make-believe within him. +For in unconsciously succumbing to the contagion of the +autocratic system of “right and wrong” about him, this +hobgoblin of arbitrary make-believe becomes equally +systematized within his own consciousness. Accordingly, +the pretence involved in interdictions of conduct (fear-blame +reaction) is accompanied by the mental suggestion +of “wrong” or “bad,” and the pretence underlying the +inducements of conduct (hope-praise reaction) is accompanied +by the mental suggestion of “right” or “good”—<i>that +is, of good or bad as it reverts upon the individual +from the point of view of his personal advantage as reflected +in the image of the parent</i>.</p> + +<p>An analysis, however, does not reach elementary +principles if it merely discovers motives prompted by +suggestion and repression corresponding to the two +opposed factors of inducement and interdiction actuating +human behaviour. It is not enough to invoke in explanation +<span class="pagenum" id="p_56">[56]</span>the sweeping denominator “self-consciousness.” +Such an account is historic or psychological; it is not +organic or biological. It is, I believe, only as we unearth +the mental reaction <i>intrinsic</i> to the organism when +it responds to the subjective inference of right or wrong +in its personal inflection that we shall reach the basic +element responsible for the organism’s inhibited mental +states.⁠<a id="FNanchor_13_13" href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<p>One would think, as we look about us to-day at the +utterly destructive processes, social and political, that +have been incited throughout entire nations of individuals +“brought up” in this vicarious fashion, that the spectacle +would give us pause. But we have had a too thorough +bringing-up ourselves. Our own bringing-up has seen to +it that we shall not look about us and learn what <i>is</i> but +that we shall only respond to the suggestion about us +and acquiesce in what <i>seems</i>. If we should really look +about us and see unflinchingly into the meaning of things, +our children would do so too, but that would be subversive +of their proper up-bringing. This is the self-contradictory +element in the adult’s “education” of +the child. In truth, it is not possible to “bring up” a +child at all. One may let a child grow up, naturally, as a +plant, tending only the soil about its roots, or one may +hinder its growth. But to bring a child up by moulding +its personality to one’s own is organically contradictory. +A child comes up, if at all, only of himself or in accordance +with the law of his own growth.</p> + +<p>If it is true, then, that this factor of pretence is the +ultimate element in the dissociations of consciousness, +what is the nature of this factor of pretence actuating +our behaviour? As has been said, in order to secure a +substratum adequate to build upon, it is requisite that we +forgo at the outset our present conceptions based upon +a system of valuations which presupposes an absolute +principle of consciousness. It should be understood, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_57">[57]</span>therefore, that it is from the fundamentally altered +premise of a relative basis of consciousness that the +present thesis sets out.</p> + +<p>In an objective view of the components of man’s consciousness, +it may be seen that there are three determinants +of the affective life, namely, one’s own self, the +selves by whom one is surrounded, and the positive or +negative reactions of the self in respect to other selves +such as comprise our progressive or regressive interrelationships +one to another. So that, to return to the +analogy of the physical world, a diagram outlining man’s +affective life would represent a contour of three components. +There is first the dimension consisting of oneself; +second, the collateral dimension, with its extension +backward to one’s parents and forward to one’s offspring +and comprising in general one’s social congeners, singly +and collectively; and third, the societal extension representing +the reactions that depend upon the co-ordination +or non-co-ordination of individuals in the assimilative +processes of their common activities. Thus our subjective +or affective life, statically considered, is as truly tridimensional +in its actuality as our cognitive or objective +world, statically considered, is tridimensional in its +actuality. Nevertheless, as was pointed out in the preceding +chapter, our cognitive apprehension of the world +of objects about us invariably presents an outline corresponding +to the bidimensional or pictorial aspect that is +our perceptual image of it. So in the subjective sphere, +it may also be shown that our affective reactions invariably +present a pictorial or bidimensional plane analogous +to the bidimensional impressions comprising our objective +perceptions, and that they are due in the subjective as +in the objective sphere to the unconscious factor of the +personal equation.</p> + +<p>But, to adhere to the test of experiment, it has been my +analytic experience growing out of the study of personal +reaction that, owing to the distortion of affect within our +actual daily life, we do not in fact participate in the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_58">[58]</span>tridimensional actuality that truly comprises our affective +world. On the contrary, owing to the rebuff to spontaneous +impulse incurred through the system of self-conscious +diplomacy reflected in the social pretence of +“right and wrong” as first voiced by the parent and +seconded on all sides by the community about us, the +real world of affects is unconsciously replaced by an +artificial cosmogony whose outline is limited to only two +components, namely, the self plus the immediate interest +to the self as derived from the selves (collateral dimension) +by whom the individual is surrounded (advantage or +disadvantage, good or bad, praise or blame). Thus our +affective reactions invariably present a merely pictorial +or bidimensional area corresponding to the two extensions +comprising the personal element of the self plus the +element of advantage for the self from other selves. +Because of this personal foreshortening of our affects to +the artificial dimensions of self and self-interest, our +subjective experience of tridimensional actuality is +reported not in the reality of its three essential determinants +but in the pictorial aspect of the two-dimensional +plane that is our personal and autogenous reflection of it. +It is, then, the substance of these pages that, just as the +world of cubic actuality is mentally foreshortened into a +bidimensional aspect of actuality determined by our +static and autogenous perception of it, so our world of +affects is correspondingly reduced to the bidimensional or +pictorial aspect that is our socially reflected impression +of it.</p> + +<p>This brings us again to the question we were speaking +of—the reaction of pretence into which the child is early +inducted. It was to help clear away the difficulties +surrounding this early adaptive reaction of our subjective +life that I turned to the consideration of the dimensional +components that comprise our affective world. We have +seen that the essence of this element of pretence is its +implication of retroactive gain or loss intrinsic to the +social act itself and automatically returning upon its +<span class="pagenum" id="p_59">[59]</span>agent. Coming a little closer still, we see that this +attitude of behaviour imposed upon the child upon grounds +of its retributive sequence is induced in him through the +cunningly conveyed intimation that such has been the +personal experience of those about him—that they have +learned from experience and so are qualified to give +warning that “good” behaviour is requited in reward or +pleasure to one’s self and conversely “bad” behaviour +is requited in penalty or pain to one’s self.</p> + +<p>My position is that an attitude toward the child which +posits at the outset of life a world of affective actuality, +comprised of his own <i>ego</i> plus his own egoistic advantage, +arbitrarily contracts life to the unreal aspect of a mere +two-dimensional image. It is to dispose the mind of the +child in such a way that its entire universe of feeling is +limited to a mere picture of life consisting of the flat and +lifeless image of his personal or social adaptation in the +light of his personal or social gain. It transforms the +reality of life into a reflection of oneself in a world of +self-reflections like one’s own. In other words, in falsely +premising the bidimensional plane of one’s personal +image as the basis of actuality, we substitute at the +outset a primary condition of unreality for the inherent +reality of life.</p> + +<p>From the altered angle of a relative and inclusive +attitude toward the problems of consciousness, I am led +to think that this artificially contracted outlook is the +real crux of the dilemma of the unconscious. I have +come to think that these two factors—the factor of oneself +and the factor of social advantage for oneself—are +insufficient, that there is omitted a third factor essential +to a completely rounded consciousness and that in the +absence of it the other two present but a static and artificial +image of life rather than life in the functional inclusiveness +of its full-dimensional reality. I refer to the +component of our societal co-ordination—to the factor +of man’s organic continuum in the functional extension +of his interrelationship with others. I believe that it is +<span class="pagenum" id="p_60">[60]</span>the miscarriage of instinct with respect to this societal +co-ordination that is answerable for the artificial recoil +of self-interest represented in our fancied apparitions of +good or bad as seen from the limited point of view of +one’s individual advantage. In the flat bidimensional +plane which, in the absence of the inclusive societal factor, +only reflects the pictorial aspect of actuality in the image +of the self, there is lacking the rounded extension that is +the full complement of life in its inclusive, societal meaning. +To what degree we substitute this reflected aspect of +life for the reality of an all-inclusive participation in life +in its full-dimensional extension—if my own experience +in this regard is any guide—has not as yet begun to be +suspected by us.</p> + +<p>This primary societal component of consciousness must +not be confused with our secondary and adaptive social +relationships. Our social adaptation is as self-reflective +and unconscious as our individual adaptation. By the +societal component I mean the organic continuity of +consciousness that unites the individuals of the species +into a confluent whole. In the social adaptation of its +members, on the contrary, there is registered merely the +collective response to the reaction of pretence that we +have just seen in its individual expression as our personal +foreshortening of life to the bidimensional image. In +the reduction of life to the image of self in the light of +one’s self-advantage, whether individual or social, consists +the adaptive system that is the personal pretence +within and about us. In this inversion of life that is the +mirrored impression of each, as reflected in the aspect of +others, is the systematization that is man’s unconsciousness. +It is our non-inclusiveness of others that is the +systematization of each. It is this perceptual interpretation +of life on the basis of a reflected or bidimensional +impression, limiting life to self and self’s advantage +that is, I repeat, the meaning of our unconsciousness, +both individual and social.</p> + +<p>In studying this reaction of pretence in the social mind +<span class="pagenum" id="p_61">[61]</span>as reflected in the reactions of the individual, we are met +with the need of a fundamental reconstruction of values +in our reckoning with human personality as in our measures +of consciousness generally. For, in this artificial gauge +of conduct measured by standards of personal advantage, +we find established in the individual a criterion of life +that rests upon an unwarranted assumption of personal +supremacy. This private criterion has become the +arbitrarily assumed prerogative of each of us with respect +to every other. For, through this distortion of the +universe of reality into the unreal, bidimensional cosmogony +that is one’s self-reflection of it, there is unconsciously +built up within us a mental adaptation whose +basis is an inflexible assumption of personal absolutism +and autocracy.</p> + +<p>In the ultimate reduction of analysis it may be seen +that what we have, through Freud’s teaching, come to +recognize as the reaction of <i>resistance</i>, within the individual +personality, resolves itself into nothing else than this +private prerogative of the personal absolute. The +assumption of this personal principle of absolutism in the +subjective sphere embodying the psychology of resistance +is analogous to the absolute principle of evaluation applied +to the physical universe—a principle which the physicists +have lately shown is not competent to meet the test of +universal applicability, for the reason that, in the absolutism +of its own premise, it fails to account for data +extrinsic to the static absolutism it embodies. Correspondingly, +in the sphere of consciousness the absolute +principle of personal evaluation comprising the adaptive +basis of the individual is inadequate to stand as the +universal principle requisite to an organismic inclusion of +consciousness in its societal totality.</p> + +<p>As was pointed out in the last chapter, the social mind +interprets its objects of perception in the bidimensional +aspect of its own pictorial and flat reflection of them. +Likewise, our individual mentation, in its adaptive +response to the retributive implications of so-called “right +<span class="pagenum" id="p_62">[62]</span>and wrong” or “good and bad,” recoils no less upon a +two-dimensional plane in the affective reaction that is +limited to the component of self plus the component of +pleasure or pain for oneself. This flat, static impression +of life, comprising the arbitrary systematization that is +the personal absolute of each, is inadequate to stand as a +universal principle whereby we may evaluate the phenomena +of consciousness in the full round of its organic +compass.</p> + +<p>In substituting the judicial absolute of personal interest +for our inclusive participation as relative elements in the +full-dimensional reality of life as a whole, we have unconsciously +adopted a basis which fails to reckon with +our individual selves as contributory elements in the +more encompassing unit which our individualistic basis +now mistakenly presumes to include. Our present basis +is, therefore, not an inclusive one. In so far as the +individual rests his theory of consciousness upon an +individualistic basis, his theory cannot include the +larger whole wherein the individual is himself but a contributing +element. The consciousness of the isolated +individual cannot encompass consciousness in its societal +inclusiveness. Only consciousness in its societal inclusiveness +can encompass the consciousness of the +individual.</p> + +<p>In the measure in which we, as an organic group, come +to adopt the conception of consciousness that accepts the +intrinsic reality of our common societal life, we shall learn +to repudiate the personal absolute that is our individual +resistance and, correspondingly, to participate in an +inclusiveness of consciousness with respect to which +the individual is but a relative and adaptive component.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_63">[63]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV"> + CHAPTER IV + <br> + THE UNCONSCIOUS FACTOR WITHIN + THE SOCIAL SYSTEM + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>Whatever is true of the individual singly, is true of the +individual collectively. Whatever is observable as neurotic +process within the isolated personality of the hysteric or +precoid, is equally observable as neurotic process in the +collective personality of the social mind. The attitude of +psychopathology, which ascribes to the social consensus, +represented in the average-reaction commonly called +“normality,” a criterion of constructive consciousness and +health, and which, accordingly, seeks to correct the +deflections of the aberrant neurotic personality in accordance +with this limited outlook, is itself an expression of +the bidimensional limitation that bases its system of +consciousness upon an absolute principle of evaluation. +After all, normality, like gravitation, is a mental abstraction. +Our consensual normality is but the systematized +abstraction embodying the absolute of its own unconscious +basis, and, in its personal absolutism, stands +opposed to a principle of relativity in the mental sphere. +It is only as we abrogate the absolute standards now +vested in the prevailing social systems about us and +measure their dimensions in terms of the principle of an +organic relativity, that we shall be enabled to challenge +the element of personal systematization within ourselves +and so encompass life in the actuality of a universal and +inclusive consciousness.</p> + +<p>Personal survival has been, from the beginning of man’s +history, the chief concern of his self-interest. Inventing +medicine with a view to his security here, fabricating +religion with a view to his security hereafter, he has +<span class="pagenum" id="p_64">[64]</span>safeguarded his preservation for the moment through +recourse to “cure,” and for the future through recourse +to “salvation.” Even in the interchanges of our casual +social relationships, there is still preserved within the +folk-mind the vestiges of this dualistic self-interest. +Upon our meeting, it is the accustomed reaction to make +mutual inquiry into the condition of health of one +another. “How are you?” or “How-do-you-do?” we +ask. Similarly, in parting we commend each other to the +clemencies of the future with the expression, “Good-bye,” +that is, “God be with you.” In the obvious apprehensiveness +underlying this unconscious attitude of the social +mind there is in one instance the implicit conviction that +we are wicked and in the other that we are sick! +Both these reactions, however, merely betray the state of +anxiety reflected in the fundamental condition of mind +that is our ethnic self-consciousness.</p> + +<p>In earlier times these two anxiety trends of the folk +unconscious were duly sponsored through the common +rites of medical and religious fetish under the combined +auspices of a single functionary or guardian who, as +priest or soothsayer, dispensed the benefits accruing from +both. The fact is, I suppose, that the tribal medicine-man +with his magic potion and amulet is psychologically, as +well as ethnologically, our true progenitor. For to-day +we observe the preservation of this concomitance of +function between the two systems, represented by the +science of medicine on the one hand and by the philosophy +of religion on the other, in the current social +phenomenon of our widely flourishing “sciences of mental +healing” with their unescapable unconsciousness in metaphysical +and theosophical implications. Aside, however, +from historical analogies, the stupendous influence upon +the societal mind of ecclesiastical and therapeutic canon +cannot be denied.</p> + +<p>Because of this preservation in our midst of such +ancient repositories of human thought and conduct as +are represented in the affiliated principles contained in +<span class="pagenum" id="p_65">[65]</span>the dogmas of church and psychotherapeutic system, a +consideration of the psychology common to both these +forms of our social adaptation cannot fail to help us +understand the basic elements that enter into the making +of our social personality. As illustration, let us consider +on the one hand the Roman Church and on the other the +system of psychoanalysis. The Roman Church represents +at one and the same time both traditionally the +longest established and politically the most compact +organization of the many religious sects existing throughout +our Western civilization. The system of psychoanalysis, +representing as it does the most modern conception +of medical psychology, possesses such scientific +authority as only the ablest students of philosophy and +medicine are qualified to bring to the substantiation of +its principles. An analysis, therefore, of the social psychology +that equally underlies and actuates the position of +both these systems will not, I think, be without profit in +the present study.</p> + +<p>Due to the sophistication that was early begotten +among the members of our human species through the +limitation of man’s consciousness to the bidimensional +alternative of a consensual “good and bad,” it is natural +that we should find this same tendency to personal +systematization expanded into the collective or social +form we observe in the group reaction that is embodied +in state or sect. Thus, from an organismic viewpoint, we +should expect to discover the same resistances within +the social as within the individual organism. Nor need +we be surprised if, upon analysis, it should be disclosed +that this social resistance represents likewise the bidimensional +impasse comprised of our personal self-reflection.</p> + +<p>Throughout the unconscious period of man’s bidimensional +arrest commonly called ancient times, a period +belonging chronologically to the past but pertaining +psychologically to the present as well as to the future for +probably an indefinite term, the attitude of the Church +toward incipient doubt or heresy was, is and for ever shall +<span class="pagenum" id="p_66">[66]</span>be to apply the remedy of prayer and, failing this recourse, +to apply the penalty of excommunication.</p> + +<p>From the vantage point of the psychoanalyst’s disinterested +and extrinsic angle of vision, such a policy +appears manifestly unsound and without warrant. From +his position of detached observer, it seems to him arbitrary +and presumptive. And yet it must be conceded that, +from the intrinsic viewpoint of a socially consolidated +organization compact with the autogenous authority of +infallibility, such a position is by no means inconsistent. +A supremacy that is self-originated is self-operative. +Autocratic prerogative and unimpeachable authority are +here conterminous. Indeed the solidarity of the Church +is unassailable precisely in that its premise and its conclusion +are mutually inclusive. For inasmuch as both +premise and conclusion are equally based upon the +assumption of the personal absolute or the private +prerogative of the system they embody, all access to it is +summarily barred. If the Church precludes all question, +dismisses all opposition, it is wholly within its self-determined +rights. For by these same tokens all question, all +argument, being of its nature extrinsic to its autogenic +system, savours <i>de facto</i> of the aforesaid heresy of doubt +and, as such, is automatically driven out of court as +connoting <i>a priori</i> the presumptive fallacy of trespass. +This relegation to itself of divine and hence unquestionable +authority is the theological doctrine of self-actuative +truth assumed by the Church to underlie its official +pronunciamentos when it formally declares them to be +<i>ex cathedra</i>.</p> + +<p>I offer this preamble not without advisement. In its +intimation of the heretical tendency of the present thesis, +it will give to those to whom such tendency is unwelcome +the opportunity to seal their ears against it. At the same +time it will give to those of more pliant sympathies due +notice of the undisguised aim of the present inquiry +toward the adoption of a more comprehensive and open-minded +outlook among us. For the trend of this thesis +<span class="pagenum" id="p_67">[67]</span>is in its intention confessedly subversive of the socially +authorized version of truth now vested in the autogenous +systematization that has come to underlie the principle of +us psychoanalysts.</p> + +<p>I do not know to what extent it is humanly possible, +but, in so far as may be, let us adopt for the moment, at +least mentally, a position of impersonal disinterestedness +toward the social consensus in which we ourselves, as +psychoanalysts, are also corporate elements. It will then +become clear, I think, that the socially authenticated +system, representative of us Freudians, embodies an +unconscious attitude closely analogous to that of the +social system embodied in the attitude of autogenous +authority underlying the personal absolutism of the +Roman Church.</p> + +<p>To observe this element of social unconsciousness underlying +the principle of Roman Catholicism has for us all a +certain invigorating tang. With such a discovery there +comes the refreshing release that is the spur to renewed +investigation. It is the heartening response of the +organism to its sense of conscious acumen. But, to +observe the operation of the social unconscious within +the autogenous systematization of principles which +insures social coherence within our own consensus, entails +a contemplation that is not pleasant. This contemplation +disturbs the habitual repose of settled conviction that is +our own security. It is to apply the acid test of self-analysis +to our own socially systematized assumption of +private prerogative and authority. Yet an attitude of +impersonal disinterestedness presupposes that our inquiry +shall proceed without regard to personal security. This +attitude, indeed, is one which we ourselves have demanded +of our patients as being an analytically basic one. It +is, therefore, upon this understanding alone that an +inquiry, which in its disregard of the personal equation +is committed to a course equally unflattering to us +all, may hope to be accorded an unbiased consideration. +Surely in any other attitude the name of psychoanalyst +<span class="pagenum" id="p_68">[68]</span>can become only a term of opprobrium among +us.</p> + +<p>Let us, then, consider this factor of private prerogative +or of the personal absolute, inseparable from the mental +attitude expressed in the phenomenon of social systematization +which we see in the Church’s position of assumed +infallibility toward its postulants, and seek to discover +whether this same tendency to social systematization +may not lurk within our own psychoanalytic ranks. +Let us see whether we, too, are not actuated by an unconscious +element of personal absolutism that obstructs +the freer and more adult mode of consciousness such as it +is our avowed aim to attain.</p> + +<p>In mentioning the unconscious element of absolutism +constituting the closed compartment within a socially +organized system of principles, I have cited Catholicism +merely as a convenient paradigm. Protestantism or +Mohammedanism are, in their assumption of self-appointed +prerogative, not less indefensible on the same ground, for +the element of the personal absolute underlies no less the +private assumption of each. By reason of its higher +degree of organization, however, Catholicism more +fittingly illustrates the absolutism of its social polity in +relation to this phenomenon of doubt or defection occurring +among its members. This is its aptness in affording +a convenient position of comparison with our own socially +organized system of psychoanalysis in respect to the +phenomenon of defection as envisaged by us.</p> + +<p>Within the body of precepts comprising our own +organization, the accepted mark of defection is a <i>resistance</i>, +and the remedy we apply is analysis. For, with ourselves, +analysis is explicitly the only effective means of overcoming +the intractable tendencies which, in the determination +of our organized principles of adjudication, +constitute the sole need of our patient. In the event that +the patient should remain so far recalcitrant as not to +embrace the opportunity we offer him to accept our +socially systematized interpretation of truth as it touches +<span class="pagenum" id="p_69">[69]</span>his own particular needs, he is automatically excluded +from participation in the agencies of regeneration such +as it is our special delegation to dispense. Whence +there follows our regrettable but none the less inevitable +ultimatum of “inferior type of personality” and his +coincident elimination from the pale.</p> + +<p>It is, of course, clear that the actuality of the phenomenon +of resistance in the patient can no more be denied +than the actuality of the phenomenon of doubt in the +penitent. Moreover, in accordance with the ruling of +psychoanalysis, our specification of the condition when +we posit a resistance is as indisputable as is the specification +of the Church when it posits a doubt as the underlying +disorder of the individual postulant. In either +case there is the position that the individual is impervious +to the benefits of the system whose principles he is, in the +judgment of the system, in need of embracing. Indeed, +it is precisely this factor of doubt in the one case, as it is +the factor of resistance in the other, that is the whole +occasion of the individual’s quest of a means of adjusting +this division within his personality whereof doubt or +resistance is the idiopathic index.</p> + +<p>The actual fact, then, of a resistance within the personality +is beyond question. The fact is one that is +equally admitted on the side of the individual as on the +side of the organization, on the side of the defendant +as on the side of the arraignment. But what is to be +done about it does not as yet seem to me by far so clearly +determined. I know, of course, that it is our attitude, +based upon the repeated experience of us all, that any +objection to psychoanalysis is invariably traceable to the +resistance of the objector. This is a psychoanalytic +corollary. It is accepted as universal among us all. +So that a resistance to psychoanalysis is very justly, in +the view of psychoanalysts, as self-convicting as is a +doubt in the view of the Church. And from the point of +view of psychoanalysis no less than of the Church the +position of these two systems rests upon an undoubtedly +<span class="pagenum" id="p_70">[70]</span>sound basis, if we may be guided by the consensus of +their several adherents as attested by the experience of +each.</p> + +<p>But the question which has of late come to engross my +interest is <i>whether these points of view are sound as embodied +in their respective systems</i>—whether, from a broader basis +of envisagement, the intrinsic attitude of ourselves may +not lend itself to an altered interpretation; whether +there may not exist a criterion that transcends the scope +of our present analytic outlook when we claim that the +only possible motive for questioning our psychoanalytic +position is found to lie in the resistance of the individual; +whether, in brief, the socially entrenched systematization +comprising the psychoanalytic affiliation possesses +sufficient warrant for impugning the personally entrenched +systematization comprising the individual. For, if the +fallacy of the personal absolute underlies the systematization +represented in the social consensus, in what way does +the rigidity of the social prerogative differ from the +systematized prerogative constituting the resistance of +the individual?⁠<a id="FNanchor_14_14" href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p>For the purposes of our inquiry we shall be obliged to +dismiss for the moment our habitual personalistic criteria +of interpretation. We shall have to recognize, first of all, +that what we call the individual is by no means the +fresh and native expression of individuality pure and +simple that we are accustomed to assume, but rather +that he is an individuation resulting from the repressive +forces acting upon him from the environmental social +aggregate in which he is himself but an intrinsic and +contributory element. For every individual arising amid +the influences of the social system is but a special application +of the social system about him. Whatever the code +of the consensus, the individual is necessarily but an +offprint of it—a new impression of the original by-laws. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_71">[71]</span>There is, therefore, the need to turn our attention not to +the individuated excerpt of the system but to the original +document wherein the system is primarily set forth. +There is the need to discard the individual form and +to occupy ourselves with the societal mould whereof +the individual form is but the subsequent reproduction.</p> + +<p>Assuming the broader outlook of this more encompassing +sociological position, I think we shall come to see +that the difference between the reaction of doubt, as +interpreted by the Church, and the reaction of resistance, +as interpreted by psychoanalysis, is, after all, only +apparent—that the difference is by no means an inherent +one, but that it is due merely to the altered circumstance +of shade and light, so to speak, in which the two reactions +are diversely reflected by reason of the contrasting sociological +settings amid which the two phenomena have +appeared among us.</p> + +<p>As regards the sociological manifestation embodied in +the Church, contrary to its age-old contention that doubt +or question automatically indicated apostasy which +reflexly discredited its adherent, it has long been shown +experientially that such doubt or defection might be +very logically and honourably entertained. Not only +this, but it has been further made manifest that it is due +precisely to the entertainment of such an attitude of +debate toward the socially systematized consensus, +represented in the Church, that there have arisen those +far-reaching investigations of science out of which has +sprung the splendid renaissance of modern thought with +its accompanying incentive to human progress.</p> + +<p>Hence the question that presents itself is this: May it +not also be that, quite beyond the scope of envisagement +of those of us who are intrinsic to the analytic consensus, +there are motives inviting question of our position which +do not fall within the category of resistance? May it +not be that, from a position of extrinsic or impersonal +evaluation, we shall obtain so inclusive a survey of the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_72">[72]</span>phenomenon of resistance on the one side and of the +social phenomenon of organized systematization representing +the establishment on the other, that the two +reactions may be included in an encompassment that is +equally hospitable to both? Surely it cannot be denied +that, laying aside all consideration of personal involvement, +the question of such a possibility is not without its +vista of interest.</p> + +<p>With a view to a fair appraisement of the contrast +between the type of defection manifesting itself as doubt +and the type of defection manifesting itself as resistance, +there is first the need to take account of the widely dissimilar +sociological aspect of the period in which doubt +was originally viewed by the Church, as compared with +the sociological countenance of the times in which resistance +is viewed by ourselves, and, accordingly, to consider +the difference between the two phenomena in the light +of the contrasting sociological backgrounds surrounding +each.</p> + +<p>From this sociological angle the factor that immediately +attracts our notice is the essentially negative, self-deprecatory +character of the doubt-reaction in respect to +the ancient dogmas of the Church. We note the sense of +personal inadequacy that is its characteristic sign. We +mark its habitually shamefaced, self-depreciative mien. +For doubt, be it remembered, first arose as the self-accusing +attitude of the subservient individual who lived +under the social domination of monarchical forms of +government in a period of man’s history when, owing to +his subjugation to the unconscious suzerainty of a fanciful +father-complex, he meekly bowed in servile obedience to +the socially systematized authority arbitrarily vested in +Church and State, as personified in the office of Pope and +King. Under the prevalent domination of this image of +indisputable authority, men’s social criterion resided in +the apparent consensus of the <i>personal absolute</i>, social +and individual, representing the particular individuation +of a single man, rather than in the common supremacy of +<span class="pagenum" id="p_73">[73]</span>our impersonal relativity comprising the generic individuality +of mankind.⁠<a id="FNanchor_15_15" href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<p>But the social mind has in the last few centuries undergone +a significant metamorphosis. To-day we have to +reckon with this. We have to take into account the +tremendous expansion of the consciousness of man +sociologically and, from the point of view of the historical +record of man’s rapid sociological ascent, mark the +characterological difference in the temper of the individual’s +defection to-day as compared with his defection +of yesterday. In the implication of the rights of individual +freedom of thought implied in the defection of +doubt, the predominant factor was the individual’s +acknowledgment of his personal remissness, of his unseemly +presumptiveness toward the social constitution +about him. Under the socially systematized autocracy of +the Church’s absolutism, the individuality of man dared +not stand erect and maintain the freedom of his individual +expression.</p> + +<p>But in the present hour the consciousness of man proclaims +itself a freer manifestation. Under the impetus of +our sociological progress, man’s individuality has more +and more come into its own. And, though the socially +organized prerogative has still the upper hand in respect +to individuality, there are signs abroad to-day which are +a significant advertisement of man’s urge toward an +expression of individuality that is an earnest of yet +wider sociological horizons ahead. I think that it is +due in no small measure to the advent of this factor of +man’s sociological rehabilitation that there is seen to-day +the completely altered character of the individual’s +resistance as it recoils before the element of personal +absolutism embodied in the systematized consensus of +psychoanalysis.</p> + +<p>Despite its undoubted unconsciousness and personal +systematization, note the essentially ruddier countenance +<span class="pagenum" id="p_74">[74]</span>of resistance as compared with doubt. A resistance, +unlike doubt, is no admission of ineptitude. Subsisting +under the sponsorship of a new and freer sociological +order, resistance is fashioned of sterner stuff. It is no +personal deprecation; it is a sociological affirmation. +Far from being an abject confession of individual weakness, +it is a proud assertion of individual strength. For +although in the phenomenon of resistance there is to be +seen the equally unconscious motive that is the protest +of the individual absolute against the arbitrary domination +of the socially systematized absolute comprising the +popular consensus, there underlies this protest something +that is more virile than this. There is here, I believe, a +reaction that demands and that will ultimately have the +consideration that is its due. Though the Church, while +pre-eminent, might easily dispose of doubt, in our own +democratic day it is doubt that has disposed of the Church. +It seems to me that, unless we psychoanalysts recognize +the group-form of unconsciousness underlying the social +systematization embodied in the position of psychoanalysis +when it pronounces the resistance of the individual +as <i>de facto</i> anathema, without regard to the possible +propriety of its remonstrance, we, like our less conscious +analogue, the Church, shall ultimately find ourselves +hoist with our own petard.</p> + +<p>While the fact of resistance and of its unconscious +motivation is admittedly true, yet to meet a patient’s +assertion of individual right with the mere assertion of +the group-right, which is the unconscious protectorate +of the organized system, is certainly not to answer the +patient’s need from the point of view of a larger and more +encompassing mode of consciousness. If the assumption +of arbitrary prerogative or of the personal absolute +represented in the reaction of individual systematization +is the meaning of resistance, then the private prerogative +or the personal absolute underlying the systematization +of the social consensus is no less a manifestation of +resistance. For the attitude of systematization and of +<span class="pagenum" id="p_75">[75]</span>absolutism in the individual is necessarily but the reflection +of a prior social systematization to which the individual’s +adaptation is but a secondary response.</p> + +<p>Clearly it is not possible for the socially systematized +consensus embodied in Church, State or psychotherapeutic +system to afford the requisite condition of release +from a resistance thus constituted, when its own systematization +is itself the social or group embodiment of this +self-same reaction of resistance. In the nip-and-tuck +attitude between the resistance of the system comprising +the single individual and the resistance of the system +comprising the social corporation of individuals, there +stands the organic impasse of two mutually opposed +absolutes. In the autocratic position of each neither may +yield, for in the absolutism of both each represents an +identical state of unconscious impaction. As neither the +individual nor the consensus, in its enfolded self-systematization, +is as yet conscious of the process in which it is +the blindly contributing element, both factors represent +but altered aspects of the common delusion of the social +adaptation of man, single and collective, namely, the +delusion of the supremacy of the will-to-self or the +unconscious autocracy of the personal absolute.</p> + +<p>Naturally, I cannot speak of these inadequacies of +consciousness from a remote or detached position. Needless +to say, since I am at this moment a contributing part +of this social maelstrom comprising the system about me, +I am no less embroiled than others in its social fallacy. +So that what is here very inadequately apprehended by +me as a theory is, I confess, still less adequately accepted +by me as a living, integral experience. Let it not be +thought, then, for a moment that, in presenting the +social basis of consciousness that is the substance of this +thesis, I am under any illusion as to my own inaptness to +embody in myself the personal expression of the conception +whereof this essay offers the organismic interpretation.</p> + +<p>It is, however, only in the measure in which this less +<span class="pagenum" id="p_76">[76]</span>personal mode of approach becomes actual for me that +my work with others grows in significance and in constructiveness +of purpose. In this light I have come to +feel more and more that it is only as we regard life from +the point of view of man’s generic individuality that we +shall truly encompass the meaning of the neurosis, either +individual or social, in its true organic assessment. In +this more inclusive outlook we shall gradually come to +realize, I think, that the neurosis, whether appearing in +the arbitrary systematization of the individual or in that +of the group consensus, consists essentially in the substitution +of the personal absolute that is our secondary +individuation for the impersonal relativity that is our +primary individuality. In this outlook we shall come to +see that it is only in the common inherency of life that +is comprised the consciousness of man in the fullness of +its meaning.</p> + +<p>Resistance, then, is the personal systematization of +men as contrasted with the unsponsored individuality +of man. The individual unit like the social unit is but +an arbitrary system, and in the resistance of each of us +is to be seen the self-determined cosmogony that is the +individual fallacy of us all. Whether this personal prerogative +embodied in a resistance has its expression in the +single individual or in the collection of individuals comprising +the social aggregate, the factor of systematization +holding its guarantee of inalienable rights under the +syndicate of our common unconscious, is, I believe, the +very kernel of the world-wide dissociation which we now +diagnose as the neurosis of the individual.</p> + +<p>Thus, through this systematization of each one, there +is repudiated the individuality of each other. In the +personal absolute of the private consciousness of each, +there is denied the relativity of the common consciousness +of all. It is this systematization that is the meaning of +repression. It is this personal prerogative that is the +essence of resistance. And so, in the <i>unconscious system</i> +that is within and about us there is summed up, I believe, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_77">[77]</span>the entire philosophy of the neurosis. Being ourselves +intrinsic to the system, both individual and social, it +is no more possible to deal with it objectively in its social +than in its individual phase. Our only approach is the +subjective approach. Only subjectively is it possible for +each of us to envisage completely the system of repression +within him that is his individual reflection of the social +system of repression outside him. In thus relinquishing +the absolute principle that is merely the autocracy of our +privately arbitrated system of personalism and unconsciousness, +we are in a position to forgo the unconscious +absolute comprising our own resistance and to accept in +its stead the relative inclusiveness of our conscious life as +a unified and organic whole.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_78">[78]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V"> + CHAPTER V + <br> + SOCIOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS FROM A VIEWPOINT OF RELATIVITY + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>Oscar Wilde says in one of his plays: “There are in +the world two tragedies. One is not getting what one +wants and the other is getting it.” The epigram is +peculiarly apt in telling us what appears, on the surface, +to be true. But what appears on the surface to be true +is not necessarily true inherently. Unquestionably there +are these two fatal antitheses in life and in them undoubtedly +is summed up whatever there is of tragedy in +our human lot. But, in reducing life to these two issues +of getting and of not getting what one wants, we fail to +realize that these contrasting reactions are secondary to +a condition of mind artificially induced in ourselves at the +expense of a prior state of consciousness that is in its +essence not antithetic but unitary.</p> + +<p>Each of us is born in the midst of an established system +whose password is conformity to its prescribed norm. +Each of us becomes an automatic compartment within +the systematized consensus that comprises its basis. The +price of our initiation into this adaptive system is the +forfeit of our primary individuality, and by the terms +of its automatic statutes tuition is compulsory. Automatic +obedience to traditional authority is the retroactive +principle of its constitution. “Right” or “wrong” is the +slogan of its guild. In the autogenous postulate of good +or bad that is its absolute basis, our adaptive system +stands rigidly opposed to a conception of truth such as +comprises the relative and all-inclusive principle of consciousness +in its organismic significance.</p> + +<p>In the light of this ulterior motive of good or bad—of +<span class="pagenum" id="p_79">[79]</span>this adaptive response that is the secondary and reflected +impression of each—is measured the conduct of us all. +According as we see ourselves in this mirror of the +systematized and prescribed norm is conditioned our +happiness or unhappiness, our comfort or displeasure. +But always the mirror of each that is the criterion of +others stands as a solid wall confronting us. Reflected +in the features of this one our bearing is quite pleasing; +mirrored in the reaction of that one our countenance is +not so prepossessing. And so it happens that, as we go +on in life, we tend more and more to place ourselves in +positions in which we may obtain the most flattering +“likeness” of ourselves. Correspondingly, we tend to +avoid those reflectors that distort our features to our +own discomforting. In this way we come to “like” +some people and to “dislike” others. So that, according +to this account of our adaptation, what is called “ourselves” +in the vernacular of the system about us is merely +the reflection of ourselves as reproduced by the system +itself.</p> + +<p>In truth, because of the system of personal reflections +amid which we move, our judgments are throughout +undependable. We have no opinions, we merely reflect +opinions. We have no perceptions, we have only preperceptions. +We do not verify feeling through senses that +are native to us, we imitate feeling by means of impressions +that are extraneous to us. Thus there are great +gaps within the sphere of our supposedly consistent +experience—gaps involving wide intervals between our +feeling and our reason, between processes that are organic +and processes that are conscious. Our attempts to +bridge these intervals have constantly led us astray and +thus has come to pass the system of inconsistencies that +is the unconscious. For, in this void of his reality man +can only substitute the images that are his unreality, and +no image may substitute for reality, no theory of life +replace the organic consistency of life itself. Yet in our +dissociative preferences we continually mistake the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_80">[80]</span><i>image</i> of that which is for that which <i>really</i> is. Nor do +we at all realize to what extent the actual masquerades as +real. What is there, for example, more actual than +illusion, yet what is there less real? An individual +actually has a delusion but it is not on this account real. +The voices he hears are actual to him (do they not call +him by name?) but we who are outside his system know +very well that they are not real.⁠<a id="FNanchor_16_16" href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> + +<p>My position is that, in our response to the impressions +arising from the social system about us, our inferences are +no more dependable than those arising from the private +systems of the insane. Our confusion, like theirs, is the +unconscious breach between perceptions that are true and +impressions that are inferred, between life that is function +and life that is merely enactment. It is again the disparity +between life as a system or theory, and life itself. +All of us are familiar with the inconsistency of people +who, in order that life may prove comfortable in theory, +devote their entire energies to making it miserable in +practice. It is the inconsistency of unconsciousness with +its inevitable alternation between the opposed extensions +of a bidimensional image of life in place of the all-inclusiveness +of life in its functional reality. It is the personal +absolute underlying the consensual social system within +and about us.</p> + +<p>If this absolute embodied in the system is, then, a +standard that is but arbitrary and artificial, each of us, +since he is a reflection of such a specious criterion, is himself +but a personal representation of this same absolute. If +the individual is but a reflection of the system of rules +representing the collection of individuals comprising the +social consensus about him, then the consciousness of +man, in both its social and individual manifestations, +represents an absolute that is throughout false and +undependable. If, in brief, our standard of truth rests +upon our own self-reflection in a social system that is +<span class="pagenum" id="p_81">[81]</span>itself self-reflected, then the evaluation of the individual, +as of the social organism about us, comprises throughout +a merely fictitious image, and our criteria of verity are +everywhere spurious and without support.</p> + +<p>In the artificial pretence of “good and bad” or of +“right and wrong” that represents the arbitrarily +reflected <i>aspect</i> of life based upon the personal absolute +of each, life, as I have said, is henceforth contracted into +the opposite alternatives determined by the two components +that comprise one’s own pleasure or one’s own +pain. This shifting choice imposed by the contrary issues +inseparable from our bidimensional outlook confronts us +on every hand, and it is this limitation of us all to the +artificial bidimension of personal loss or gain that reduces +life to the tragedy of getting or of not getting what one +wants.</p> + +<p>Such a division of personality as this personal bias +unconsciously entails, amounts to nothing short of a +compulsion neurosis, the scope of which involves our +entire social consciousness. The symptomatology of +this mental division within the social personality finds +its projection in such familiar antitheses as heaven or +hell, love or hate, peace or war, idealist or materialist, +Stoic or Hedonist, Jew or Gentile, aristocrat or proletarian, +and so on <i>ad infinitum</i>. For such are our ever-shifting +alternatives of getting or not getting as they are reflected +in the assumption of private advantage underlying the +so-called “good” and “bad” that is the preliminary +outfit of us all.</p> + +<p>In this eternal whether-or-no that is our superstitious +alternation between good and bad lies the meaning of the +social division constituting the reaction unconsciously +sponsored under the shifting incertitudes of our popular +forms and moralities. In our trembling vacillations +between the ever-pressing issues of personal advantage, +as apprehended through our superinduced images of +“good” or “bad,” is the substance of the obsessive +oscillations of will commonly saluted as man’s conscience, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_82">[82]</span>a reaction, however, in whose irresolutions an eminent +psychologist long ago discovered the element of hesitation +that tends to make cowards of us all.</p> + +<p>This perpetual reflection of the self in the mirror of +self-interest so operates as to invert completely the +natural processes of life. Due to this unconscious distortion +of reality, our every experience is viewed in the +light of the fanciful image that is our own self-projection. +On the basis of the absolute premise of self, that is the +result of our own recoil upon the image of our own self-interest, +everything is subordinated to the bidimensional +component comprising our own personal aspect. For +example, this inverted image of self, determining the +personal absolute of each, underlies the delusion commonly +concealed under what is popularly known as our “right.” +After all, what is held most dear within each of us is this +private reservation that is one’s own “right.” Indeed, +it is no other factor than this alleged prerogative or +“right” of the individual based upon his autogenous +assumption of personal absolutism that, as already +stated, is our unconscious “resistance” both individual +and social. Taking our stand upon the inflexible basis +that is the individual resistance or personal absolute of +each, we approach life wholly from the position of this +personal bias on the ground that it is our right. It +is the preservation of this personal right that is the sole +propriety of the law. But the laws of men as they +appertain to personal claim and title are the direct +antithesis of the law of man as it pertains to the organic +unity of his life. In truth, what is called the rights of +private ownership is shown upon analysis to be the +ownership of private rights.</p> + +<p>We do not see—being wholly won over to a policy of +unconscious self-interest we will not see—that our so-called +“right” is not a reality inherent in the conditions +of life itself, but that it is an illusion secondarily derived +from our personal reaction to the system of autocracy +that is the unconscious self-interest of the social unconscious +<span class="pagenum" id="p_83">[83]</span>everywhere about us. Here we find the psychological +concomitance between the reaction of resistance +and the process of inversion, between the bidimensional +aspect reflecting one’s own image and the unconscious +illusion of the personal absolute assumed to be the private +“right” of every individual. For, in the measure in +which one’s outlook upon reality is restricted to a bidimensional +or pictorial aspect of reality, one’s range of +perception is necessarily confined to alternations of self-advantage +or to the issues of good and bad such as are +determined by the autocratic absolute of one’s own personal +right. From the fixed background of personal right +we can look out upon the world about us only from the +angle of our personal satisfaction. In this outlook the +sole test of human experience narrows itself to the question +as to whether an issue bodes good or ill <i>for me</i>. My +personal right being my standard of measure, every value +will be weighed by me in accordance with its reading. +Here, you see, is the very essence of inversion. Here in +this element of personal prerogative the introversions of +unconsciousness are to be traced to their biological root. +Thus, in this repercussion of consciousness embodied in +our assumption of personal right, we come upon the very +nucleus of the neurosis.</p> + +<p>I believe that in this bidimensional alternation of our +unconscious self-reflection existing within the societal +personality lies the basis of our social mania of competition, +as it is the basis of our tireless discussions and +altercations within the various spheres of man’s activity. +It is again the obsessive shift of our compulsive self-interest, +and our social alternations of competition merely +reflect our own oppositeness. I believe that this delusion +of self-interest is the sole validity of our vaunted +“opinions” as of the endless wranglings and disputations +and outstrivings that actuate our social interests generally. +The claim that we go to war because our “right” is +disputed is not true. We go to war because in the fallacy +of our personal absolutism our assumed right is held by +<span class="pagenum" id="p_84">[84]</span>us to be indisputable. Far from possessing warrant +for what is called our “right” to institute war, it is +precisely because of the presumptive and illusory nature +of our arrogated right that we are driven to this alternative +of immeasurable wrong. The fact is not that we are +right because we think such and such to be true, but that +in our compulsive response to unavoidable alternative +we think such and such to be true in vindication of our +assumed right. In other words, our “rightness” is not +the natural result of our logic but our logic is the enforced +result of our “rightness.” By reason of this secret +reservation of personal prerogative within each of us, +everything is made subservient to this autocratic absolute +of our individual right. If it is true, then, that the self-assurance +and inflexibility of the personal absolute within +each presents the true account of the mental and social +rigidity comprising our resistances, there is here a significant +commentary upon our so-called adult social consciousness.⁠<a id="FNanchor_17_17" href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + +<p>This mechanism of unconscious autocracy underlies our +sociological reactions in a degree that is beyond our +suspecting, and it is to the social no less than to the +individual consciousness that we must turn for a solution. +If we disregard the individual implications of the social +neurosis, it is not possible to envisage the social implications +of the individual neurosis. Due to the subjective +concomitance between the individual and the social +aspects of consciousness, to attempt to deal with one +and not with the other entails a contradiction that is +organic. Just as in the individual personality there are +alternations of will entailing contrarieties of mood that +correspond to getting or not getting what one wants, so +in the social personality there are these same alternations +of will with their corresponding antitheses of mood depending +upon our getting and not getting what we want.</p> + +<p>The element of failure in Christianity is the element of +<span class="pagenum" id="p_85">[85]</span>the bidimensional in Christianity. Christ repudiates the +consensus and the consensus exacts his life in return. +Judas betrays Christ and in expiation exacts his own life. +In the real motto of Christianity “Do unto others as ye +would have others do unto you” there is betrayed the +familiar alternative of secret self-interest. It reveals at +once the mark of arrangement, of bargain, of conduct-with-a-view-to +that here, as always, is the private guarantee +of personal advantage. In the note of reciprocity underlying +the Lord’s prayer, with its “Forgive <i>us</i>, as <i>we</i> +forgive,” the bidimensional is at a premium. Only this +bidimensional basis is adequate to account for the constant +dissensions—religious, national, political and economic—that +exist throughout the world of Christianity under the +name of “right.”</p> + +<p>The truth is that the consciousness of man is not secure +within itself, and our right is the protection of our own +insecurity. An insidious division underlies the personality +of man. Beneath his outer show of amity and covenant +there resides a restless self-doubt, an anxious fear, a +divided will. At the heart of his consciousness there +is a deep-seated uncertainty driving him to temporary +appeasements which can find issue only in the alternations +of getting or of not getting what he wants. It is everywhere +the aspect of the personal advantage under a new +and altered guise. It is everywhere the alternation of +self-interest, with its bilateral illusion of advantage or +disadvantage, due to our fear-ridden obsession of “good +and bad.”</p> + +<p>The vacillations of this illusive alternative likewise +explain the anxious fascination of the shifting incertitudes +of “fate.” Here in the uncertain eventualities of chance +is the irresistible appeal of our endless speculations in +enterprise and game. In the indispensable element of +suspense that lends pith to the drama there is again +echoed this artificial note of self-division. For that which +constitutes dramatic suspense merely sustains the converse +extension inseparable from a bidimensional situation, and +<span class="pagenum" id="p_86">[86]</span>the interest of the drama, as of all art-forms based upon +the element of conflict or of periodic alternation, is its +unconscious projection of the dual issues that reflect the +shifting bidimensions of our social self-inversions.</p> + +<p>With the descent of the curtain upon the bidimensional +situation with which the accustomed drama invariably +closes, there remains, in essence unaltered, the same +situation upon which it first arose. This is why it is +always necessary at the end to create an artificial situation +such as will temporarily satisfy the demands of a <i>seeming</i> +conclusion and bring the episode to a halt. But a conclusion +in the sense of a resolution of elements is not +possible. The drama that is built upon the dilemma of +the bidimensional is inevitably committed to one or the +other of its two horns. Thus the end can be designed +only with reference to one of the two alternatives in +accordance with the unconscious ambivalence of author +as of onlooker. And so the question of termination +rests always upon the issue as to whether the audience +shall smile and be pleased with itself (comedy) or weep +and feel sorry for itself (tragedy) according as it gets or +does not get what it wants.</p> + +<p>The art of the dramatist is, therefore, in the final +accounting always constrained. It is this exigency that +causes to be perpetrated in the name of dramatic precedent +the unpardonable affronts to organic verity which +we are constantly witnessing. In real life a girl, who +has had a liaison with a man with whom her relationship +has been wholly sexual or self-interested, does not confide +the secret of her inadvertence to a subsequent suitor with +whom she is now “in love” upon a no less self-interested +basis. Such a course involves an organic contradiction. +She knows in her heart that in the unconscious concealment +of his equally secret self-interest in her it is as +intolerable to him to have the secret of his illusion disturbed +as it is intolerable to her to disturb her own. But +in the drama the psychological verities are thrown to the +winds, and the heroine, to the artificial delight of a bilaterally +<span class="pagenum" id="p_87">[87]</span>disposed audience, tells everything that has been in +the “past” exactly as she would not tell it, and to the +one person who hears it exactly as he would not hear it. +But with drama that is bidimensional we must put an +ending somewhere!</p> + +<p>Such are the organic discrepancies with which our +ablest writers, whether in the form of the drama, the +novel or the screen, still continue to banter us. The +reason is to be sought in the unconscious and compulsive +bondage which they themselves are under with respect +to the illusion of the alternative that is their own self-reflective +basis.</p> + +<p>It is this illusion of unconscious self-reflection that +explains also the greater fascination of the bidimensional +<i>picture</i> we see sketched upon the wall or presented in the +pages of literature as contrasted with the inherent <i>experience</i> +that is the tridimensional actuality of our daily life. +It explains our greater pleasure in the surroundings which +one’s art may contemplate or portray than in the surroundings +which one’s life may by participation fill and render +beautiful. For art as image is the portrayal of unreality; +art as life is the expression of reality. Art to-day is +merely the distinction of the individual interpreter. It +is unrelated to the conscious aims of days and dreams +that may be shared in common among all people. The +truth is that in our prepossession with the bidimensional +and pictorial our interest is centred far more in the +distractions of art as image than in the inclusiveness of +art as life.</p> + +<p>This illusion of the pictorial aspect with which we +replace the world of tridimensional actuality finds nowhere +a happier vehicle than in the mechanical bidimension +afforded through the medium of illusion achieved +by the motion-picture. There is no device better adapted +to reproduce the flat, scenic aspect such as gives the real +zest to our dreams. For through the device of the +motion-picture there is reflected the social drama that +comprises our day, just as through the device of the dream +<span class="pagenum" id="p_88">[88]</span>there is reflected the individual drama that comprises +our night. It is in this illusory <i>bidimension</i> of the photo-play +that we are so much at home. We like its facile +reproduction of ourselves. This is why we can accept +without remonstrance the childishly naïve sequences +standing for plot as represented in the bidimension of +the screen. The same narrative would appear too utterly +obvious and banal to pass muster in the solid perspective of +the spoken drama, but presented upon the screen it finds +ready acceptance, because in the motion-picture there is +reproduced the pictorial aspect that corresponds to the +habitual aspect of self-reflection that is our own image. +We like moving pictures because we are moving pictures.</p> + +<p>This element of unconscious dramatization, prompting +the activities of the normal mind, we need somehow to +realize within us. We need somehow to realize that in +the manifestations of the unconscious comprising the +collective enactment of the social drama around us +there is this same reduction of actuality to aspect. <i>For +in the active motor images of the social mind with its manifold +gestures of a self-reflective actuality there is inherently no +less unreality than in the passive sensory images of the +individual mind in the private theatre of its self-reflective +phantasy-building.</i> Yet so involved are we now in our +retroactive processes that in our purblind efforts toward +their presumably conscious readjustment we still proceed +retroactively. Such is the futility of our personalistic +methods of dream-analysis, as it is the futility of our +personalistic envisagement of the disorders of affect +comprising the neuroses.</p> + +<p>In view of this central defect of our mental vision, +whereby it is contracted into the artificial bidimension of +the self- or dream-image, our outlook is everywhere distorted. +Being vitiated throughout with the prejudice of +the circumscribed and personal, our affective response is +not spontaneous and true. As our subjective feeling is +self-reflective or self-interested, our perception is necessarily +pictorial and unreal. So that in our presumable +<span class="pagenum" id="p_89">[89]</span>contemplation of the objective world of reality, the +experience that reaches us is not reality. On the contrary, +in the element of the wish or dream that is our bias toward +actuality, the aspect perceived is merely a foreshortened +projection of the fanciful image of self. It lacks the +tridimensional depth and solidarity of an inclusive reality.</p> + +<p>This habit of personal dogmatization and autocracy +has induced in us an autocracy of the mental processes +generally. Our representations of the aspect have +become, throughout, the organic antithesis of our participation +in the real. From a basis of unreal images we can +only reproduce unreal images. Out of a mental system of +false impressions we can only elaborate impressions that +are false. It is precisely this flat unreality of the pictorial, +whether fanciful or actual, that lends to all our so-called +“art” its obsessive fascination. Not only is there a +distortion of reality in the flat mental picture we form of +it, but in the necessarily detached adaptation of the mere +onlooker each of us becomes unconsciously an arbitrary +centre of personal opinionativeness. Each one stands as +a sort of solar centre within a planetary system comprising +his own self-determined affects. He thus reflects +the universe surrounding him, and it is thus by him +defined. And there has come to be built up in each of +us in respect also to the world of art a system of personalism +or unconsciousness that is well-nigh logic-proof in its +absolutism.</p> + +<p>Thus every stimulus—every impression that reaches +our self-conscious mental retina falls upon the flat, self-reflecting +surface of the wish, the dream or the personal +<i>right</i> of each. Of such is the supposedly cognitive reaction +underlying our “beliefs,” of such is the presumably +affective reaction we express as “love.” But belief and +love trace their etymology to a common organic root that +unhappily betrays the equally illusory origin of each. In +the Anglo-Saxon <i>leof</i>, meaning lief or wish or bias, both +reactions are reduced to a single motivation that is the +tell-tale of their phantastic import. And as belief and love +<span class="pagenum" id="p_90">[90]</span>(inverse cognition and inverse affect) are the very tissue +of our personalistic consciousness, we may begin to understand +to what extent the wish or the preconception +comprising the bidimensional self-image underlies our +every perception!</p> + +<p>And so, after all, our world of “actuality” is not more +real than our world of phantasy, our day not less self-reflective +and unconscious than our night, our waking +not less apparitional than our sleep. For both alike are +motivated by the arbitrary reflection that is the inverted +process of the will-to-self. As yet we do not realize that +the personal absolute embodying our so-called “right,” +motivated as it is by self-reflection and unconsciousness, +is as truly the product of our day-dream as the wish, +motivated by unconscious self-reflection, is the product of +our night-dream. We do not as yet see that the wish or +self-satisfaction comprising the sleeping dream of our +individual unconscious is itself but a reproduction of the +wish or self-satisfaction comprising the waking dream of +our social unconscious. We have yet to recognize that +here again in the oscillations of its unconscious <i>form</i> is to +be traced the bidimensional alternation of our own self-reflection +as determined by the “good” or “bad” aspect +that is our social as well as our individual advantage.</p> + +<p>Here, in the contrasting circumstances of its affiliation +with the social unconscious on the one hand and of its +personal isolation within the individual unconscious on +the other, is doubtless the dynamic element determining +the vacillation of form that comprises the periodic alternations +of the sociological bidimension generally. After +all, what is “good” for me is that which is socially +approved, what is “bad” for me is that which brings me +into disfavour with the social consensus composing my +environment. If the social unconscious about me is +willing to connive with my individual unconscious and +applaud my egoistic self-strivings, all is well. If, on the +contrary, it withholds acquiescence and repudiates my +self-inverted interests, my state is a correspondingly +<span class="pagenum" id="p_91">[91]</span>unhappy one. This accounts for our artificial dependence +upon the social give-and-take with which we hedge ourselves +about and is the basis of the periodic alternations +of mood that make up our day. Being unconscious, one +is a prey to the unconscious about him. Being self-reflective, +one reacts to the impressions of a self-reflective +environment. This oscillation of mood, depending upon +whether our adaptation toward the social consensus is +assimilative or discordant, explains also the alternations +of mood observable in the contrasting reactions characteristic +of certain pathological states, as it is the basis of +the daily variation of mood registered in the neurotic +and in the normal constitution. It is here, too, that is +found the basis of the pleasure-pain shift represented in +our mood alternations of elation and depression, whether +existing in the diurnal variations characterizing our +normal mood alternations or in the more pronounced +reactions characterizing the extremes of affective tone +presented in manic-depressive insanity.</p> + +<p>It cannot be too strongly urged that, however intrinsically +opposite these extremes of mood may seem, they +are in essence identical. For, in reality, these seeming +antitheses represent but the obverse aspects of one and +the same bidimensional portrait of personal advantage. +As regards this intrinsic identity between such seemingly +opposite mood-tones it is interesting to note the etymological +concurrence in the Anglo-Saxon root <i>saed</i> (English +sot, meaning filled), in which we find alike the source of +such apparently unrelated derivatives of current usage as +the words <i>sad</i> and <i>satisfied</i>. There is, indeed, an unescapable +concomitance in the mental attitudes of joy and +sorrow, of elation and depression, of satisfaction and +sadness. This coincidence is but an altered form of the +common alternative of good and bad, of praise and blame, +of getting and of not getting, and, as always, its presence +denotes the conflict involved in our inverted self-interest.</p> + +<p>Doubtless to this bidimensional alternation are also +traceable such sociological antitheses as one may witness +<span class="pagenum" id="p_92">[92]</span>in the contrary reactions expressed in our various economic +and political factions. This one, failing to suspect the +element of traditional self-reflection determining his so-called +party affiliation, registers his personal allegiance +under the socially augmented symbol or principle embodying +the standard that is <i>his</i> private absolutism or right; +that one, no less oblivious of the part he is automatically +enacting in his character of party promoter, assumes the +symbolic rôle that tends to further the party principle +representative of the absolute criterion that is <i>his</i> right. +So, too, are to be explained the alternations of reaction +represented in the social antitheses of prohibition and +anti-prohibition. The anti-prohibitionists are by imputation +the ultra-liberal, the prohibitionists are by imputation +the ultra-conservative element, but both are in point +of fact equally the dupes of the personal reaction that is +their own self-reflection. For both, in their unconscious +response to what is commonly called “early training,” +equally embody expressions of their original infantile +reaction to the opposed issues involved in the social +pretence of “good” and “bad.”</p> + +<p>Extending into every phase of our social life, it is this +bilateral motive that is likewise the failure of the schools. +With credit, praise or privilege and their opposites +(depending upon whether the child “succeeds” or “fails” +as judged by the bidimensional standard of good +and bad, of praise or blame constituting the arbitrary +<i>picture</i> of his personal conduct), it happens that, through +an unconscious substitution of the image of the child’s +person for the function of the child’s personality, the +entire incentive of the schools becomes ulterior and artificial. +The so-called liberal schools of to-day are in no +better case. Despite their much ado about advanced +methods that will give greater freedom to the child they +afford mere imitations of freedom. But this is freedom +in aspect, not in function. It is merely the ideal of +freedom contemplating its own image. Thus it is futile to +attempt to alter our situation through recourse to mere +<span class="pagenum" id="p_93">[93]</span>progressive methods of education. The elimination of +formal standards of efficiency is likewise unavailing. For +the ulterior is present still. We find it present in the +bidimensional attitude that actuates the entire pedagogic +system with its underlying idea of <i>preparation</i>. Apparently +it is not realized that this element of the preparatory +or ulterior is the criterion also of the teachers, being likewise +the basis of their own promotion as it is the standard +of promotion in the world at large. But whatever is +preparatory is based upon the illusion of the personal +image. It is commentative, premeditated, moralistic, +and substitutes a mental impression of life in place of +life itself. When we offer an image of life for which we +seek to “prepare” the child, the very basis of our educational +programme becomes pictorial and untrue. Life +knows naught of images in the personal sense. Life is +the functioning of interests in constructive activities. +The rewards of such activities flow naturally out of them +and consist in a common earning for daily needs in common +daily pursuits. The child, if given the opportunity, will +learn to construct useful and beautiful things and his +only reward will be the natural reward accruing from the +intrinsic value, social and æsthetic, of the work produced. +When schools will have become the productive plants of +natural childish industry, there will not any longer be the +absurd invention by the schools of ulterior rewards such +as now supply the artificial stimulus necessary to lend +vitality to their essential dullness. It will not be necessary +for teachers to stimulate the industry of their pupils +through resort to extraneous “merits” in palliation for +their own lack of joy in the natural creativeness of spontaneous +childhood.</p> + +<p>There is, perhaps, no more subtle expression of the +bidimensional replacement than in the psychological +counter-impaction of the marital neurosis. In this +conjugal vis-à-vis unconscious self-reflection is at flood-tide. +This is why, in the opposite extensions of the +conjugal conflict, there are presented concomitantly in +<span class="pagenum" id="p_94">[94]</span>husband and wife such familiar antitheses as are presented +alternately in the single individual, as, for example, the +opposed reactions of mania and depression, the psychasthenic +and hysterical extremes, as well as the contrasts of +homosexuality and paranoia. Where such reciprocal +conditions exist, the opposite rôles are in every instance +unconsciously assumed, of course, with entire consistency +by the opposite parties in question. This explains also +the anomaly presented in so seemingly contradictory a +spectacle as that of a man of outwardly serious deportment +enjoying vicariously, through the cosmetics and extravagances +of self-adornment worn by a narcistically inverted +wife, the satisfactions of an unconscious exhibitionism. +It is the law of the marital neurosis, as of the +balance-scale, that its termini are diametrically opposite +and that their variation is inverse one to another.</p> + +<p>The unconscious mechanism described by Freud under +the term “psychic ambivalence” (Bleuler) is of all +reactions perhaps the least understood, but, because of +its invariable association with neurotic processes, it is +as important biologically as any of the mechanisms that +psychoanalysis has disclosed to us. Yet again, in this +quality of contrast inherent in the manifestations of +neurotic states, there are represented merely the two +opposed extremes of reaction due to the division of +impulse that is inseparable from the alternation of aspect +we have traced to the illusion of the bidimensional self-image. +This replacement, as we have seen, occurs normally +as well as neurotically, socially as well as individually. +It is again the to-and-fro of the pendulum of good +and bad. It is again but the oscillation that is our +obsessive reaction to the make-believe of the self-reflective +and ulterior.</p> + +<p>The truth is that we prefer our impressions of life to an +understanding of life, and in the ambivalence of our +response toward others, our reaction is friendly or antagonistic +only in the degree in which they correspond or +fail to correspond with our personally preconceived +<span class="pagenum" id="p_95">[95]</span>impressions. In the present ambivalent scheme of +things, the ultimate poignancy of one’s grief is the +element of secret pleasure it affords to others. The daily +newspapers, seeking unconsciously to make capital of our +human frailty in this regard, are ever alert to publish +under glaringly conspicuous head-lines the most startling +crimes and calamities. Under captions giving notice of +some inexpressible “Horror” (a term supposedly conveying +a sense of repugnance) they attain in fact their +most intriguing effects. The newspapers are wise. They +have read us before giving themselves to us to read and +so are canny to supply the grim details we love to hear of +another’s loss or hurt.⁠<a id="FNanchor_18_18" href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> It is this isolation of sorrow that +is its desolation and its bitterness. Yet it may be traced +wholly to the unconscious tyranny of this bidimensional +division within us that we find the pleasure we do find, +however adroitly repressed, in the unhappiness or calamity +of those about us. It is, of course, not another’s calamity +that is the real cause of our satisfaction, but in the +ambivalence of our attitude as we contemplate his misfortune +we feel, by contrast, or in a <i>comparative</i> count so +much <i>more</i> fortunate than he. It is again but the projection +<span class="pagenum" id="p_96">[96]</span>of the bidimensional division within each of us +individually as a reflection of the division within all of +us socially. In this comparison of ourselves with others +there is again reflected the bidimensional alternative that +is the fanciful self-advantage of the personal image.</p> + +<p>Turn where we will, this same phenomenon of mental +alternation based on the bidimensional image looms +ineffaceably before us. Opposed to the <i>mental image</i> +“male” we project the <i>mental image</i> “female,” in +contrast to the <i>concept</i> “religion” we place the <i>concept</i> +“science,” against the <i>psychological attitude</i> of the artist +stands the <i>psychological reaction</i> of the critic. Because of +this mentally pictorial outlook among us, we fail to realize +that in the unconsciously objective approach of the +artist there is embodied an attitude that is as truly a +criticism or evaluation of life as is the objective attitude +of the critic toward the expression of the artist. We +do not realize that in our unconscious personal alternation +an element of criticism or evaluation everywhere +substitutes the fallacy of a mental state toward life for +the conscious reality of a state of life itself. Our bidimensional +self-reflection is thus equally the impediment +of art as of life. The insidious element of personal self-reflection +is the fatal decoy no less of portrayer than of +participant.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, in the spirit of the more subjective +artist what we sense is his insistent sway toward a self-realization +that is impersonal. We feel that in the measure +in which he yields it submission his expression becomes +less and less a reproduction of life and more and more +an actualization of life itself. This is because in the +thought or feeling expressed through the art-forms of +such a personality, he is himself not so much the causative +or self-conscious agent reflecting a state of mind <i>in relation +to</i> life as it seems, but rather the conscious link in a sequence +that <i>identifies</i> him with a condition of life as it is. Thus +again the truer the artist, the more he tends to round the +orbit of his personality in a conscious universe of relativity; +<span class="pagenum" id="p_97">[97]</span>the more imitative the artist, the more he tends to +oscillate uncertainly between the alternate phases that +merely reflect the assumed absolute of his own ego.</p> + +<p>So it is with our alternations, social and individual, +pathological and normal, as they exist on every hand. +There is the precoid and the hysteric, the homosexual +and the paranoiac, the religionist and the sceptic, the +moralist and the voluptuary. It is the world-old tragedy +of getting and not getting what one wants, and in the +self-satisfaction of the one as in the self-abnegation of +the other the element of self-consequence is equal and +identical. It is the ineptitude of virtue that it is but the +bidimensional reverse of vice. Generosity, like humility, +contains its ambivalent element of pride. Though from +time to time we may dispense no slight favours, yet +always we demand to hold the reins of power within our +own hands. Let our protégés presume for a moment to +assert their own individuality and straightway we rein +them in. Indeed, if we will look into this, we shall +realize that it is precisely the person toward whom we +are most lavish of beneficence that is the one of whose +native and unsponsored expression we are most jealously +critical. The fact is that our virtues are really too good +to be true and that our amenities, after all, reflect only +our own self-advantage. Thus, from the point of view of +good and bad, our lusts and our repressions are but +interchangeable adaptations of the central theme of self, +and in the alternations entailed in the popularly conceded +distinctions assumed as morality and immorality there is +preserved under merely reversed aspects this identical +fetish of one’s own self-image.</p> + +<p>Even in the sphere of psychology itself there is this +same division inseparable from the personal absolute or +the private arrogation that underlies the assumed right +of each individual as reflected in our social contrasts of +good and bad. For example, the propriety of studying +the “merely motor expressions” of the behaviourists is +regarded with grave question by the introspectionists, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_98">[98]</span>while the behaviourists as ardently doubt whether introspective +studies are the legitimate matter of psychology +at all. The futility of dissension is again its two-sidedness. +What we omit to reckon with when we consider the +vying of these two schools with one another is the element +of the personal prerogative within them that unconsciously +goads each to an intolerance of the other. For all +“rights” being mutually opposed to and exclusive of +one another, the “right,” or opinion, underlying any +system except the system that is one’s own is, of its +nature, inadmissible. In the irreconcilable assertions of +the multifarious opinions of men, whether occurring in +group or in single expression, there is always to be traced +this underlying motive of personal right corresponding to +the private prerogative of each. By rights I do not mean +the natural rights that are universal and common, but +the personal rights that are autocratic and pre-emptive. +But whether our divisions be national, political, religious, +economic, professional or familial, their underlying +meaning is the same. So that, in this antithetical +“response” characterizing the periodic alternations of +our bidimensional self-reflection, there is registered a +reaction of the organism that invariably escapes the +attention of either disputant—the reaction, namely, of +the will-to-self or of the private privilege coincident with +an absolute basis of adjudication. As long as there +remains this element of unconscious alternation due to +the self-reflective interest that now actuates human +motives, students of science, also, are as powerless to +bring to their problems an attitude of disinterestedness as +are our national delegates when they attempt to consider +the problems involving all the subtle self-interest of a +peace conference.</p> + +<p>The really classic division of opinion in the world—the +division that is of major importance even amid academic +fields of thought—is the conflict between Science and +Religion. That the religionists, in claiming the undoubted +authenticity of sources confirmatory of the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_99">[99]</span>truth of revealed religion, have offered indisputable +“proof” of the validity of their position, cannot be +denied. That the scientists’ assertion of the doctrine of +spontaneous evolution as opposed to the revealed truths +of Theism rests equally upon the evidence of incontrovertible +“proof” leaves likewise no room for doubt. +In both instances, however, the proofs of each are acceptable +only to the advocates of their own particular view +and not to the advocates of the view that is opposite +their own. But of what avail are the proofs of a position +which are valid only in the minds which have anteriorly +set out to prove it? What dependence is to be placed in +the intellectual verifications of truth which are acceptable +only to intellects which demonstrate them but which, in +the view of those of an opposite trend, remain for ever +inaccessible? These are reflections which necessarily +force us to question very seriously our objective intellectualizations. +If, in so wide and vital a division as +that between Religion and Science, the “logic” on which +is based the claim of each is so completely without +meaning, beyond its facility to flatter established prepossessions, +it is time that our “reasoning” upon all +issues be summoned to account on suspicion that our +position is, in every instance, merely the unconscious +alternation due to the bidimensional image of gain or +loss that is one’s personal self-reflection.</p> + +<p>This blindness of the personal restriction within our +subjective life is the more interesting when one considers +the far more impersonal outlook that often characterizes +man’s consciousness within the sphere of his objective +interests. With the growing expanse of man’s consciousness +there has arisen the widely inclusive and impersonal +field of preventive medicine with its essential preoccupation +with the communal weal. Through this wider +sociological approach we have come gradually to realize the +incomparably greater significance of activities directed +toward safeguarding the health of the community or of +the group-life as contrasted with interests directed to +<span class="pagenum" id="p_100">[100]</span>the personal cure of the individual as a single element +within the social group. We have begun to recognize +that where, through recourse to measures of public +hygiene, it is possible to control the general sources of +disease, conditions are rendered such that there may be +no need to treat disease-process within the single individual. +In Panama, for example, where, through a far-reaching +programme of civic hygiene, the malaria-breeding +organism has been almost wholly exterminated, the +medical and sociological functions of the community have +become so completely merged that with the appearance +of the disease-bearing Anopheles it is no longer the +physician but the civic authorities who are consulted.</p> + +<p>Such are the signs of the broadening communal spirit +that is coming to influence more and more the various +measures of improvement amid the objective conditions +of life about us. But, within the subjective sphere of +man’s activities, his outlook is no whit more encompassing +to-day than in the moment of his earliest quickenings of +consciousness. The reason is not far to seek. Man’s +subjective life is throughout overlaid and oppressed by +his inverted obsession of personal acquisition. Viewing +everything in the light of the reflection cast by his own +image, a broad communal programme of life is for him +as yet subjectively impossible. An outlook that would +render his position a relative one and reveal it as but +contributory to the organic life as a whole would straightway +menace the illusion of his personal prerogative and +rob him of what is now for him the basis of all his experience +and the sum of his personality. He does not see +that his “experience,” by reason of its inverted absolutism, +wholly lacks the support of reality. He does not +see that what he calls his personality is his successful +collusion in the collective unconscious about him at the +price of his habitual concession to impressions not +primarily his own. This is why the psychopathologist is +still futilely endeavouring to understand his patients from +the static, personal standpoint of his own dogmatic +<span class="pagenum" id="p_101">[101]</span>absolutism rather than from the position of a relative +and inclusive interpretation of consciousness. This is +why the objective analyst remains always outside the +real problem of the social disharmony represented in the +nervous and mental disorders of the individuals by whom +he is confronted. The truth is, he is himself a part of +the disorder which in his unconscious absolutism he is +presuming to treat in others. The tendency is one that +exists among us all. For the taint of an absolutism within +the social personality involves each of us equally as a +contributing element in its fictitious structure. Hence +the ultimate futility of our constantly shifting “methods.” +Hence the ever-recurring therapeutic fads that represent +first one and then another absolute system of cure. But +though each such system may for a while claim our +support, in due course it fades again and is in turn succeeded +by another in accordance with the varying phases +of our social alternations. Our enthusiasm, as well as +its decline, must after all be reckoned merely as the +alternate reverberations of the social consciousness in +response to the unconscious alternations of the bidimensional +absolute which has its existence in the individual +and of which the social manifestation is but a +reproduction.</p> + +<p>As the neurosis is generic, involving the social system +no less than the individual element, the system of psychoanalysis, +as well as the individuals composing it, is equally +included under its indictment. From Freud, therefore, +as from the rest of us there is due the acknowledgment of +the inevitable part occupied by psychoanalysis in the +systematization or unconsciousness that is the social +neurosis. The private assumption of each of us to the +contrary notwithstanding, we who have followed Freud +could not possibly have been inspired in our work by a +conscious interest in the disorders of personality represented +in the social anomaly of the neurosis. Being ourselves +unconsciously involved in the social neurosis about +us, we have been urged forward through an unconscious +<span class="pagenum" id="p_102">[102]</span>or <i>personal</i> interest in order to divert our minds from our +own implication in its <i>social</i> significance. To this end it +has been unconsciously our endeavour to direct assiduous +attention only to the specific manifestations of the +neurosis as it exists in individuals supposedly other than +ourselves. <i>In brief, we have been diligently occupied with +the objective study of the neurosis in its obvious appearance +in others as individuals presumably separate from ourselves, +in order to escape the subjective acknowledgment of its +actual presence within ourselves as contributory and interrelated +elements in our common social consciousness</i>.</p> + +<p>With each of us, the real motive has been the unconscious +grudge of our personal involvement in a world-wide +enslavement to an artificial precept such as can only +oscillate between the alternations resultant upon our +self-limited bidimension of “good and bad.” When we +can lay aside the incentives of personal self-defence and +view our own reactions with impartial self-composure, +we shall realize that it has been our own unconscious that +first quickened the compensative defence-reactions which +later culminated in the objective system we know to-day +as psychoanalysis. For, with psychoanalysis as with +other systems, its real incitement is found in the inevitable +“come-back” that is the organism’s response to its +sense of affront before the illusion of the self-image. +Again, it is the automatic alternation resultant upon a +basis of counter-relatedness inseparable from the delusion +of the personal absolute as contrasted with the relativity +of the individual in respect to life as an organic whole. +Again, it is the artificial presupposition of our own +“rightness” that is the strongest determinative of our +conduct, and to this secret autocracy that is our own +personal absolutism we have rendered everything +subservient.</p> + +<p>Men like to say that God created them, but in truth it +is they who have created “God.” We like to employ +this anthropomorphic image of absolute authority to +our personal advantage. Rewarding the good and +<span class="pagenum" id="p_103">[103]</span>punishing the bad in accordance with the alternations +coincident with the bidimensional aspect of an absolute +Deity, this image of supreme authority represents merely +the projection of the personal absolute based on the +alternations of our own self-reflection. I do not doubt +that beneath this vicarious image of a fanciful father-supremacy +there ever remains the true and abiding +principle that is the underlying reality of life. But, in +the place of this principle of reality that is the unsponsored +soul of man, we have timidly substituted such +temporary cheats as are adapted only to lull our fancies +with imperialistic dreams of personal empire. Indeed, in +the personal projection actuating the social anomaly of +religious belief the inverted bias comprising our own +self-image has its strongest lodgment. It is here that +the collective mind has tricked itself to its collective +undoing. For in the current expression of our social +inversion resident in this absolute arbiter of the moral +law or of “good and bad” lies the very nucleus of our +human pathology. And it is my position that the +pretence, underlying the personal adjustment based upon +early inculcated issues of self-interest and concealed beneath +our specious determinants of “good” and “bad,” +is no less the underlying fallacy of psychoanalysis. For, +in its attempt to offset neurotic disharmonies due to +an unconscious repression of the sexual life of the individual, +psychoanalysis has recourse to adjustments that +are the mere <i>alternative</i> of repression—a repression +legislated by the dictates of an equally unconscious and +repressed society, be its expression opportunistic, sublimative, +or <i>en règle</i>.</p> + +<p>Thus psychoanalysis, likewise, presents a policy that +is but a desperate alternation between the only two +issues that are available on the basis of the absolute +criterion such as inevitably obtains in our present bidimensional +or pictorially constellated scheme of consciousness, +namely, a policy in which the reaction of the individual +can only be in the direction of the reverse or +<span class="pagenum" id="p_104">[104]</span>opposite extension. Hence, however personally displeasing +to us, there is the need that we who are psychoanalysts +somehow recognize that we, also, are unconsciously subordinated +to the moral dilemma that is the reflection of +our own self-interest. There is the need that we see +clearly that psychoanalysis, too, is still under the domination +of a falsely imbued impression of good and bad with +its attendant issue in the alternations of an unconscious +social resistance.</p> + +<p>This illusory antithesis of getting or of not getting what +one wants, this irreconcilable ache of man’s unconscious +is traceable again and again to the false assumptions of +a self-reflective absolutism as arrogated by the individual +as a single part or element in contradistinction to our +organic consciousness as a whole. It is in the absolutism +of the part that consists the dissociation of the whole; +it is in the relativity of the part that consists the integrity +of the whole. Within the sphere of man’s consciousness +our fallacies of observation lie in the absolutism of the +observer. On the other hand, in surrendering the bidimensional +or pictorial illusion inseparable from the fixed +position of the observer for the tridimensional actuality +of our organic participation in life as an inclusive totality, +we automatically yield it the full-dimensional component +comprising the extension that is our confluent societal +unity and which, in abrogating the artificial image of a +personal and unconscious absolute, constitutes life in the +encompassing scheme of the relativity of consciousness. +In such a scheme there is offered to the dissociated personality, +single and social, neurotic and normal, a readjustment +that is fundamental. I believe it is only in the +acceptance of the societal consciousness of man that there +lies the ultimate step for each of us. For the principle +of the relativity of consciousness is an organically unequivocal +one. In its individual realization consists our +societal integrity. In its societal realization consists +our individual integrity. Only in the co-ordination of +the two lies the fulfilment of our organic personality.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_105">[105]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_II"> + PART II + <br> + THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE NEUROSES + </h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_106">[106]</span></p> +<blockquote class="constrain"> +<p>Personally, I am more and more convinced that the cure for +sentiment, as for all the weakened forms of strong things, is +not to refuse to feel it, but to get to feel <i>more</i> in it. This +seems to me to make the whole difference between a true and +a false ‘asceticism.’ The false goes for getting rid of what +one is afraid of; the true goes for using it and making it serve. +The one empties, the other fills; the one abstracts, the other +concentrates. Don’t you think half the troubles of life +come from being wrongly <i>afraid</i> of things—especially afraid +of oneself? (February, 1890.)</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Richard Lewis Nettleship.</span></p> +</blockquote> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_107">[107]</span></p> +<div class="chapter"> + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I_1"> + CHAPTER I + <br> + ANALYSIS OF FREUD’S DYNAMIC AND INDIVIDUALISTIC CONCEPTION OF THE NEUROSES + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>The following pages are an endeavour to determine the +conditions, social and individual, that constitute the +health of the mental organism. What the health of the +mental organism is, has not as yet been adequately +described. On the somatic side, of course, one defines +health as the harmonious functioning of the parts comprising +the organism as a whole. But, as regards the +constitution of the mental life in its totality, we have no +such inclusive interpretation of the condition requisite +to harmonious functioning. Although the psychopathologist +is constantly engaged in efforts to restore the distorted +mind to a condition of harmony and health, one +finds nowhere a satisfactory statement as to just what +constitutes the state of harmony which it is his avowed +purpose to establish. Health, of course, is synonymous +with the harmony of the whole. But from the point of +view of consciousness we have not even determined as +yet what is the organism as a whole or what are the parts +constitutive of it. The psychiatrist is habitually preoccupied +with the outer features of mental disharmony +which the method of extrinsic observation has brought +to his personal notice. It is evident, therefore, that his +conception of consciousness is automatically withheld from +a subjective inclusion of the organism in its entirety, and +that it compasses only the particular aspect that falls +within the limits of his own particular observation. It +is this discrepancy which I should like, if possible, to +isolate from its present personal involvement, with a view +to the possibility of a clearer understanding of our mental +<span class="pagenum" id="p_108">[108]</span>problems. To this end my recourse can only be such an +objective inquiry as may be the more hospitable because +of its subjective inclusiveness.</p> + +<p>In pre-Freudian days, as is well known, the psychopathologist +who had to do with a nervous disorder turned +quite automatically in the direction to which the patient +pointed, or to the symptom indicated. Whether a paralysis, +an obsession, a phobia or what not, this symptom +or sign constituted for the physician no less than for the +patient the exclusive focus of interest. Thus in the +domain of nervous and mental disharmonies the entire +field of inquiry occupied itself in earlier times with a +mere obvious index of disease rather than with the +disease itself.</p> + +<p>With the advent of Freud the situation became wholly +changed. Through his discovery that the disturbance +was neither <i>what</i> nor <i>where</i> it appeared to be from the +clinical point of view, Freud came to explain it upon +grounds which led to a fundamentally altered conception +of the hysterias and their kindred manifestations. Viewing +the situation as a dynamic one, Freud regarded the +symptom in question in the light of an unruly element +within the central personality, whence, in his view, this +central personality became, as it were, the controlling seat +of government. It was Freud’s position that this presiding +principle must be held amenable for fostering within +its domain so discordant an element as that whereof the +symptom gave notice, and accordingly, it was to this +central principle that Freud henceforth addressed his +investigations.</p> + +<p>This position of Freud’s, in which he regards the +essential mechanism of the neurosis as a symptom-substitution +representing in substance a psychic transposition +or a shift of affect from intrinsic source to +arbitrary aspect, embodies the whole significance of +psychoanalysis. It is a significance that marks the +outset of our understanding of the real nature of the +neuroses. For it was this conception that first posited +<span class="pagenum" id="p_109">[109]</span>as the background of consciousness an integral personality, +from which, as a basis, it was sought to discover the factors +operative in causing the division within it represented by +the neurosis. But just as the enduring distinction of +Freud’s work lies in this conception of a central totality +of personality constituting the substrate of the conscious +life, so its limitation consists precisely in the erroneous +position to which Freud assigned this totality of consciousness. +I believe that the many inconsistencies and +half-baked deductions of psychoanalysis, with the consequent +deadlock to a truly comprehensive interpretation +of the neuroses, are due precisely to this limitation +of the conception of the neurosis within the bounds of +the individual consciousness. When we have realized +that this conception of a totality of personality is biologically +tenable only <i>from the point of view of an inclusive +societal consciousness and not of the circumscribed +individual consciousness</i>, we shall, I believe, have taken +the essential step toward dispelling the confusion and +lack of coherence within the psychoanalytic system as +it now stands.</p> + +<p>As one looks back, it is not difficult to see how Freud’s +necessarily conventional, clinical point of view—the outgrowth +of personal inclination and tradition—unconsciously +bound him to a conceptual outlook that was +necessarily circumscribed and limited, and how he was +thus unwittingly led into a contradiction of the ultimate +significance of the very conception which he had himself +originated.</p> + +<p>In the nature of Freud’s postulate that a psychic transposition +is the basis of the neurosis, his thesis assumes a +breach in the integrity of consciousness. This breach +within consciousness is due to the effort of a delimited +area within it to establish itself as a separate, self-governing +unit. His position envisages a conflict entailing a +dissociation of the personality due to the secession of one +or more of its integral constituents. Hence the real +crux of Freud’s thesis was the determination of the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_110">[110]</span>essential incompatibility between an <i>independent part</i> +(dissociation) and the <i>coherent whole</i> (unification) within +the sphere of consciousness—a conception which seems to +me as beautiful as it is true. But in the bias of Freud’s +own individualistically circumscribed consciousness, with +the inevitable separation or dissociation it entailed, Freud +failed to recognize the implication of his own thesis. He +did not see that he was himself unconsciously held +within a position bearing the essential feature of the +very disorder which presumably he was regarding from +a non-partisan, unified point of view. He did not see +that his own position was precisely that of a separate, +delimited unit, within the totality of consciousness, +represented in the dissociation of his own personal bias. +There is here a consideration which Freud, and the rest +of us along with Freud, have permitted to pass by completely +unnoticed, due to our own unconscious embroilment +within the limitations of our circumscribed individual +consciousness. While theoretically advocating +unification as the basis of consciousness, Freud was +himself actually seeking unconsciously to reconcile with it +a dissociation within himself. It is this self-circumventing +illusion of the restricted individualistic consciousness +which, if one may judge from the degree to which it has +underlain my own work and that of others, is the essential +fallacy of psychoanalysis.</p> + +<p>In reality, then, Freud set out to account for the +seemingly actual upon grounds of the seemingly actual. +He did not see that the very medium of human experience, +as <i>seemingly</i> actual and as commonly accepted by us to +be actual, is in truth already biased by impressions that +are only virtual. In short, Freud did not realize that +our own so-called consciousness is unconsciousness. He +assumed that the analysis or self-examination to which +he subjected himself and his patients was disinterested +and authentic in its inclusiveness of the personality as a +whole. And all the while he failed to realize that the +personality as a whole, as embodied in the self-limited +<span class="pagenum" id="p_111">[111]</span>consciousness of the individual, is itself imbued with all +the prejudice of self-interest and with all the bias of +dissociation constitutive of the habitual medium of our +collective unconscious. As this habitual medium is +actuated by individual tradition and separativeness, it +is necessarily based throughout upon motives of personal +preference. With an outlook distorted by personal preference +(the unconscious wish), it is not possible to view +the processes of life and its disharmonies with freedom +and clarity. From a standpoint of private prejudice it +is not possible to envisage private prejudice. Unconsciousness +cannot compass unconsciousness. The wish +cannot assail the wish. In our present mode of personalism +and unconsciousness the attainment of consciousness +is of its nature an impossible task. Thus the bias of +Freud renders untenable the position of Freud when he +assumes the abrogation of bias, since his position has itself +arisen from the unsuspected bias of his own habituated +or preferential mode.</p> + +<p>It is this unconsciousness within ourselves which we +psychoanalysts have let escape us and which necessarily +gives to our work, for all its impressiveness, the conventional +curtailment of the vicarious and unreal. As an +illustration of what I mean, there is somewhere in the +“Traumdeutung” an amusingly acute psychoanalytic +touch in Freud’s interpretation of the dream of a patient. +This patient had on one day stoutly protested that +dreams were not invariable wish-fulfilments, and on the +following day she brought to Freud a dream in which +she was represented planning a summer outing with her +mother-in-law whom she cordially disliked. Here, she +said, was proof that dreams were not necessarily wish-fulfilments, +and a superficial glance would seem to give +her the decisive score. But Freud was alert. “Quite +the contrary,” he replied with analytic acuity, “you +have only furnished additional proof that dreams <i>are</i> +wish-fulfilments, for it is precisely in your wish to prove +to me that dreams are not wish-fulfilments that you have +<span class="pagenum" id="p_112">[112]</span>dreamed that you are going summering with your detested +mother-in-law—a dream which could not more amply +satisfy your wish to prove the incorrectness of my theory.” +So speaks Freud with triumphant naïveté, and, with a +complacency that is no less naïve, we who are Freudians +are still applauding with unstinted assent the subjective +fallacy of his objective logic.</p> + +<p>Like Freud, we have not seen that every dream of our +own contains no less the identical wish to prove ourselves +right. Like Freud, we have not seen that it is our wish +that the dream shall contain the element of a basic and +invariable sexual factor in substantiation of the thesis +of us Freudians. It is the fallacy of the dreamer in the +foregoing incident that she sets out with the absolutism +of the personal premise; but so do we—the premise, +namely, of personal “rightness.” Thus we are in no +different case from the patient whom Freud cites as +manufacturing a dream to prove her position right. +But while the wish of this dreamer—in its purpose in +direct opposition to our own—stands out in sharp, +unmistakable outline before us, our own wish—in its +nature identical with hers, namely, the wish to prove +ourselves right—remains enveloped still in the obfuscating +mists of our own unconscious. There is here the +organic inaccessibility of the wish to the wisher, of the +dream to the dreamer. There is here the blindness of +the unconscious preference with its basis in the personal +absolute, and it is the need of us Freudians to recognize +that the blight of its inconsistency is upon us all.⁠<a id="FNanchor_19_19" href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + +<p>How dominant is Freud’s own individuating wish or +personal preference one may realize who reads his essay +on “The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement” and +witnesses the bitterness of his feeling toward any who +gainsay him. How strongly we share with Freud the +influence of personal bias may be seen in our own bitterness +when others would gainsay us. It is so with us all. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_113">[113]</span>It is the morbid compulsion of self-vindication that +underlies all “rightness.” It is the habitual illusion of +our own self-centralization, a less wieldy but more explicit +term for what we have come to know theoretically—that +is, in other people and as in no way touching our own +personal feeling—as the unconscious wish-motive. For +self-vindication and the unconscious wish are one.</p> + +<p>And so, objectively, Freud is quite “right” in asserting +that a basic sexual factor underlies the dream. Do not +his own and his patients’ dreams prove him so? And +Jung is, objectively, no less “right” in claiming that +Freud is mistaken—that dreams are not primarily +motivated by a sexual wish. Do not his dreams and +those of his patients equally corroborate <i>his</i> view? And +so with Adler and his theory, and so with any of us and +his theory. For notwithstanding that the theories of +all of us are severally opposed one to another, yet all of +us are equally “right,” as may be equally substantiated +by the dreams of each. The explanation is simple. The +“rightness” of each is the wish of each and the wish is +father to the dream!</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_114">[114]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II_1"> + CHAPTER II + <br> + FORMULATION OF AN ORGANIC OR SOCIETAL BASIS OF INTERPRETATION + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>Within the various fields of scientific investigation, +there is the established precept that we set out from the +simplest assignable elements as a basis for all future +inquiry. Of such, for example, is the ground-structure +of the chemical and the biological sciences, and it is +likewise upon ultimately irreducible units that the +furthest abstractions of mathematics rest their foundation. +But in our approach to the biological elements +of consciousness we have proceeded upon no such soundly +established principle. Unconsciously presupposing here +and taking for granted there, we have reasoned from +premises that have lacked the warrant of elementary +support. Hence in the study of consciousness we have, +in our unconsciousness, unwittingly slurred our obligations +to the very first principle of scientific method.</p> + +<p>This circumstance, however, is not one toward which +we need feel scornful. Our blunder has been inevitable. +In the study of the elements of consciousness a factor is +introduced into scientific reckoning that completely +reverses habitual perspectives, and to trace with scientific +conscientiousness this inexorable reversal of the personal +mode requires of the student very special laboratory +qualification. For, in turning to the study of the basis +of consciousness, we are ourselves the primary elements +of our own inquiry. Ourselves unconscious, we have +attempted to fold back upon ourselves and, from a basis +of prejudice, to recapture our primary, unprejudiced +basis. From a now sophisticated personal <i>adaptation</i> of +consciousness we have sought to regain the native, unsophisticated +<span class="pagenum" id="p_115">[115]</span><i>principle</i> of consciousness of which our +personal adaptation is the unconscious abrogation. +Clearly, this task is of its nature self-contradictory. +Only in the measure in which we realize that unconsciousness +is our habitual mode and so allow it to cease automatically +to dominate our lives may we come to study +dispassionately the essential structure of consciousness +through an unbiased examination of the primary elements +of which it is composed.</p> + +<p>Life has its beginnings in a continuous organic medium. +Within this common organic medium our original infant +organisms constitute identical elements. What we later +regard as individuals are but corpuscles in a homogeneous, +societal tissue. Organically, or from the point of view of +their common and inherent affectivity, there exists no +discrimination among these elements. Race or national +separation, social or caste distinction have not entered +into them. These are divergences that have no place +in the organic origins of life. As integral members of an +original organic matrix, the elements representing our +primary infant organisms are no more differentiated +psychically one from another than they are psychically +differentiated from the life-source or the maternal organisms +from which they have sprung. The mental life, being as +yet wholly subjective and unaware, is simple, unitary. It +is one with the organism’s inherent feeling. Subjective +feeling, indeterminate and unqualified, is, in the primary +organism, the sum of experience, the compass of life. +Primarily the organism’s subjective feeling is its all. +And as with the growing perception of outer objects life +enlarges, this subjective mode is unaltered still. Our +primary objective experience merges into continuity +with inherent feeling. It is added to, included in the +subjective life. So that in its incipient rapport with the +world of objectivity, life maintains still a fluid, undifferentiated, +confluent mode. For life is primarily affective. +In the affect consists men’s common ground. In the +subjective affect lies organic bed-rock. Here in the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_116">[116]</span>common inherency of native feeling is the primal +menstruum of our human consciousness.</p> + +<p>But there suddenly comes an interruption to this state +of unification. The parent, as spokesman of a world of +unconscious collusion in the defence of self or the exploitation +of separativeness, strikes in sharply upon this unitary +mode of being with a wedge of interdiction that marks +the beginning of a cleavage within the personality which +the subsequent years tend increasingly to widen and +secure.⁠<a id="FNanchor_20_20" href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> With the sudden arrest of this early, unified +mode through the entrance of the extraneous strictures +of command and prohibition (suggestion or repression), +the personality of the organism becomes automatically +divided. For with command or reproof there is introduced +the element of the ulterior. Organic harmony and confluence +are no more. Into the life of confluence is now +thrust the rude encroachment of personal motive—of +motive based upon the outcome of promise or threat, of +gain or forfeit. The inherent flow, the organic current +of experience is now artificially checked. Henceforward +expression is no longer spontaneous. Instead, a programme +of conduct-with-a-view-to takes its place and +becomes the dominant order of our activities. In the +face of every summons the question must first be weighed—Will +it be well or ill with <i>me?</i> Upon the issue of gain +or loss depends the response—the issue of gain or loss for +the now separated, individuated organism. An adjustment +to the ends of self-interest is demanded. Everything +is at stake; a fitting policy must be devised and +the proper combination must be sought. Thus is obtruded +self-consciousness, self-interest or that separation from its +basic continuum that is incidental to the interruption of +the organism’s essential life, and with it a new mode of +consciousness embodying a fundamental opposition to the +primary unity of life now takes its rise.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_117">[117]</span></p> + +<p>Is it not clear that the condition here described is +nothing other than a dissociation of consciousness, that +this interpolation of the self-motive involves a division +of the personality in which there is presented the identical +reaction that we have come to know as the essential +mechanism of the neurosis? If so, then life in our +present mode of adaptation is throughout a dissociation. +That such is actually the case is the position of the +present thesis. For it maintains that division of personality, +or the neurosis, has its basis in this incipient +cleavage embodied in the separation of the individual +element from its original organic continuum through the +interdiction of the organism’s early unitary mode, while +integrity of the personality, on the other hand, is represented +alone in the preservation throughout the growth +of the individual element of its primary organic confluence.</p> + +<p>Such a postulate is indeed very sweeping. It will be +readily protested that it is too sweeping—that in effect +it claims that the whole civilized world is in the grip of a +mental dissociation, that it has its being, founds its organization +upon a basis of unconsciousness. I can only +answer that, however sweeping such a statement may +seem in theory, this social implication of the neurosis is +amply supported in actuality. For the unconscious +reactions of the social mind about oneself are reflected +unconsciously within oneself, the individual being but +an element in our common consciousness. If one will +permit himself to be sufficiently subjective in his own +life to view with objective disinterestedness the reflections +within himself of these unconscious reactions of the social +mind, there will be little ground for protest against such +an implication.</p> + +<p>This indictment of the entire social mind, however, may +rest upon no scant or uncertain foundation. We may not +deal with so broad an issue with the personal conclusiveness +of a merely dynamic or individualistic interpretation. +Our approach must needs be genetic in its scope. We +<span class="pagenum" id="p_118">[118]</span>must take account of those integrations which mark the +era of man’s first awareness and which reach back to the +nebulous sources of consciousness itself. For the thoughtful +student will demand to know the phylogenetic origin +of this universal tendency to interdiction toward her +offspring on the part of the mother. Whence <i>her</i> self-consciousness, +he will ask. One’s answer must be largely +intuitional, by which I suppose we mean that it must be +gathered from sources that are coloured by intimations +arising from one’s own organic life.</p> + +<p>It would appear that in his separativeness man has +inadvertently fallen a victim to the developmental +exigencies of his own consciousness. Captivated by the +phylogenetically new and unwonted spectacle of his own +image, it would seem that he has been irresistibly arrested +before the mirror of his own likeness and that in the +present self-conscious phase of his mental evolution he +is still standing spell-bound before it. That such is the +case with man is not remarkable. For the appearance of +the phenomenon of consciousness marked a complete +severance from all that was his past. Here was broken +the chain of evolutionary events whose links extended +back through the nebulous aeons of our remotest ancestry, +and in this first moment of his consciousness man stood, +for the first time, <i>alone!</i> It was in this moment that he +was “created,” as the legend runs, “in the image and +likeness of God.” For breaking with the teleological +traditions of his agelong biology, man now became +suddenly <i>aware</i>.</p> + +<p>That man’s spirit should have quailed before the wonderment +of so complete an emancipation is not surprising. +Sensing his utter isolation in the face of so strange, so +unwonted a realization, he could only cling desperately +to the one visible and concrete sign of the prenascent +world from which he had newly emerged—to the urgent +and ineradicable actuality of <i>himself</i>, the one and only +link that remained to bind man to the vast and hitherto +uninterrupted continuum of his primordial past. Yet +<span class="pagenum" id="p_119">[119]</span>turn where he would, the organic hiatus had now been +made and its inexorable breach yawned wide and inevitable +before him. Unable as yet to endure the contemplation +of his new freedom and the limitless expanse +it spread before him, equally unable to recross again the +gulf he had lately spanned and recover the paths of his +original instinctiveness and automatism, the soul of man +stood divided against itself. For man could now neither +venture forth nor yet return again. In his division he +could only grope blindly amid uncertain ways. Before +him stretched the stern demands of consciousness and +reality, behind him lay the fictitious decoys of a phantastic +and immemorial preconscious. His choice lay between +the two, yet he was incompetent to follow either. It is, +it seems to me, the intermediate stage in man’s development, +comprised of these two contending issues and +entailing the irreconcilable conflict of which each individual’s +experience is a recapitulation, that is the phylogeny +of the unconscious. This is the experience of us +all as it expresses itself in the self-consciousness that +underlies the personal adaptation of each, through our +gradually enforced awareness of the self.</p> + +<p>Considered also ontogenetically, the development of +consciousness, contrary to accepted tenets, has by no +means proceeded upon a fluent and harmonious course.⁠<a id="FNanchor_21_21" href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> +In its very birth consciousness embodies a biological +recoil—an organic impaction. Its very unfolding is an +infolding, its begetting a misbegetting. For the rudiment +of consciousness is self-consciousness. In its origin it is +self-reflexive, self-relational. That is, consciousness in +its inception entails the fallacy of <i>a self as over against +other selves</i>. It is in this inevitable <i>faux pas</i> of man’s +<span class="pagenum" id="p_120">[120]</span>earliest awareness, of his original self-consciousness +(original sin), that consists the error or lapse in the process +of his evolution. In this factor of development marked +by the recoil of our self-consciousness or by the inference +of our counter-relatedness is to be traced the momentary +decline in the progressive curve of man’s organic evolution. +Yet such temporary recessions embody the operation of +laws that are entirely within the order of our developmental +descent. In the first dawnings of new and +untried possibilities, it often happens that, as growth +proceeds, conditions that are later to become assets in +the developmental scheme are in their rudimentary phase +very burdensome liabilities. The infant that has not +yet learned to walk is wont to crawl with much ease and +impunity, but with the finer adjustment of walking once +acquired he may now move about his world in an upright +posture with far greater agility and comfort than the +movement of crawling could ever have afforded him. +And yet many are the rude impacts and ineptitudes that +attend the gradual acquisition of his new endowment. +And so the developmental possibility offered man through +his attainment of the stage of self-awareness is not less +an onward stage in his evolution because in his awkward +unaccustomedness he employs it to his own undoing. It +is one of the glories of his growth which he may temporarily +dim but not permanently extinguish.</p> + +<p>With the further unfolding of the consciousness of man, +or with his increasing awareness, there followed the +recognition of the objective intervals between his congeners +severally and between himself and them. His external +senses of their very nature apprised him of such intervals, +as, for example, those in relation to time and to space. +With growing experience his perception of interval +between himself and his fellows grew more and more +insistent. It became indeed the basis of his operations. +Besides, there were intervals which were not only spatial +and temporal but intervals or differences that were +attributive or circumstantial in their nature, such as +<span class="pagenum" id="p_121">[121]</span>vocal and featural differences, differences of sex, size, +colour and of texture.</p> + +<p>With this constantly growing, steadily deepening +impression of difference, interval or separation in point +of external characters, with this habitual looking out +upon external or objective differentiation or <i>otherness</i>, +something happened to the consciousness of man. That +which happened was the <i>faux pas</i> in his evolution to which +I have just alluded. For, through the suggestive influence +of repeated observation of objective interval or discontinuity, +man fell a victim to a trick of his own consciousness, +and, from implications of disparity in the sphere of +his peripheral contacts, he erroneously <i>inferred</i> differentiations +in the sphere of his internal, nuclear, organic life. +From data of observation in the field of his objective +relationships he unconsciously drew analogous conclusions +in regard to the essential continuities of his common, +subjective consciousness, and so applied to the primary +and inherent mode of his experience deductions which +were warranted only with respect to the mode of his +outer or objective awareness. From a difference of +envelope he assumed a difference of content. From a +dissimilarity of outer and accidental character he implied +a disparity in the realm of his organic and essential life. +<i>Thus arose the initial confusion accruing from the employment +of objective method in terms of the subjective mode</i>.</p> + +<p>It is my position that the fallacy involved in confusing +the separate or objective with the confluent or subjective +mode has become the very warp and woof of the collective +mind, as it is the biological basis of the displacements +characterizing the pathological references of the +insane. Dealing cognitively (objectively) with our affects +and affectively (subjectively) with our cognitions, we fail +to envisage what is actually before us. Where there are +two individuals—oneself, let us say, as compared with +someone else—because of the dissociated <i>feeling</i> content +with which each regards the other, our presumably objective +judgment rests upon a complete subjective misconception. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_122">[122]</span>It is, of course, perfectly in order that +people be demarcated by us one from another and from +ourselves by characters that are external and accidental, +and that this discrimination prevail even when such +distinguishing characteristics are of a mental nature. +But despite all such accidental differences, the original, +inherent, organic life that is the underlying essence of +any two individuals is common and identical. However +different spatially, traditionally and characterologically, +there is between them the essential bond of an inherent +continuity, of an organic confluence.</p> + +<p>It is interesting how the folk mind betrays its need of +this underlying subjective unity in its effort to offset the +objective tendencies of differentiation. In its desire to +express its feeling of amity, its sense of mutual understanding, +the habitual mind automatically employs the +phrase, “It makes no difference.” For example, if one +has been unintentionally thoughtless of another, he is +at once put at ease with the reassurance that “it makes +no difference”—it being obviously felt that difference is +the essential condition against which the social mind +must preserve itself. Similarly we say, “It is no matter” +or “It is immaterial”—a material or objective basis of +relationship being evidently likewise sensed as an +impediment to unity. There is the same implication in +the disparaging intimation contained in the phrase, “He +has an object in view.” And more telling still is the +coalescence of the two affiliated ideas of matter and +disunity in the use of the single stem-ending employed +in the words “object” and “objection,” the evident +implication being that <i>object</i> and <i>obstacle</i>, or <i>objection</i>, are +subjectively indistinguishable.</p> + +<p>It seems to me that even such seemingly trivial etymological +evidences betray the organic intolerance of differentiation +within the sphere of the subjective life. However +habituated we may have become to the subjective +inferences of interval due to the objective report of our +external senses, beneath these outer and accidental demarcations +<span class="pagenum" id="p_123">[123]</span>there is the persistent assertion of an underlying +principle of unification and continuity. In our own +customary dissociated feeling we lose sight of this completely, +and, because of the confusion of modes within +ourselves, our judgment of others as being subjectively +different from us reaches the point of actual criticism and +resentment.</p> + +<p>A child early illustrates this tendency to erroneous +inference when he refers to inanimate objects about him—a +toy or household object—a disposition to thwart his will. +For example, he will grow angry at some intractable +plaything and strike or abuse it in peevish retaliation. +And it is the unfortunate habit of unwise parents—that +is, of parents generally—to encourage the child’s delusive +tendency with some such corroborative remark as “naughty +chair” (or whatever the offending instrument may be) +and even to carry their complicity to the extent of themselves +inflicting punishment upon the object in question.⁠<a id="FNanchor_22_22" href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> + +<p>This tendency to erroneous inference in the mental +sphere is the fallacy of an objective method of psychiatry, +as it is the underlying misapprehension of the clinical +approach of psychopathology generally.⁠<a id="FNanchor_23_23" href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> Indeed, this +misconception is responsible for many of the inadvertencies +of reason that exist throughout our scientific +ranks. It would seem, after all, that the people who +know most are precisely those who suspect least. If the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_124">[124]</span>psychiatrist is asked what is dementia præcox, his answer +consists merely in recounting the signs or symptoms +“indicative” of the disorder. If he is directly confronted +with the symptoms or indications of the disorder, he will +tell you that they represent dementia præcox. With +such a confusion in the mind of the psychiatrist one may +well judge the confusion existing in the minds of people +generally, and with this subjective confusion in ourselves +one gains readily an idea of the kind of instruction which +the student of psychiatry is now offered as a preparation +for understanding the psychology of insanity! It does +not occur to the psychopathologist to inquire what it is +that constitutes the inherent condition whereof the +specific symptoms as well as the generic term for them +are but the pathological index. It does not occur to him +to ask, in regard to this and other disease-processes, what +it is that underlies the label as well as the appearances +labelled. But unconsciously misled by the superficial +or cognitive <i>aspect</i> of the real disharmony, he can only +shift uncertainly from sign to countersign. The reason is +that, lacking a societal encompassment of mental disorders, +the psychiatrist does not recognize that a subjective +condition is to be found alone within himself—that +the condition for which, in his unconsciousness, he +is now seeking the objective account is accessible only +within the subjective processes of his own unconscious, as +it is accessible subjectively only within the unconscious +of mankind at large.</p> + +<p>Because of this confusion within ourselves we fail to +recognize that delusion is essentially of the affective mode, +that its cognitive expression is but its secondary rationalization—a +symbolic picture presented in lieu of the +corresponding affect denied. It is this type of “reasoning” +that is responsible for the tendency one sees everywhere +within philosophical circles to make dark the +things that are clear. Descartes’ dictum, “I think, therefore +I am,” is the keynote to this cognitive fallacy. +The tendency, as I said, even of us who are psychopathologists +<span class="pagenum" id="p_125">[125]</span>to evade the recognition of the element of +unconscious replacement here—confounding cognitive +form with affective actuality—is due, as always, to the +bias of this self-same replacement within ourselves. Being +social participants in the transposition of affect that is +the societal neurosis, it cannot be otherwise. Hence this +confusion between our perceptual and our affective +modes is throughout a basic one, and as it is general in +its origin it is necessarily general in its results.</p> + +<p>We commonly accept the assumption that mysticism is +an emanation of the Hindoo consciousness, when in point +of fact the Hindoo consciousness is an emanation of +mysticism. In truth, mysticism is a replacement that is +not more endemic to India than to England or to America. +For in mysticism there is expressed merely this underlying +fallacy of reference that is habitual to unconsciousness +generally. Mysticism is thus as symptomatic of +our matter-of-fact normality as of the most occult form +of transcendentalism. Psychologically, the normal mind +is synonymous with the mystical mind. Such a replacement +is, then, no isolated eventuality signalized in some +sporadic neurosis or psychosis but, by reason of its ethnic +scope, it underlies no less the genial illusion of the collective +social mind presented in the form of amalgamated +unconsciousness habitually disguised under the social +symptomatology of our so-called “normality.” Because +of the automatic and unconscious transposition of modes +that characterizes our mental processes at their present +stage of development, the situation is one that obtains +among us all. In the organismic sense we are none of us +thinking clearly because we are none of us feeling clearly. +This fallacy of implied subjective differentiation is the +whole meaning of unconsciousness and the basis of all +delusion. I believe that it is upon this deep-seated +fallacy of affect incident to the development in man of +consciousness or of self-awareness that rests the foundation +of the social as of the individual neurosis.</p> + +<p>The situation with us is indeed a serious one. Except +<span class="pagenum" id="p_126">[126]</span>for one’s faith in the ultimate triumph of the forces of +integration over the disintegrative tendencies of our +evolution, the mind could only despair at the contemplation +of the vicious circle of mutual self-destructiveness in +which our present attitude of unconsciousness involves us. +As difference or discrepancy in the subjective or organic +mode is, from the point of view of the continuity and +cohesion of the species, self-destructive, the maintenance +of such separateness entails for each individual a desperate +loss of his sense of organic integrity. Under the blindness +of the retroactive self-defence to which his erroneously +assumed separateness inevitably drives him, he +fights the more desperately to maintain his artificial +individualistic oneness, and, the more desperately he +contends, the further he defeats the acceptance of his +true organic oneness. It is the inevitable fallacy of our +disparate modes.</p> + +<p>Freud, then, is right when in seeking to solve the riddle +of the neuroses he addresses himself to the personality as +a whole. But he is wrong in positing a personal or preferential +localization of this central personality as he does +when he places this integral consciousness within the +bounds of the separative individual. This is to frustrate +at the outset the aim of understanding the processes of +consciousness through succumbing oneself to the very +mode of unconsciousness which supposedly it is one’s +purpose to comprehend. It is an instance of one’s intentionally +honest effort toward self-understanding failing +to escape the pitfall of personal preference in its very +outreaching toward the unprejudiced and true. The +separative or the personal <i>is</i> unconsciousness. Discontinuity +and unconsciousness are conterminous. Thus we +are again and again brought back to the impasse which +is our refusal to realize that the individual, as a self-appointed, +unconscious unit, is but a separate and dissociated +<i>part</i>, that only as the individual accepts his place +as an integral, confluent part in the common, societal +personality does he become a conscious, unified <i>whole</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_127">[127]</span></p> + +<p>There is, then, the need to clear our vision through +adopting the larger, more organismic viewpoint. There +is the need to stand apart from the self and view it as the +element that it is within the larger organism of mankind. +From the organismic point of view the individual is as +truly an element in the larger co-ordinated total comprising +the ethnic organism of man, as the manifold cells +comprising the individual body are elements in the +larger whole constituting his individual organism. We +have not as yet reckoned with the consolidated unity of +this common societal entity. We have not reckoned +with its organic urge in its influence upon human destiny. +In our preoccupation with the dynamic or individualistic +conception of the libido or of individual aggression, we +have not reckoned with the genetic or organic urge that +actuates the unitary race consciousness in its societal +cohesion.</p> + +<p>It is commonly taught by the schoolmen that self-preservation +is the first law of nature. I do not believe it. +I believe that the instinct of tribal preservation is by +far the dominant urge among us. I believe that this +instinct takes precedence over the impulse of self-maintenance +to a degree that renders individual life insignificant +in comparison. In face of the reflex assertion of +the impulse of race-preservation the individual is brushed +heedlessly aside. A group of miners will without thought +descend one after another into a gas-filled chamber to +rescue a fellow-workman from death and one after another +share the fate of their comrade. We all know countless +instances of this rescue-impulse as a response to the organic +instinct of race unity.⁠<a id="FNanchor_24_24" href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> Nor is it confined to these more +<span class="pagenum" id="p_128">[128]</span>sensational expressions of the impulse. The scientist in +his laboratory toiling daily with indefatigable energy, +receiving usually a remuneration that is not adequate to +his actual needs and too often without even the sympathetic +appreciation on the part of his environment of +the significance of his quest, as it relates to the communal +need he would serve, expresses equally this same organic +instinct of racial solidarity. Yet I do not lose sight of +the secret unconsciousness and separativeness that actuate +also the unconscious and adaptive reactions of even the +most earnest and gifted of these thoughtful, patient +investigators. I am not unaware of the delusions of +competition and petty jealousy existing even among the +ranks of the scientific student. I am not blinking the +facts of his personal vanity, of his pride of place and +distinction. I will not deny how like a child he is when, +on the day of college commencement, he is afforded the +opportunity to parade to music in cap and gown and +vari-coloured academic emblems in order that, having +assembled with his colleagues, he may unite in praise of +an archaic deity in thanksgiving for His all-wise discrimination +in having personally called him to the best +of conceivable institutions in the best of conceivable +lands, etc., etc. But, notwithstanding the obviously +disparate regression observable in these vestiges of +obsolete nursery rudiments, there is yet, extending beneath +it all, the surge of an earnest, unifying purpose that +embraces the confluent needs of human growth as offered +in interests pursuant of common, social ends.</p> + +<p>It is the inherent urge actuating this common societal +impulse, as contrasted with the narrower motives of +<span class="pagenum" id="p_129">[129]</span>separateness and self, that is envisaged in an organismic +point of view. I believe that through this organismic +outlook alone we shall come to embody the meaning of +the neurosis in its true, impartial significance. In this +conception we shall be in a position to view differentiation, +under whatsoever form it manifests itself, as the fallacy +of self-sufficiency, as the delusion of separateness that it +is. Whether presented in the more restricted, individualistic +expression of an hysterical hemiplegia, for +example, or under the wider social aspect, let us say, of +national militarism, we shall no longer study the mere +manifest content embodied in the obvious symptom or +signal—a focal hemiplegia or a focal militarism—but we +shall address ourselves, in each instance, to the societal +personality as a whole that underlies each and that +comprises for both the organic totality of consciousness. +We shall realize that in that totality lies the responsibility +for the division among its elements expressed alike in +both manifestations. We shall see that in these two +seemingly widely dissimilar instances, one expressing +itself within the individual man, the other within the +nations of men, the situation is the same. In one, +differentiation is caused by a breach in the neural continuity +of the organism as symbolized by the inert, +functionally disaffected segment within the individual; +in the other, by a breach in the societal continuity of the +organism represented in the functional anomaly of manic +self-assertion and segmentation within the social body as +symbolized in the separative reaction that has lately so +disorganized the Western World. However different in +outer form, in both reactions there is alike expressed an +unconscious assertion of autocracy or the will-to-self as +opposed to the confluent life of the organism as a whole. +And it is only as we view these expressions, one individual, +the other social, as identical reactions and study them in +an identical spirit of interpretation, that we shall recognize +the essential principle of our biology exemplified in them, +namely, the inherent inviolability of the confluent life of +<span class="pagenum" id="p_130">[130]</span>the organism, both individual and societal. Only in +this organismic outlook shall we come to understand the +true significance of the neuroses in the sense of really +encompassing the disharmony embodied in them.</p> + +<p><i>It should be clearly understood that in the view of this +thesis it is not a question of discrimination between the +social and the individual, but between the societal and the +individual societally conceived on the one hand and the +social and the individual individualistically conceived on +the other.</i></p> + +<p>From this position we have yet to encompass clearly +the neurotic disharmony, individual or societal. We +have yet to encompass in its real significance what is +the most blatant expression of its societal embodiment. +Because of our dissociative, individualistic outlook we +have yet to consider the psychopathology underlying the +phenomenon of war. We have failed to interpret its +psychology in the light of the mental attitude that underlies +and actuates it. We do not realize that the settlement +of war is properly the concern not of politics but of +psychiatry. Here, as elsewhere, we shrink from unearthing +the actuality of the interred affect, preferring to +preserve its image in the fanciful balm of our own illusions. +Our horror of war is thus centred solely upon the façade +it presents and not upon the inherent significance of war. +Accordingly, our concern is merely to alter the aspect, the +cognitive form, the mental picture, and, under this +altered semblance due to our bidimensional alternation, +we still retain the same affect submerged in the unconscious +grievance of national separateness and antagonism. +There is here the subjective fallacy of the transposed +affect and the ancient metonymy of all unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>A conspicuous symptom of our societal pathology is +the subjective illusion underlying the latent “belief” +that diplomatic overtures between nations are competent +to cope with the essential disharmonies which, from time +to time, tend to issue in the social symptomatology of +war, but which are, in reality, due to causative factors +<span class="pagenum" id="p_131">[131]</span>deeply rooted in the psychopathology of man’s societal +disunity. While not questioning the outstanding objective +advantage of such superficial covenants as may +secure to the social confederacies of nations at least a +temporary cessation of their outward expressions of +hostility, these surface amenities touch in no way the +essential disorder. The real cause lies deeper and the +real remedy must penetrate deeper. For the delusion of +difference between nations, like the delusion of difference +between individuals, is but the objective reflection of the +subjective differentiation existing within the nation +itself—a differentiation that is comparable to this same +objective reflection existing within the individual as a +subjective component of the national organism.</p> + +<p>Just as the conflict underlying the neurosis of the +individual is truly understood only through an analysis +in the individual of the vicarious reactions that underlie +it, so an understanding of the conflict underlying the +neurosis that is societal may be attained only through an +appreciation of the substitutive reactions of the group-mind +as disclosed through an analysis of the group-consciousness.</p> + +<p>Seen clearly, man’s restlessness to-day is, after all, the +restlessness of intercepted growth. The tremors we are +experiencing at this moment throughout the political and +economic world undoubtedly owe their impulse to the +awakening of a new order of consciousness. In the +seething undercurrent of discontent throughout the +social organism at the present time there is seen the +symptom of a repression that is no longer reconcilable +with the growing consciousness of that organism. As in +the individual personality a condition of repression that +has become too long pent must inevitably break forth +in an ultimate overthrow of reason, so in the collection of +individuals comprising the societal organism the ultimate +response to a too long sustained repression can issue only +in a correspondingly overwhelming disruption of the +social personality.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_132">[132]</span></p> + +<p>In what has just been experienced sociologically as the +World War, man is afforded an organic warning of the +impending disintegration which lurks unseen beneath +the surface crust of immediate and temporary social +adaptations within the depths of his unconscious. In +that far-sweeping manifestation there are felt the first +rumblings of a sociological disturbance that bodes the +utter destruction of our old order of habituations, and in +that desperate expression of man’s social unconscious +there is evident the need in which he stands of an earnest +and far-searching self-analysis. For as overwhelming as +is the catastrophe of the present war—and present it is—this +catastrophe is but the detonator preceding the +crash that is to come—a crash that has been gathering +momentum within the unconscious of the race through +centuries past and that will descend upon the world +with inevitable fatality in the absence of a more societal +and inclusive reckoning among us.</p> + +<p>Without the recognition of the meaning of our disaffection, +sociological as well as personal, without a more +conscious realization of the social involvement of our +personal separateness, it will not be possible for the +creative forces resident within the personality of man to +come into their natural fruition. But thus to encompass +the organic disaffection that actuates the neurosis is <i>to +include it within ourselves</i>. Thus to realize discrepancy is +to make real within ourselves, where they exist in all +their completeness, the division and antagonism of the +disparate consciousness, be its countenance individualistic +or social. Such a realization—such a comprehension of +life in its manifold unconsciousness is a subjective, organic +experience. The process is one that entails the slow +divorce of self from the long habituations of our narrow +domesticities, personal, familial and national. It involves +the gradual sundering of the artificial sophistications of +self-consciousness with which our childhood has been +enclosed and in which were early laid the foundations of +the dissociation that has now become automatic in the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_133">[133]</span>overwhelming impetus of its social involvement. The +essence, then, of an understanding that truly encompasses +the neurosis, consists in the recognition of our collective +unconsciousness through the realization of a disaffection +within and among ourselves as elements of a dissociated +body-social.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_134">[134]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III_1"> + CHAPTER III + <br> + THE ORGANIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>In submitting a thesis which takes the position that the +significance of the neurosis is its societal implication, and +which lays the burden of its adjustment upon the societal +mind at large, I fully realize that I am offering no welcome +thought. The illusion of the separate self as all-sufficient +and omnipotent is too obdurate not to regard with +suspicion any attempt to dislodge it. Whatever the +postulate, belief or argument, there lurks beneath it, in +the mind of each of us, the unconscious determination to +preserve intact the secret illusion of his own separateness. +As long, however, as this affective fallacy underlies the +reactions of our collective mentality, all efforts toward a +reconstruction of society upon grounds of a more conscious +and adult adaptation are futile. The adaptive and compensatory +nature of the normal or collective mind occasions +dissociation in all the activities arising out of it. With +our mental outlook based upon illusion, our reactions +are illusory. No matter how imposing in their manifest +content, they are fundamentally spurious and undependable. +For having been organically dissociated through +the interdiction of the parent, normality is necessarily +self-conscious and vicarious. This accounts for the ease +with which the normal mind resorts to the replacements +represented in mysticism. In the manifold expressions +of mysticism the social mind finds its ulterior placations. +This accounts for the habitual self-propitiations underlying +its cherished superstitions and “beliefs,” and +explains the whole meaning of the man-made immanence +represented in the vicariously projected image of invincible +<span class="pagenum" id="p_135">[135]</span>omnipotence we call “God”—an image with which we +childishly seek to ally ourselves in order to sustain our +impotent separateness. Men are tenacious of the substitution +that is their “God” in a degree far beyond their +suspecting. It is in vain that they pretend to throw Him +off in the mere insolence of their reactionary “disbelief.” +In their very challenge is His sovereignty +reaffirmed. For wherever there is dogmatism there is +doubt, and beliefs that are denied are unconsciously not +less fixed and ineradicable than beliefs that are affirmed. +As long as there is unconsciousness so long will men be +a prey to its tyrannical alternatives. Though they +break or kiss the rod, it is upon them still.</p> + +<p>Man will be slow to relinquish this symbol of God +popularly employed by him as a defence against the free, +unsponsored growth of his own spirit. It is a symbol, as +are all symbols of the unconscious, that has been erected +by us as a protection for the disparate self against the +confluent life of our common organism. Indeed it is +precisely in this collective illusion that is man’s most +desperate recourse. Yet, in our very extremity and in +the very tenacity with which we cling to this illusion, +there is to be seen, as always, a symbol for which the +only warrant is the profound reality that underlies it. +In so far as the organically true is denied, there inevitably +ensues the vicariously false, and the insistence of the substituted +equivalent is invariably the more intense in +proportion to the urge of the organic need withheld. +It is organic law.</p> + +<p>Recalling the past, it is interesting to consider how +conscientiously we have carried the biological method of +research into the various objective fields of scientific +inquiry. Yet, in regard to the subjective sphere wherein +our own reality resides, we have persistently befuddled +our perceptions through an unconscious adherence to the +childish tenets of fear and superstition, instead of studying +the phylogenetic account of our inherent mental +descent in the spirit of objective disinterestedness. For, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_136">[136]</span>unconsciously yielding habitual perceptions the supreme +place even in the laboratories of consciousness, as embodied +in the researches of analysis itself, we have continued to +preserve the unconscious image of self habitually disguised +under our personal interpretation of God. Restoring +the form of the idol from time to time by covering +the rent with a temporarily stouter fabric whenever the +straw has appeared, we have continued to maintain the +self-flattering programme of our vicarious and self-protected +image-worship. Men apparently do not yet +begin to recognize that the socially consolidated aberration +constituting their image of God is an illusion that is +identical with the individual expression long recognized +by psychiatry under the clinical characterization of “ideas +of reference.” Still seriously discoursing of the symbol +called “God,” they assume that their <i>image</i> possesses an +actuality apart from their own imagining.</p> + +<p>More significant still, however, is the fact that psychiatry +too has its God. Objectively defining ideas of reference +in others, we have failed to reckon with the subjective +presence of this same replacement within ourselves. +While we psychiatrists would carefully note the tendency +to transposed affects within the arbitrary systems of the +insane, we have wholly missed count of this same tendency +within our own autocratic system. Among psychiatrists +the favoured Deity is Dementia Præcox. The symptoms, +reactions and prognostications assigned to the image +implied in this arbitrary superscription attain with us to +a quite endless category. And such is the subtlety with +which the insidious tendency to the vicarious (affective +displacement) secretly insinuates itself even into the +courts of the elect, that individual personality is again +and again led into the unsuspected trap that is our habitual +confusion of the symbol for the reality that underlies it.</p> + +<p>In truth “Dementia Præcox,” the disease, is but the +symbolic projection of dementia præcox, the actuality, +ever resident in our generic unconsciousness. As it is +the primary state of the infant psyche, its rudiment is +<span class="pagenum" id="p_137">[137]</span>preserved in the unconscious of us all.⁠<a id="FNanchor_25_25" href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> The understanding +and acceptance of this biological substrate of +consciousness within oneself offers the only condition of +its solution. In this subjective course lies the whole +significance of a really organic analysis. To hold a +theoretical, objective attitude toward the insanities is to +remain under the thrall of the social unconscious. To +preserve our own repressions by attempting to deny this +preconscious factor within ourselves is merely to perpetuate +this regressive trend under its present symbolic +guise. Theoretical substitution is the big-stick of normality +of which an objective analysis is the butt-end. +To maintain the normal, psychiatric, adaptive outlook +is to be repressed, vicarious, theoretical. And by our +attitude of aloofness we merely preserve in unconscious +form in ourselves the symptom-complex we stigmatize as +dementia præcox in others. But we cannot alleviate a +mental disorder from which we stand apart. It is only +as we accept the testimony of its rudimentary presence +within our own consciousness that its significance in the +consciousness of others may become clear.</p> + +<p>Of dementia præcox, the disease, psychiatry is in fact +more a cause than a cure, just as mothers and doctors +who habitually hold to a mental attitude of personal +ministration and concern, however handy they may be in +untoward emergency, are more an occasion than a remedy +for disease in general. And so the real disorder, after all, +is not dementia præcox but psychiatry. When the +psychiatrist will have come to understand dementia +præcox or the preconscious within himself, this objective +figment of his own disordered consciousness will spontaneously +vanish.</p> + +<p>To-day, the symbol of the social mind that is called +“God”—the symbol under which man has worshipped +himself so confidingly throughout the ages—is gradually +losing its symbolic adequacy and, as is typical when the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_138">[138]</span>foothold of man’s unconscious threatens to be dislodged, +he is hastily replacing his shattered idol with an image +that bears a new, a subtler and a more plausible disguise. +Even in schools representing developments of the Freudian +psychology and presumably devoted to impartial analytic +inquiry into man’s unconscious, we find this same unconscious +self-worship shifted from the broken image of +“God” to a merely revarnished symbol set up upon the +same altar and called by the newer name of “Love.” +Though the form is altered, the substance remains the +same. It is again man’s self-love projected into the +spurious objective that best lends to it the flattering +security of the seemingly real.</p> + +<p>I do not say that there is not in life an essential unity or +love. I do not say that there is not for man an answer +to the need he feels in his relentless but misguided pursuit +of such an underlying reality. What I do say is that the +unity he may find is the substance whereof the unity he +is seeking is but the shadow; that in his unconsciousness +he has not yet begun to seek the reality that is the need +of his essential, organic life; and that, failing the reality +which resides alone in the confluent, unified life of our +common consciousness, he has pursued the temporary +and personal satisfactions whereof such fanciful image-projections +as “God” and “Love” are but hysterical +replacements.</p> + +<p>What is significant is the fact that, under however +subtle a guise he may clothe it, every individual in the +great confederacy of “normality” entertains and is +actuated by some form of “belief”—a “belief” either +in “God” or “Love” or in some other concept that is +the emotional equivalent of these more general fabrications +of our collective unconscious.⁠<a id="FNanchor_26_26" href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> But in the image +<span class="pagenum" id="p_139">[139]</span>fashioned of belief there is seen the inevitable process of +compensation vicariously exacted of us by virtue of our +denying the fulfilment of the organic reality of life. +The dissociated mind can of necessity observe only dissociatively. +In its repudiation of reality it resorts perforce +to vicarious images of reality. It is for this reason +that the normal mind is the mystical mind. In its organic +disunity it cannot be otherwise. Although it seek under +manifold signs and symptoms to conceal the tell-tale of +its stigma, its blight is betrayed by countless evidences +of its dissociation from the societal or organic personality. +And it is not in the nature of the <i>object</i> that consists the +element of the mystical in our human pathology but in +the <i>mode</i> in which the object is regarded.⁠<a id="FNanchor_27_27" href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> The objects of +<span class="pagenum" id="p_140">[140]</span>man’s mystical devotion offer an infinitely varied range. +They may readily be presented by a host of images +expressing the widest discrepancy in manifest content—for +example, one’s conception of the cosmogony, “the +true artist,” a scientific discovery, the “error of mortal +mind,” one’s exchequer, “to-morrow” with its ever +receding illusion of postponement, or a cult of mental +healing with texts setting forth the ultimate solution of +life; or, on the other hand, an autogenic sexual fetish, as +one’s body, the unreal image one causes to stand for +one’s mother, a favourite offspring, “God,” or “the superlative +woman.” Among certain people a very popular +vehicle for the mystical mode is one’s “voice.” To-day, +too, there are people who talk in subdued whispers of the +spiritual virtues of raw foods and who dilate by the hour +upon the merits of lettuce—as though it were the millennium. +Then there is to be noted the high place in +mystical sanctuaries which the family escutcheon occupies +among its votaries. There are people extant (I confess +I am one of them) who still tend to entertain the belief +that a reality underlies the social concept “good family.” +And—comedy of comedies!—such is the subtlety with +which the element of the mystical or of vicarious self-worship +evades the reality of consciousness that the +very “sincerity” with which one comes to “relinquish” +such objects of infantile illusion may itself actually +rank among the spurious images of this identical category! +Seriously fancying herself well on toward the goal of her +analysis, if not quite arrived, one of my patients remarked +to another: “I want nothing.” It was spoken very +gently, almost imperceptibly, so in keeping was the +rendering with the spirit of its author. But it is evident +that at least she wanted to be regarded as <i>not</i> wanting +<span class="pagenum" id="p_141">[141]</span>anything, else she would have felt no occasion to remark +her detached state. But how exquisite the subtlety here! +Another says: “I want to get rid of <i>things</i>, that I may +be more free.” Getting rid of things or husbanding them +may equally fall within the mystical or dissociated mode. +As for one’s “freedom” there is no object, unless it be +one’s “truth,” that constitutes a more popular idol +under which to hide the mystical fetish of one’s secret +self-worship. But whatever the vehicle, that which gives +to it the hall-mark of the mystical is its quality of an inner, +esoteric experience possessing an indefinable, transcendental +meaning revealed alone to the peculiarly favoured +possessor. Observe here the characteristic element of +distinction, the factor of favouritism, the inseparable +paranoid element of special delegation. For the object, +after all, as every object of the unconscious, is no other +than the self or the parent from the point of view respectively +of the parent or the self, and our civilized world +of boasted normality becomes upon investigation but a +nursery of ungrown childhood, filled to overflowing with +bogus Gods and goblins!</p> + +<p>As the child lost in the street anxiously scans the face +of every passer-by in the hope of discovering the features +of his mother, so the grown-up, who has lost the quiet +continuity of his organic life and flounders amid a world +of dissociative habituations and ulterior ends, eagerly +searches the countenances of all whom he meets, in the +driving urge to incarnate anew the cherished image of +<i>his</i> mother. The difference is that everywhere and in +every one he finds her. And not his mother alone but +his father, his brothers, his sisters, uncles and aunts, +and with them (such is the magic of unconsciousness) +the whole array of traditional furnishings reminiscent of +his childhood’s scenery. For as his images are born of +his fancy, his fancy may create them at his will. Thus +the world at large is but the family at large and the social +<i>genre</i> but the mother.</p> + +<p>In contemplating this identification of “the world” +<span class="pagenum" id="p_142">[142]</span>with one’s mother we come to sense more intimately the +real significance in normality of the widely featured +phenomenon of suggestibility. As suggestion is the +affirmative expression whereof repression is the negative +form, suggestion, like repression, is but the operation +upon the individual of the will of the consensus, of which +we all, of course, are the only too willing dupes. For +just as our succumbing to repression is the individual’s +rejection of the consensual mind, so our succumbing to +suggestion is the individual’s acquiescence in the consensual +mind. So that, whether the impetus be the +factor of suggestion or of repression, whether it be offered +in the positive inducements to “good” behaviour or in +the negative disparagements to “bad” behaviour, in +either case one is but fancifully subjecting himself to the +domination of the parental will in the expanded guise of +the consensual unconscious. Contrary to popular belief, +suggestion is no clinical specific; it is a social pandemic. +The doctor does not wield it, it wields him. So that +as suggestion and repression, or the will of normality +(normality means “accepted rule” by the way), are but +the will of the parent, it is the will of the parent that +is really the “power” of suggestion. And as the influence +exerted by suggestion, like the influence exerted +by the parent, is based upon the mental precept of good +and bad, suggestion like repression is necessarily separative +in its effect. For its self-reflective tendency necessarily +induces in us the inversion of self-worship. Again +it is the discontinuity of the dissociative self in the separatism +of its own unconsciously induced image.</p> + +<p>When we come to contemplate this childishness in +ourselves, we are naturally loath to admit that all our +beliefs are but make-beliefs, and our privately cherished +convictions of certitude but the compensatory assumptions +of mysticism and dissociation. To the man who +entertains the inner conviction that the girl of his heart +is just the one woman in the whole world for him, it were +futile to point out his inconsistency by recalling an +<span class="pagenum" id="p_143">[143]</span>identical “belief” maintained no less stoutly by him a +few months ago in regard to his last year’s beloved. It +were as futile as to attempt to expound to a paranoiac, +who has proof that he is descended from Napoleon, that +he is the unconscious prey to unwarranted ideas of +grandeur. Both of these esoterists will only look you +blandly in the face and explain to you compassionately +that “you just do not understand.”</p> + +<p>Truly, of the tissue of illusion is the fabric of unconsciousness, +whether presented under the form of hysteria, +mysticism or suggestion. All being alike dissociative, all +are alike inaccessible to the arguments of an organic +logic. And more and more it seems to me that when we +who are psychoanalysts consider <i>our</i> unconscious preoccupation +with the concept, the symbolic equivalent, +the theory of consciousness as a substitute for the daily +lived actuality of man’s organic life in its totality, there +is due the admission that psychoanalysis too, as it now +exists among us, is itself no less an equivocation, a “belief,” +an hysterical replacement for the common, organic confluence +of our societal life. Indeed, precisely because of +its high claim as representing the court of ultimate +conscious appeal, psychoanalysis requires to be brought +to book more than any other of the manifold dissociative +reactions coming under an indictment that envisages our +collective, social unconscious. We who are psychoanalysts +talk of the joyous enfranchisement of consciousness and +growth as compared with the palsying limitations of +unconsciousness and regression, when all the while we +neglect to impeach the unconsciousness of our own lives +and the narrow interests of personalism and self that +govern them. Because in our own normality we are +ourselves so comfortably ensconced in the social security +of the collective unconscious about us, we fail to recognize +our own embroilment in it. And so, in the impregnable +solidarity of mere mass supremacy, our own assumed +validity passes unchallenged by us.</p> + +<p>To cite an example that is closest to me: I have +<span class="pagenum" id="p_144">[144]</span>repeatedly held forth to patients concerning the potential +joy inherent in adult love regarded in the light of the +unifying principle of life, as though I myself participated +in its subjective actuality in the simple, undifferentiated +mode of my own daily living, when in fact I was +only unconsciously exploiting the vicarious concept or +symbol or theory of love, such as can only stand in the +way of and obstruct the organic significance of love in +its actuality. Thus, in spite of ourselves, unconsciousness +makes disparate elements of us all. Indeed, it may +more truly be said “because of ourselves” rather than +“in spite of ourselves,” for, in an organic sense, self (the +separative entity) and disparity are synonymous.</p> + +<p>But, however serious a situation that involves a world-wide +neurosis, we may not take it tragically. The +tragedy of it, after all, is only the unconsciousness of it. +When we shall have truly analyzed the drama of the +unconscious which now we but enact, there can be no +tragedy, for the fabric of tragedy is woven merely of the +elements of human “fate” in its embodiment of the +unconscious. There is the need, however, to view our +situation thoughtfully. Consciousness, in the sense of a +true comprehension of life, will come into its own only +when we have learned to look upon the humiliating +spectacle of our dissociated selves with what enforced +forbearance we can temporarily command. Our present +attitude will continue to endure until more and more the +disheartening sense of our disparities becomes accepted +by us in an outlook that, having grown inclusive, has +become our automatic and habitual mode.</p> + +<p>Paradoxical as it may sound, consciousness has turned +the heads of us all! As it has turned them in a direction +that has been inward upon our own image, each of us, +as a result, has built of his individual organism a little +separate entity unto himself—an entity which in its +organic dissociation from life as a whole is necessarily +wrought of a spurious fibre. Developmentally man is +the biological snob <i>par excellence</i>. Scorning the slower +<span class="pagenum" id="p_145">[145]</span>accretions of growth that can alone imbue him with true +biological culture, in his effort “to attain” he has +attempted to pass too hastily from his humble category +of vertebrate to the more socially elevated plane of +“cerebrate.” The result is that what he assumes to be +cerebration is really but a fictitious brain-state that has +become entirely withdrawn from continuity with his +organic life. So that from the point of view of consciousness +in the sense of an integral mental life—the especial +mark whereby we claim prerogative over all other species—man +is, by this very token, the least integrant of them all!</p> + +<p>And yet, when we think of it, our predicament is really +no shame to us. Consciousness is, after all, a very recent +asset among us. That we should treasure it narrowly, +personally, is but the inevitable entail of its slow, laborious +evolution. It is as if, in our societal separativeness, our +race had grown grey before its childhood had begun and +we were now out of breath keeping pace with ourselves. +For it is only our separativeness that has prematurely +burdened us with the crushing weight of self-imposed +responsibilities such as are the concomitant toll of our +hallucinated self-sufficiency. Unlike the adult, the spontaneous +joy of children is their whole-hearted participation +in the free, impersonal radiation of life. Unlike ourselves, +their personal importance has not yet defeated their +impersonal significance. As yet they do not live under +the curse of a dogma of conduct. Theirs is no creed of +behaviour that is of one cloth with an enforced pretence +of “goodness.” Their lives are not a daily concession to +fanciful needs of self-protection against an arbitrarily +predicated world of “evil.” Adult vigilance, however, +early inculcates its delusion of separateness—of a self to +be defended against other selves—and its dissociative +influence is slowly imparted to the confiding mind of +childhood. In a world of dissociation this universal +suggestion acts with powerful effectiveness, and the child +of yesterday, having once been inducted into the general +guild of secret mistrust and compensatory behaviourism +<span class="pagenum" id="p_146">[146]</span>and grown to parenthood, may be safely trusted to pass +on without question the secret code of differentiation, +self-distinction and disharmony to the offspring by which +he is in turn succeeded.</p> + +<p>When God called Adam and took him to task for +going about naked (for eating of “the tree of the knowledge +of good and evil”), asking him if he felt no sense of +shame, Adam’s prompt response was to betake himself to +the bushes overcome with embarrassment. Whereas +obviously the logical response on Adam’s part would +have been: “By no means. I am the outcome of your +own handicraft and if there is any flaw in the product it +is not for me to feel chagrin.” As a matter of fact, Adam +was in nowise different from the rest of us. But there +he crouched, submissively answerable for the work of his +creator and there he has got us all crouching ever since! +God, of course, employed the familiar parental recourse +and intimidated Adam, calling from afar to him in his +place of hiding. As was calculated, the strategy was +completely effective and promptly brought Adam to his +knees. All of which legend is but the allegorical statement +of the simple organic truth that shame has first +to be artificially induced in us before it can be experienced +by us. Division or shame having been put into us, of +course we feel division or shame.⁠<a id="FNanchor_28_28" href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_147">[147]</span></p> + +<p>If we have become aware of ourselves and of our unprotectedness, +it has been quite in the order of our +evolution. But by the same process it is now high time +for us to realize that there is no need of protection, and +accordingly to come out of hiding and recognize that our +fear and our self-protection, being alike identical with the +myth of Adam’s indiscretion, are alike induced in us by +the identical process of an external word of repression or +command thrust in upon an essentially inherent and +consonant mode.</p> + +<p>In the absence of our realization of this blunder into +which we have fallen, from generation to generation we +unconsciously repudiate the natural unity of our common +life in favour of a life prompted by sophistication and +disparity. Ourselves begotten of alien affects, our feelings +in turn breed diverse cross-strains which can issue +only in equally hybrid reactions. We refuse to see that +the “evil,” alike with the “good,” is naught but the +delusion of separateness extraneously induced in us +through our artificial self-consciousness. This subjective +division within us is the essential meaning of the all-pervasive +bogey of our so-called incest-awe. As I see it, +incest-awe is the organic inconsistency of this division +within the organically indivisible sphere of man’s essential +feeling. Normality is unconsciously under its thrall +because, through its organic disunity, normality has +unconsciously placed itself under its sentence. Psychically +normality <i>is</i> incestuous and hence its awe. The +degree of its awe or guilt-revulsion is precisely the measure +of its psychic inbreeding. The more organically unwelcome +the infolding, the more organically outraged or +neurotic the personality, and, accordingly, the greater the +awe or feeling-conflict resultant upon our unconscious +intimations of organic “guilt.” Our sexual self-consciousness +is the perennial fig-leaf of early tradition +foliating anew in our critical Twentieth Century. It is +the division of the self of behaviour from the self of +spontaneity, of the self as disparate entity from the self +<span class="pagenum" id="p_148">[148]</span>as an integral element in our common organic life that is +the meaning of the incest-awe as of the neurosis, in its +social as well as in its individual expression.</p> + +<p>When once we have assumed the broader organismic +outlook, we shall see that, beyond a more extended compass +of vision, there is really nothing of an innovation in +this societal mode of envisagement. In respect to all +systems coming under scientific observation, we have +habitually entertained a biological conception of the +relation <i>inter se</i> of the elements to their aggregate that is +identical with the conception offered in the present theme. +Hitherto the area generally considered has merely been +circumscribed within narrower limits, that is all. When +we shall have learned to move aside from our personal +involvement in it, we shall see presented an organic +phenomenon which upon examination consists of a dissociation +within the societal organism. We shall see +that this dissociation involves disharmony in respect to +the mental and social relationships of the unit-elements +or individuals that comprise ourselves and constitute +<i>inter se</i> the larger biological aggregate of our common +consciousness. Maintaining our impersonal angle of +envisagement and turning to the idea of the sum of the +more circumscribed biological aggregate constituting the +individual, we see that this dissociation is, in reality, +identical with the dissociation within the individual +organism that manifests itself as impairment of harmony +in respect to the physiological or functional relationships +of the units or cells comprising <i>its</i> ultimate elements. +When we lose sight of our place as common elements +within the organic aggregate of mankind—as in the +absence of an encompassing organismic point of view we +must—we tend to separate arbitrarily the biological +continuity of the two spheres, the individual and the +societal. Because of our own subjective involvement we +fail to recognize that the societal sphere, in the more +inclusive sense, is the aggregate whereof the individual is +the unit, precisely as in the more circumscribed physiological +<span class="pagenum" id="p_149">[149]</span>view the body cells are the units of which the +individual is himself the aggregate. Between the two +spheres there is a progressive continuity. There is no +interruption of the organic transition from one to the +other. For the psychological or the societal and the +functional or physiological are continuous.⁠<a id="FNanchor_29_29" href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> + +<p>It is evident that every bodily lesion consists of a +<i>separation</i> among the elements of the impaired part. +If among the cells of the liver, for example, there is produced +the condition of disharmony or disease represented +by a state of inflammation, there inevitably occurs some +partition, some breach in or interruption of their concerted +function, or of the function of the organism as a +whole. The unfailing signal wherewith the individual is +apprised of the destructive process is the reaction subjectively +registered as <i>pain</i> or a sympathetic awareness +on the part of the aggregate organism of the disordered +condition of these elements constituting a part of itself. +Such a disordered state or lesion being thus reported to +the central system, as it were, the immediate response is +an outcry of pain and a prompt recourse to remedial +<span class="pagenum" id="p_150">[150]</span>aids. The organism as a whole, experiencing pain, +reflexly demands relief, for the reason that impairment +of the organism in any of its parts is a menace to its +integrity as a whole. That is to say, when any one of +us as an aggregate experiences pain in any part whereof +he is the whole—when he experiences some local inflammation +or separation within the elements of a part or +organ within himself, he promptly directs his efforts +toward its alleviation. But in the organic whole comprising +the societal aggregate whereof he, as an individual, +is the contributive element or part, the situation, as we +shall in a moment see, is wholly altered. As related +parts or elements within the larger organic aggregate, it +is we ourselves who are the separative process—the circumscribed +area of inflammation.</p> + +<p>It is essential to bear in mind that the organic pathology +of this biological lesion or separation that is the individual’s +dissociation from the inherent continuum of his +organic, racial congeners is a condition that is conterminous +with the individual’s division or separation within himself. +For organically there is no difference between himself +and his congeners. Thus in respect to this societal lesion +the individual element bears a twofold relation, an +intrinsic and an extrinsic one. The element as an +<i>individual</i> within the societal organism on the one hand +is the <i>source</i> of the lesion. And on the other hand, as an +organic <i>participant</i> in the confluent race consciousness, +this same element or individual <i>experiences</i> the lesion as +a menace to the integrity of his own organic consciousness +or of his confluent life as a whole. The individual is thus +the contained and the container, the stimulus and the +response. Herein lies the unassuageable poignancy of +the neurotic conflict. It is a conflict between the part +and the whole, wherein the individual is the embodiment +of both. Since he is unconsciously the part while inherently +the whole, his conflict is one that is concomitantly +individual and societal, for the individual and the societal +factors are organically inseparable.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_151">[151]</span></p> + +<p>Just as in a comprehensive inquiry into the structural +development of the organism it is necessary to consider +not only the biological characters occurring in the development +of the individual but also the corresponding characters +observable in the development of the race, so in an +organismic study of consciousness it is necessary that we +keep in mind the essential parallelism between its individual +and its phyletic trends. Analogous to what we +know of the facts of comparative biology in the structural +sphere, the organic consciousness of man, which we see +expressed ontogenetically in the essential continuity of +the individual personality, finds its phylogenetic expression +in the inherent continuity of the societal organism. +Accordingly, as the miscarriage of this primary continuity +of consciousness is to be seen in the dissociation of the +single personality, so the miscarriage of man’s societal +personality is correspondingly to be seen in the social +dissociation of the collective unconscious. After all, the +consciousness of the individual is but the consciousness +of the race in miniature, and the personal dissociation +within the individual is, therefore, only the miniature +expression of the social dissociation within our societal +consciousness. In other words, as one’s individual +organism is a replica of the social organism, the dissociation +of the social mind is identical with the dissociation +of the individual mind. For, since the societal and the +individual factors of evolution are identical in their +course, the social and the personal factors of dissociation +are also identical. Hence the dissociation that is personal +is necessarily social; the neurosis we study in the individual +is necessarily concomitant to a neurosis within +the wider social polity.</p> + +<p>Let us now compare the difference in the subjective +reaction of the individual according as he is himself the +aggregate experiencing pain in any part of <i>his</i> organism, +or as he is himself a part unconsciously contributing to +the lesion within the organism comprising our common +societal aggregate. As central system presiding over his +<span class="pagenum" id="p_152">[152]</span>own individual organism we have seen his prompt recourse +to agencies of relief at the least trespass upon the integrity +of any organ or part within himself. But observe the +total reversal of reaction when he himself, as a single +individual element, is the pathological instance threatening +the integrity of the organic aggregate that encompasses +him as a single individual element. Mark how he struggles +<i>in blind collusion with</i> the disruptive process he unconsciously +or separatively embodies. Such is precisely the +behaviour of the neurotic individual and such is precisely +the meaning of his “resistance.” For in such a situation +he seeks recourse to every conceivable avenue of evasion +and of symbolic disguise in order to escape the protests +of pain in the central inherent system resident in the +common societal consciousness and experienced by him +in its continuum with his own essential life. In the +spirit of his behaviour he is exactly comparable to an +individual who, on succumbing to a local disease-process, +would seek to stifle the organism’s premonitory pain in +order to aid the toxic invasion and further its ravage +within his own tissues! Such, however, in our unconsciousness +is precisely the case with each of us. Each of +us, in his misguided, ingrown self-interest, constituting in +himself the pain and impairment that operate within and +against the organic societal aggregate, contends in his +self-protection not against but in favour of the disease-process +which, from the point of view of the societal, +organic life, is his own destruction. He seeks not its +interruption but its continuance, not its remedy but its +aggravation, precisely as the inflammatory process in +any organ within the body seeks to maintain its separateness +and prolong to a fatal issue the destructive process in +the individual.</p> + +<p>It is characteristic of separateness that it fights desperately +for its own separative ends. Separateness, being +destructive, must operate destructively. It would even +seem that this self-destructive tendency on the part of +the isolated component is the penalty imposed by the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_153">[153]</span>societal organism to safeguard itself against the tendency—among +any of its elements as parts—to infringe upon the +integral sum of elements constituting the organic whole. +But if the separateness of the part is its own destruction, +concomitantly the confluence of the whole is its own +conservation. If the neurotic regarded individually, or +as the embodiment within himself of a societal lesion, is +an expression of separatism and pathology, the neurotic +viewed organically, or as the embodiment within himself +of the societal continuum, is no less an expression of +confluence and health. If, in the first instance, he is +himself the disorder that is his own separatism and unconsciousness, +in the second he is the integration that is +his own confluence and consciousness. It is this constructive +aspect of the neuroses of which we have not +yet taken account and of which we may take due cognizance +only upon the basis of a wider, organismic interpretation +of these disorders of the personality. It is the +understanding of these disharmonies in the light of their +congeneric significance, and their encompassment as +morbid processes operating within the separative individual +organism to obstruct the function of the societal +organism as a whole, that is the significance of an organismic +formulation of the neuroses.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_154">[154]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV_1"> + CHAPTER IV + <br> + ORGANIC ANALYSIS OF REPRESSION AND OF + THE FACTOR OF RESISTANCE FROM THE + SOCIETAL VIEWPOINT + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>The psychic phenomenon with which Freud was confronted +in the very inception of his work was the element +of repression and its concomitant reflection in the objective +reaction of resistance. The resolution of this factor +of repression or resistance Freud came very early to +regard as the essential problem of psychoanalysis. But, +as we have seen, Freud’s conception of resistance was +inevitably coloured by his own individualistic monocular, +and in consequence it was not possible for him to view +the neurosis of the individual in its societal implication. +Lacking a societal basis of interpretation, he could not +see that the resentment toward one’s fellows comprising +the individual’s social resistance is merely the individual’s +objective evasion of the subjective disaffection within +his own essential organism. Mistaking the mere symbol +of the individual for the inherent continuity of individuality, +Freud could not see the biology of resistance as the +breach it is in the individual’s continuity with life as a +confluent, organic whole.</p> + +<p>From an organismic viewpoint, the individual’s reaction +of resistance or his effort to project upon his fellows the +pain of his subjective curtailment and repression only +illustrates further the essential <i>sociology of the neuroses</i>. +In the fuller light of a societal basis it may be seen that +the mechanism of social replacement embodying resistance +is purely symptomatic of the individual’s constraint +toward a surface rationalization of his own inherent +grievance. His grudge is not personal, it is societal. It +<span class="pagenum" id="p_155">[155]</span>is not logical, it is biological. Residing wholly within +himself, it involves only himself. His tendency to <i>refer</i> +his grievance to the attitude of others is due to his own +separative habituation and to his consequent effort to +escape the <i>seeming</i> isolation of his biological responsibility +toward it. And so the problem of resistance is +central, not peripheral. Like its close kin charity (if +not its very self in the garb of religious sentimentalism) +the relinquishment of resistance is a benison that begins +at home. It may not be inculcated through theoretical +precept nor through the subtlest refinement of a technique +based upon a system of analysis, but only through our +actual participation in the societal confluence that is its +underlying biology. Our very theory of resistance as an +impediment to life is itself a resistance. For no formulation +of life can function as life. It is only life itself in its +organic confluence that may abrogate the separateness +that is the essence of resistance. Whether in the societal +or in the individual sphere, whether in the sphere we +arbitrarily designate as psychological (mental) or in that +we call functional (physiological), the question of health +or disease hangs solely upon the issue as to whether the +element—cell or system—functions integrally or separatively, +congruently or resistantly. Under the limitations +of a dissociative reaction toward the confluent, societal +organism as a whole, such as constitutes our present +socially affective mode, the individual organism cannot +but react disaffectedly, and hence further the disruptive +tendencies that breed disharmony within its own life. +The dissociated organism can function only dissociatively.</p> + +<p>If it is true of the world at large that each is against +each, if throughout the tissue of the societal fabric every +element is maintaining its own separateness against every +other element, where may there be found a way to restore +the condition of societal confluence that is the basis of +man’s inherent life? Clearly, if this separation from the +organic life takes place within the individual, its reconcilement +must take place also within the individual. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_156">[156]</span>As, however, the individual is but a replica of every other +individual—an organic world in miniature in the complex +of sensations and emotions comprising his own personality—the +reconcilement of the organic conflict within himself, +or his own unification of personality as an integral part of +the continuum uniting the whole, is also the reconcilement +and the unification of himself with his congeners. Naturally, +such a reconcilement cannot be the achievement of +the individual as a separate social unit, but only of the +individual as an integral element in the organic unit of +our common life.</p> + +<p>It is just here that there needs to be unearthed the +essential fallacy of Freud, as of us all—a fallacy that has +been the inevitable outcome of a habit of reasoning that +is inseparable from the disparate social unit and its dissociative +mode. Precluding within himself a participation +in the organic societal mode, it was, of course, not +possible that Freud should take account, in any inclusive +organismic sense, of causative elements lying within this +mode. Reasoning from the biased premises of an unconscious +separatism, he could reckon only with elements +falling within the scope of the separative mode, that is, +he could only reckon personally—I mean in the sense of +dissociatively rather than integrally.</p> + +<p>In Freud’s conception of the neurosis the condition +embodies a repression of sexuality. That is, sexuality, +regarded as synonymous with the sexual instinct, is +posited as the primary factor of which the attitude of +repression is a subsequent issue. In other words, +sexuality or the “libido,” as commonly understood (the +separative will-to-self⁠<a id="FNanchor_30_30" href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> in the view of the present interpretation) +is in Freud’s formulation the basic, antecedent +element, and repression (whatever the occasion—lack of +adequate outlet perhaps or the inadmissible character of +the sexual impulse) is the organism’s automatic recourse +<span class="pagenum" id="p_157">[157]</span>operating as a result. So that Freud assigns the cause of +a mental disharmony to the subject’s repressed sexuality, +and the basis of his analytic procedure has been very +logically the endeavour to remedy the situation through +an adjustment of the sexual life. Accordingly, it is the +essence of the individualistic position of Freud that the +neurosis is represented in life’s repression of sexuality; +while it is the essence of the organismic attitude here +defined that the neurosis consists in sexuality’s repression +of life. In brief, according to the dynamic conception of +Freud, the basis from which individual life takes its +origin is represented in a heterogeneous substrate that is +biologically discrete and “polymorph perverse”; whereas +in the genetic conception of the present formulation life +traces its source to a homogeneous matrix that is organically +confluent and unitary.⁠<a id="FNanchor_31_31" href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p> + +<p>In the light of a conception which assumed that the +integrity of consciousness resides within the personality +of the individual, Freud’s confusion was inevitable. Yet +viewed even from the standpoint of the individual, the +factors of repression and sexuality can be regarded only +in the light of organic concomitants. Under whichever +of these alternate forms of reaction it may appear, both +forms are the inevitable extremes of the dilemma due to +the conflict that has been artificially created within the +organism. Both are the individual’s restless evasion and +substitution following inevitably upon its separation from +its primary organic source. Although repression and +sexuality are organic concomitants, being simultaneous in +their occurrence and in their efficacy equal and contrary, +the factor of repression is dynamically the prior instance. +This is true precisely in the sense that the pressure of my +hand as I lay it upon the table is dynamically the prior +<span class="pagenum" id="p_158">[158]</span>stimulus, though the two elements involved—my hand and +the table—are from the point of view of the respective +pressures exerted by each, mutually coincident and equal. +Considered in the light of individualistic consciousness (unconsciousness), +repression with its actuation in the alternative +of infantile fear or “goodness” and sexuality with +its compensatory reaction in the alternative of infantile +defiance or “badness” are inseparable and conterminous. +For repression and sexuality are equally the <i>result</i> in the +individual of the factor of organic disunity in the societal +consciousness. There is the need to emphasize the fact +that the reaction of sexuality as it abounds among us is +currently confused with the basic instinct of sex. In +point of fact sexuality is the direct antithesis of this +organic expression.</p> + +<p>The vast mass of the literature of sexuality embraced +under sexology, with its voluminous representation of +man’s symbolic relation to life, will some day undoubtedly +appear comparable in value to the equally formidable +array of literary compilations that discourse of God and +of man’s extraordinarily complex relationship to Him +included in a no less voluminous theology. As articulate +in form, as sympathetic in treatment and as logical in +development as both these themes undoubtedly are, it +will ultimately be seen, I believe, that both are equally +open to serious criticism and both on identical grounds, +namely, that in respect to the matter of each, there is no +matter there. I mean literally that, in default of the +objective reality of the subjects treated under the two +discussions by their respective authors, both treatises are +in their nature utterly spurious. In Ellis as in Calvin, +in Freud as in Aquinas, the sexuality envisaged in one +system no less than the divinity envisaged in the other +lacks a basis of reality. Both are vicarious rationalizations +of the collective unconscious due to the effort to +compensate its repression of the organic integrity of our +common, societal consciousness. The concept “God” in +the one instance, and its counterpart, obsessive sexuality +<span class="pagenum" id="p_159">[159]</span>in the other, are in the meantime made to serve the +expedience of temporary symbols.</p> + +<p>It is noteworthy that man is the only species of the +animal world whose communal life requires for its regulation +a system either of sexology or of theology. Concomitantly, +one cannot but remark the far stronger +co-operative instinct existing among the animals and the +consequently incalculably greater societal solidarity of our +less “conscious” kinsfolk as compared with our own!⁠<a id="FNanchor_32_32" href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p> + +<p>Approaching the problem of the neurosis anew from +the vantage coign of a more inclusive, integral background, +I have come to regard the factors of sexuality +and repression as standing to each other in a relationship +that is the exact reverse of that assumed by Freud—the +factor of repression being from this altered viewpoint the +primary <i>cause</i> and sexuality the incidental <i>result</i> entailed +by it.</p> + +<p>To make clear what I mean, it is necessary to view the +societal aggregate, with its basis in our organic consciousness, +as an entity distinct from that of the separative +individual unit with its basis in our dissociated unconscious. +The element of repression is incident to the +interruption of our functional participation in the unitary +race consciousness. The separative, dissociated attitude +of mind that precipitates the obsessive, dissociated and +resistant individual is a development consequent upon +this interruption. So that it is only as we come to +recognize our need to include the sphere of man’s integral +organic life that the conception of repression as a factor +anterior to sexuality may be understood in its biological +import. To this end our conception of the organic +<span class="pagenum" id="p_160">[160]</span>societal consciousness needs to acquire the coherency of +clearer form and definition. We need to take account of +the original, racial solidarity of man’s consciousness and +to consider the interpenetrations of common instincts +and habits that originally ramified throughout the undifferentiated +mental tissue of our common species, +knitting its contributing elements into a unitary, homogeneous +organism.⁠<a id="FNanchor_33_33" href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> We need to form a clearer image of +the uniform, co-ordinated <i>one-mindedness</i> of this primordial, +“multi-cellular” organism that was man. In brief, +we need to recognize the <i>individual</i> that was originally +the aggregate consciousness of the race. For, to consider +man’s phylogeny at this period of his evolution is +to consider a unitary organism. It is to break through +the prejudice of the separative mode of individual men +and reckon immediately with the unified principle of +consciousness as a whole, from which only later there +diverged the separative elements represented in the +dissociated units we ourselves now comprise, but which +unified principle survives to-day unaltered in the common +unity of our confluent societal personality.⁠<a id="FNanchor_34_34" href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p> + +<p>Such is the parent organism from which we trace the +course of our psychobiological descent. Such is the +parent organism from which we trace as well our psychobiological +dissent! For it is evident that at a certain +stage in the growth of this nuclear, racial organism there +must have arisen those first faint stirrings which subsequently +entailed man’s earliest reckonings with the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_161">[161]</span>nebulous beginnings of his self-awareness. This reaction +whereby mind for the first time grew aware of itself was +thus a societal reaction. It involved the aggregate, not +the element. Its scope was ethnic, not individual. It +was the primal awareness of man’s organic consciousness. +In our unconsciousness we deny the reality of this +biological phylum embodied in our organic consciousness +and underlying the processes of our individual mentation. +For this reason we seek perforce to appease our organic +need through the imaginary solaces of a fanciful immanence +that is but the unconscious <i>symbol</i> of the immanent +and encompassing actuality of this common consciousness. +In our unconsciousness we deny the collateral immediacy +of our societal inclusiveness and for this reason we project +the lineal image of indefinite extension composing +man’s dream of a personal life eternal. Denying our +organic unity of compass, we compensate in a fanciful +unity of duration. Denied his societal participation in a +communal earth, man’s need can only vent itself in the +private illusion of a sectarian heaven. After all, life in +its reality is immediate. Philosophy <i>ad infinitum</i> to the +contrary notwithstanding, there is no “time” like the +present! When we can enter heartily into the realization +of the “pseudo” quality of our mental unctions, we +may begin to sense more closely the organic inevitableness +of such symbolic equivalents as the generic folk-image +of “God” and the infinite corps of His understudies, +impressed one after another into the service of man’s +inverted narcism. We may, then, realize that nowhere is +nature’s abhorrence of a vacuum more vigorously asserted +than in the organic intolerance of consciousness toward +the voids of unreality. We may, then, understand how, +upon the slightest suspension of reality in the sphere of +consciousness, a symbolic surrogate will inevitably fill the +rift with a punctuality that is automatic. This is reality’s +ultimate test of reality. It is the unfailing standard of +the organism in its measure of the actual. Here is truth’s +organic criterion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_162">[162]</span></p> + +<p>In their original organic commonness, individuals +were complete and sufficient. They were undisturbed by +the separative attitude of mind that mars our present +development with competition and dissension. They did +not spend their days in self-interested comparison. They +had not yet come into the conflict of a self-conscious image-worship. +In this sense—that the mental tissue of our +common species was then undifferentiated—the aggregate +consciousness of the race was synonymous with the +consciousness of the individual. It was an organically +unified consciousness.</p> + +<p>Through the organic violation on the other hand, +involved in the primal recoil of self-consciousness within +this societal organism, there is to be traced the biological +history of our mental and social disharmonies. Here, I +believe, is to be traced the inception of man’s collective +unconscious and the phylogeny of the societal neurosis. +Under the authority of this long-standing and consolidated +system of repression the individual is born, and +still under its shadow he enters upon the course of his +development as an individual. It is this organized Mafia of +societal repression, with its enormous weight of traditional +and conventional authority—this repression within the +collective societal unconscious, with its ready initiation of +each new subject—that is the causative factor in the +secondary reaction which we observe in the individual +as “repression of sexuality.” In our own unconscious +fealty to the system about us we fail utterly to comprehend +that <i>the repression which we observe in the individual is +the result of a prior cause lying outside of the individual +and that it consists of the repression within the collective, +racial unconscious acting concertedly from without upon the +now detached individual unit</i>.</p> + +<p>It is important to distinguish between the social prohibition +operating upon the discrete element or individual +as a response to popular covenant, and the societal prohibition +that operates within the confluent aggregate and +is coincident with our organic separation from man’s +<span class="pagenum" id="p_163">[163]</span>primary societal consciousness. The former is the result +collectively of the latter, just as the neurotic repression is +the result of it individually. For the societal repression +is primary and the social reaction is a repression subsidiary +to it.</p> + +<p>To understand aright the essential conception of this +thesis, it is necessary to have clearly in mind the basis +upon which it rests. This basis is the distinction between +the element that is societal and the element that is +social, between the factor that is sex and the factor that +is sexuality. It should be remembered that sexuality, +whether in its social or in its individual manifestation, is +here throughout regarded as an egoistic and infantile +expression resultant upon the alternatives of secret self-interest +secondarily induced in the individual in response +to this same substitution and repression in the mind of +the consensus about him. It is here held that the neurosis +is a condition which indicts not the individual alone but +society in general and that it consists in the substitution +of this obsessive reaction of sexuality for the basic +and inherent instinct of sex—that sex is an instinct +that pertains not only to mating but to the unity +of our congeneric life which, when unintercepted, is the +function confluently of man’s conscious and organic +life.</p> + +<p>If it is true that the societal repression resident within +the race is the factor that is the cause of the individual’s +sexuality, it is evident that no amount of preoccupation +with the individual factor or with the element of sexuality +will avail to release a neurosis the source of which resides +in the societal repression. The causative factor, then, +that resides within the societal unconscious is the subjective +factor to which the individual’s sexuality (or its +counterpart, the individual’s repression) is the resulting +objective response. As repression or sexuality of their +nature constitute division, clearly they can have no place +in the confluent subjective life. And as the neurosis is +primarily a disharmony of the confluent subjective sphere, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_164">[164]</span>it is upon the continuities of this sphere alone that we must +depend for the efficacy of an analysis that retains as its +aim—the only logical aim of analysis—the recomposition +or synthesis of the scattered elements of the personality +into the organic unit of their original aggregate.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_165">[165]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V_1"> + CHAPTER V + <br> + ORGANIC ANALYSIS OF REPRESSION AND OF THE FACTOR OF RESISTANCE FROM THE INDIVIDUAL VIEWPOINT + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>As the causative element in the neuroses is societal or +subjective, an analysis that proceeds upon the objective +tack of uncovering a patient’s complexes is futile. If I am +objectively interested in a patient’s separative, dissociative +expressions—in the infinite variety of his sexualities or +infantilisms, it is traceable alone to the retention of this +same unconscious mode within my own personality. +In this situation the analytic procedure is such as bids +fair to extend to an indefinite duration. But if, on the +contrary, my own mode is organic and inclusive, my +interest in the patient and my whole relationship to him +will rest upon an organic, confluent basis. I shall be +interested not in the dark secrets of sexuality which he +may bring himself to divulge but in the delusion of +separateness that leads him to suppose that my own +sexuality or the desperate recourses of separatism and +repression within myself are less dark than his own. +Indeed, arguing merely from presumptive evidence, my +absorbing interest in the subject of the neurosis would of +itself make it a safe conjecture that my own reaction to +the societal repression or my own sexual conflicts must +have been by far the greater of the two. But neither is +this the point. The point is that our sins are common +because our lives are not common, and that the patient’s +sole need is his understanding of the causative factor in the +reaction of separation and repression of the collective +mind as it may be realized by him in the relationship of +his personality to my own. My sole endeavour, then, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_166">[166]</span>will be directed to an understanding on his part of the +cause of his neurotic separatism or of the societal repression +which, in dissociating him from the congeneric consciousness +common to us both, artificially creates his +illusion of difference between us.</p> + +<p>Lacking this realization of the societal involvement of +the neurosis, there necessarily ensues a personal involvement +in the analysis that invites situations which not +infrequently attain to an acute crisis. The only remedy +is the realization through one’s own analysis of one’s +own societal disaffection. The only recourse is the +complete reversal of one’s own pictorial or introverted +habits of experience. It will not be easy. To accept +voluntary subjection to conditions involving involuntary +pain will not become a popular pastime. But it is the +only way in which we may be made aware of our social +involvement in the societal neurosis about us. It is the +only way by which we may come to take a conscious part +<i>in</i> and not be an unconscious part <i>of</i> the analysis.</p> + +<p>Never in the drama of human vicissitude has there been +staged anything more ironical than the spectacle of an +analyst’s perplexity when the patient, having become by +implication a “cure,” fails to acquiesce in the principle +she is now understood to illustrate. For presumably the +time has arrived at which she (for the sake of dramatic +interest let us say “she”) should naturally wish to +withdraw from treatment. Unhappily, however, she +entertains no such intention. On the contrary, in implacable +defiance of analytical canons, she still stoutly +maintains the unabated actuality of her neurosis and +offers forthwith irrefutable vindication of her position +in the sudden recrudescence of her incipient symptoms. +In face of the undeniable testimony, the situation is +untoward in the extreme. For at this point the patient’s +attitude toward the analyst is such as can be only +adequately expressed by her in the language of the poet +who wrote: “All the current of my being sets to thee,” +and in the interest of a busy practice, if to no other end, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_167">[167]</span>it is urgent that a channel be promptly provided into +which to divert the stream! This is the real climax of the +situation. Its tenseness is further heightened at this point +by the introduction of that most delicate and difficult +process in the technique called “analyzing the transference”! +The fact is the transference will not analyze. +It never does. That is the difficulty of this very delicate +phase. At this juncture we cast frantically about for an +“interest” for the patient, that is, an interest other than +ourselves—marriage, art, social service, something, anything! +The truth is, our analysis has failed of its aim, +and in our extremity we are driven to seek shelter under +the cover of a subterfuge. It is this subterfuge which +consists in an effort toward what is called, in scientific +phraseology, “the sublimation of the patient’s sexuality” +and is the closing act of our little comedy. As the curtain +is finally rung down (the management is fortunate if it +drops without a hitch), it descends upon a much perplexed +psychoanalyst. He feels distinctly that something went +wrong. He is not certain just what it was, but knows that, +whatever it was, the fault lay entirely with the patient. +But the circumambient gods, as one’s fancy pictures, +who from their remote recesses have witnessed until now +with unsubdued mirth the transient episode of our +unconscious charade, observing the wretched fate of the +patient in her unanswered need, suddenly alter their +mood from levity to grave concern as they thoughtfully +remark one to another in their own wise way that the +essential catastrophe, after all, is the unconscious of the +analyst and that the real drama has but just begun.</p> + +<p>However unpalatable the admission, here is the whole +crux of the matter. We have dealt objectively with an +inherently subjective situation. Our approach has been +cognitive, not affective. It has been personal, not +inclusive. Again we have merely looked out, not in. +Again it is the illusion of the organic interval, and our +problem has eluded us in the common fallacy of objective +reference.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_168">[168]</span></p> + +<p>In a list of precepts for psychoanalysts (“precepts” +for the elimination of repressions scarcely requires +comment!) there is offered this naïve word of admonition: +“Don’t forget that the neurotic’s chief dictum is: ‘I am +not as other men are.’” But here again the analyst +characteristically fails to recognize that such a dictum is +by no means the private monopoly of the “neurotic.” +He overlooks the fact that it is equally the tendency of us +all and (what is of crucial importance) most especially +of the analyst himself in the very utterance of his dictum. +For in imputing to others this unconscious fallacy of self-distinction, +he is in the same breath necessarily assuming +the same distinction for himself—the distinction, namely, +that he is himself in so far “not like other men” as to be +privileged to tell them of the presence of this fallacy +within themselves. Of course the analyst will say: +“Well with me, you see, it is different.” But this is +precisely what the patient says, as it is what every one +says. And here we come once more to the heart of +the matter, namely, that as the neurosis is societal the +self-distinction underlying it is necessarily the particular +claim of every individual within the societal body. In +this situation the analyst inevitably regards only the +disparity of “the other fellow,” a result which I feel to be +typical of the error of the Freudian analysis.⁠<a id="FNanchor_35_35" href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> But “who +decries the loved decries the lover.” In the true sense—in +the sense of our organic life—there is no other fellow. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_169">[169]</span>Our interpretation of his apparent differentiation from us +is but our own projection of the differentiation within +ourselves, just as his interpretation of our apparent +differentiation from him is but his projection of the +division within himself. It is this unadmitted division +within each of us that has created the illusion of our +organic separateness from one another. For this reason +it is only as we accept the subjective task of realizing the +spurious fabric of our own separateness and self-sufficiency +that we may come to realize it within our patient by virtue +of our inherent identification with him. Thus, to realize +our division through participation with another is to +pierce the delusion of our mutual separateness and +unconsciousness and so to become mutually united again +through the acceptance of our common organic life.</p> + +<p>Based upon the organismic conception here outlined, +clearly this subjective recourse can be the only logical +position of the analyst. For, in the light of this conception, +the neurosis or the separate mode was originally induced +in the immature organism through the external suggestion +of the individual in closest contact with it operating to +dissociate it from its primary, organic mode. In consequence, +the dissociated consciousness thus artificially +induced can be restored to the mode of unification and +confluence only by substituting for the superimposed +suggestive contact—the predominant social repression +embodied in the parent—the presence of a personality +whose tendency is preponderantly of the confluent, +societal mode. It is clear that in this conception the +analysis of a patient, in the sense of his realization and +acceptance of life, presupposes as a rigid organic condition +the prior analysis and acceptance of life on the part of +the analyst. In impaling the cause of this separatism, +delusionally assumed by the patient to reside within +himself alone but in reality having its residence in our +common social repression, the analyst’s preoccupation +can only be with this same delusional arrogation of +separateness as it occurs within himself. This means +<span class="pagenum" id="p_170">[170]</span>nothing less than that the life of the analyst must in its +consciousness completely encompass the life of the +analysand in its unconsciousness. This, I know, is a large +demand. It is to realize in oneself a breadth of consciousness +that embraces in its scope nothing less than +the totality of unconsciousness in its entire social aspect. +It is to include within oneself the collective unconscious +or the far span of normality in all its separateness and +sexuality. In brief, it is to open the way to a reversal of +the unconscious situation now prevailing in which societal +men encompass individual man, and to achieve the mode +of consciousness in which societal man encompasses +individual men.</p> + +<p>I remember a young woman journalist coming one day +into my study on the pretext of illness but in reality to +look me over. She had been the rounds of the New York +analysts, she said, having been “analyzed” by first one +and then another, though I doubt whether any of the able +physicians cited by her would have dignified the interviews +in any such terms. But while herself unconscious, +indeed quite paranoid, she made a remark which has +since seemed to me highly significant. She said that we +psychoanalysts appear actuated by an unconscious +attitude of antagonism toward our patients, that we +seem motivated by a determination “to get even.” In the +spirit in which it was made, the remark was obviously +a projection and not a judgment, but I think the criticism +is in general true—certainly it has proved true in my own +case. For the analyst is either unconsciously pleased with +the patient who gives him his confidence or he is unconsciously +displeased at his withholding it. In other +words, the attitude of the analyst is not uninfluenced by +personal or egoistic predilection.⁠<a id="FNanchor_36_36" href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> Here, then, is straightway +<span class="pagenum" id="p_171">[171]</span>the factor of unconsciousness, of separation and +hence antagonism in the analyst.</p> + +<p>But if the analyst consciously senses the patient’s +situation, he sees without bias that the patient—being +of a separative, unconscious mode—will, and inevitably +must, act in every instance from motives of unconsciousness. +If he confides in the analyst, he does so +solely in the hope of winning for himself the good-will of +the analyst (positive infantile affect or suggestion); +if he is silent or evasive, it is because he doubts the +advantage to himself of sharing his confidence (negative +infantile affect or repression). The psychoanalyst who +would reckon consciously with a patient’s life may be +moved by neither one nor the other manifestation. Both +are outside the mode of reality. Both are expressions +of dissociation. Neither attitude will touch the analyst +affectively if he is truly within his own life. If, on the +other hand, he is himself dissociated, whether normally +or neurotically—in the collusion of the group-expression +or in single isolation—and is ever seeking to reinstate in +the present moment the mother-comfort of his own +childhood, he will necessarily either receive the unconsciously +motivated confidence of his patient with the +unconscious satisfaction of self-interest (infantile egotism) +or he will respond to his patient’s unconsciously withheld +confidence with the no less unconscious dissatisfaction of +self-interest defeated (infantile egotism thwarted). In +one case he manifests the sentimentality of unconscious +sympathy and approbation, in the other the equally +sentimental reaction of unconscious resentment and hate. +In either case it is to be partisan, separative, personal, +unconscious. This unsuspected personalism or unconsciousness +within ourselves makes it easier for us to +<span class="pagenum" id="p_172">[172]</span>condone the personalism or unconsciousness in another, +rather than understand it. Because of the greater +significance to us of our own personal grievance as compared +with our understanding of the impersonal needs of +life as a unitary experience, our sympathy is automatically +enlisted on the side of the patient’s personal grievance. +In brief, we prefer to sympathize with the suffering of an +organism rather than with the organism that suffers. +This characterological weakness in our analytic system +renders the analyst an easy mark for the sentimentalizing +reveries of the neurotic patient. It is thus a far cry +from “Freud,” the psychological conception as it tends +toward the more unitary formulation and co-ordination of +the problem of neurotic disharmonies, to “Freud” the +father-complex as it tends unconsciously to dominate the +consciousness of patient as of follower.</p> + +<p><i>The admission that has eventually to be made without +qualifying reservation is that the transference upon which +we have laid such stress as an objective scientific phenomenon +is in truth a state of mind subjectively induced in the patient +in direct response to the attitude of unconsciousness on the +part of the analyst himself</i>. It is just here, in the dissociated +attitude of analyst toward analysand, that there +stands the inevitable impasse to the personal or individualistic +analysis of Freud. Here is the futile revolution +within a vicious circle that is the fallacy of its +individualistic viewpoint. It needs to be repeated that +the sexual or the personal, in the sense of the separative, +is itself unconscious. Its primary source is the reaction +originally induced in the organism by the disunity of +the social unconscious as voiced by the parent. We shall +be helped if we keep in mind that much of the confusion +of psychoanalysis is due to the failure of psychoanalysts to +realize that there is a distinction between the mother-image +and the mother-organism. We must ultimately +come to see that, due to the dissociative or bidimensional +attitude on the part of the mother, the child automatically +replaces the biological reality of the parent organism with +<span class="pagenum" id="p_173">[173]</span>the artificial <i>image</i> of the parent⁠<a id="FNanchor_37_37" href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> induced by the parental +command. Following the investigations of the last years +it has come to be my definite conviction that it is this +element of the pictorial and statutory, as reflected in the +parent-image, that is the real impediment to consciousness +and the sole meaning of “unconsciousness.”</p> + +<p>The suggestive instance (image) of the parental organism, +due to the early influence of separatism operating upon +it, savours wholly of a repressive, non-confluent attitude. +It necessarily tends, therefore, through the gradual +inculcation of the ulterior, separative, behaviouristic +mode, to dissociate more and more from its original +biology, the immature organism within its range. As the +neurotic diathesis is induced through the surface diversifications +of external suggestion infringing upon the +original consonance of the organism, as unconsciousness is +diversity of outer aspect in contrast with the concentration +of consciousness and personality in its inner confluence, +the resolving of the neurotic conflict lies in recalling the +personality from its precipitation into the manifold quests +of external compensations to the original integrity of its +essential unitary life. In this process of rehabilitation +there is abrogated the ceaseless urge toward the unconscious +fulfilment of the <i>wish</i>, through the restoration of +the native impetus of life in a conscious fulfilment of +<i>function</i>. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the +original incitement to the neurosis is, from an individualistic +basis, external. This reaction within the individual +to a prohibition acting from without constitutes the whole +significance of the attitude of separatism, of self-seeking +and of self-defence that are synonymous with the repressed +sexuality of the neurotic personality. But there is the +need to recognize that this same attitude is also synonymous +with the released sexuality which is “normally” +regarded at the present time as a true expression of life. +This so-called normal expression, however, in its obsessive +self-seeking and in its obvious kinship with secondary +<span class="pagenum" id="p_174">[174]</span>dissociative reactions, stands at the very opposite pole +to sex as the instinct of life in its organic significance.</p> + +<p>The automatic release of the reaction of self-defence +that is the reflex response to the irritant of organic +prohibition is biologically significant. For with the +extraneous interception of the organic mode or at the +instance of prohibition, the individual is reflexly stimulated +to a compensatory effort to replace this mode with the +vicarious mode of self-defence. There is here the psychological +concomitance between organic interdiction and +organic recoil, between repression or curtailment of +personality and sexuality or the retroactive impulse to +individual aggression. In this connection it is interesting +to note the etymological agreement of the ideas of defence +and prohibition in the French word <i>défense</i> meaning +prohibition. There is psychological warrant for assuming +that the relation between these two words is more innate +than accidental.</p> + +<p>This psychological parallelism between repression or +self-love and sexuality or self-defence, between the +egoistic wish and the suspicion of interference with its +fulfilment, underlies the identity of the phenomenon of +homosexuality and that of paranoia. Students of psychoanalysis +have tended to regard the reflections of these +reactions as distinct manifestations, viewing them as +contradictions rather than as concomitants, as opposites +rather than as alternatives, as different phases of reaction +rather than as different aspects of the same phase. +Freud, for example, lays emphasis upon the factor of +sexuality, giving it the place of dominant importance in +the neurotic conflict, while Adler asserts that it is the +factor of the individual’s egotism that is of central +importance in the causation of the disharmony. These +seemingly opposed views are, in reality, the same. One +envisages the somatic, the other the psychic aspect of a +condition that is nuclear and common. Their seeming +difference is merely the inevitable limitation of an +objective and absolute mode of approach. In either case +<span class="pagenum" id="p_175">[175]</span>it is the symbolic manifestation that is confronted. +Whether the reaction is represented in lust of body +(homosexuality) or in pride of mind (paranoia), in both +conditions the aspect contemplated is again the mere +symptomatic index. In each is expressed but the secondary +response to a deeper, more encompassing factor that +has its substrate in our common consciousness. In each +it is the semblance of the individual personality replacing +the actuality of the societal personality. Each is the +objective resultant of a subjective impediment to the +confluent, organic life. In both there is represented but +the superficial aspect, one expressing itself clinically in the +symbolic anomaly of homosexuality, the other, in the +symbolic anomaly of paranoia.</p> + +<p>Thus far the interest of these anomalies, as far as +psychoanalysts are concerned, has been their implication +as it touches the psychopathology of the isolated or +neurotic personality. Far more significant, however, is +the bearing of these manifestations upon the psychobiology +of the social organism as a whole. That these +distortions of personality exist in a larval stage in the +group-neurosis of “normality” is a circumstance with +which the psychopathologist needs yet to reckon in his +wider office of clinical sociologist. Naturally we have not +yet begun to suspect the presence of these unsavoury +elements, homosexuality and paranoia, in the unconscious +of “normality,” and as normality enjoys the security of +mutual protective agreement among its constituents, +the existence of these unseemly maladjustments within +its ranks will long be treated by us with stolid disavowal. +It is the distinguishing feature of the naïve countenance of +normality that it experiences no need of self-questioning. +A delusion that has become socially buttressed in the +mutual reciprocities of its unconscious adherents is +indeed impregnable.</p> + +<p>Human consciousness, however, will not be understood +nor a clearer, saner life opened to man until he has +repudiated the unconscious, vicarious or separative as it +<span class="pagenum" id="p_176">[176]</span>exists in its securest, most widespread and most aggressive +form, that is, in the <i>socially systematized delusion comprising +the collective unconscious of our vaunted “normality.”</i> +For if normality, so-called, is in reality a dissociation +existing under the protective mask of society, how can +we who are normal or collectively dissociated comprehend +dissociation in the neurotic personality? How can the +actor be at the same time onlooker? How can subject +and object co-exist in the selfsame content? How, in +brief, is it possible for unawareness to envisage unawareness? +Surely it is clear that the dreamer is of necessity +partisan to his dream, and that the contemplation of a +dream from within a dream is subversive of the very +principle of consciousness. For knowledge being awareness +<i>of</i> or <i>in regard to</i>, demands as its condition the two contrasting +factors of a subject looking upon and an object +looked upon. If normality is mere collective unconsciousness +and therefore itself an artificially induced neurosis—if +it is a condition of unconsciousness produced through +the influence of external suggestion and therefore represents +in itself a secondary dissociative state, how is it +possible to fulfil the requisite condition of consciousness +in respect to the two factors of subject and object in +the matter of our consideration of the dreams of our +patients? As my own work has in the last years come to +adopt a more and more inclusive organismic viewpoint, +I have become convinced that what we psychoanalysts +<i>in our present personal and objective interpretation</i> consider +“dream-analysis,” and in regard to which we have taken +ourselves and our patients so seriously, is utterly futile +and invalid. I am convinced that, in the mood in which +dream-analysis is now applied, it is itself the expression +of an hysterical symptom—a cognitive replacement +within the social unconscious comprising the arbitrarily +assumed group-differentiation “psychoanalyst.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_177">[177]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI"> + CHAPTER VI + <br> + THE DREAM AND ITS ANALYSIS IN AN ORGANISMIC INTERPRETATION OF THE NEUROSES + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>The dream of the individual together with the individualistic +analysis of the dream presents a most difficult and +as yet untried field. There is here required a technique +that is as elusive as it is unprecedented. For such a +technique must include the unconscious complicity of the +analyst in the social or image basis from which he analyzes. +For it is only impersonally and confluently that we may +understand what is personal and separative in another. +To approach the dreamer’s separative attitude of repression +and self-defence toward the elements of his dream, in an +attitude of our own that is socially no less separative and +repressed, is to invite a situation in which we merely +exchange the dissociative symbols of the sleep state for +analogous symbols in the waking state. It is to replace +refraction and distortion as they occur in the individual +repression, with its symbolic wish-fulfilment in dreams, +for refraction and distortion as they occur in the social +repression, with its symbolic wish-fulfilment in “beliefs.” +For this reason, having come to view the unconscious in +its waking and in its sleeping expression from the point of +view of the common, organic mode, I have reached the +conviction that the conception of dream-analysis as it has +been entertained by us is throughout a misconception, +that to speak at all of dream “analysis” from the +personal or separative viewpoint is self-delusive. For our +so-called dreams of the night are but the unaccepted +realities of the day, the so-called realities of our day but +the unaccepted dreams of the night. The night’s reaction +is individualistic, the day’s reaction is social. Both are +<span class="pagenum" id="p_178">[178]</span>identical in their method as in their aim. Both represent +the endeavour, through futile recourse to symbolic or +“would-be” measures of recommunication, to adjust +vicariously and upon a separative basis the organic +outrage to life’s inherent unity. It is the self-determined +illusion of our societal disaffection. It is the lure of the +symbolic in its mock pursuits of the personal and separative. +It is the vicious circle of all unconsciousness vainly +rotating upon the phantom axis of its own unreality.</p> + +<p>In view of the repercussion of consciousness that is the +essence of man’s unconsciousness, the attitude that will +best liberate us from our infolding tendencies of mentation +lies in a conception that regards unconsciousness as a +self-reflexive mode throughout. Such an attitude will +clearly demarcate our tendency toward the peripheral or +social distribution of the mental images comprising our +<i>mirrored</i> affects as contrasted with the societal conservation +of our <i>real</i> affects in the conscious fulfilment of our +common personality. As long as we fail to realize this +generic basis we shall continue to suffer from the delusion of +our own organic disunity, and there will necessarily persist +the vicarious shunting of affect into the distributive +expressions of anger, duplicity and antagonism constitutive +of resistance. Since our affects are organically +common, if we do not permit them expression in universal +confluence, they must inevitably seek an expression that +is scattered and random. And so we need to recognize +that we may not adjust our affective or subjective life +through the study of the objective mechanism of the +images or dreams that merely reflect it, but only through +the subjective (conscious) reabsorption within us of +the displaced and socially distributed affects to whose +suggestion the dream, by day or by night, is the mirrored +reaction.⁠<a id="FNanchor_38_38" href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p> + +<p>In an organismic view <i>differentiation is unconsciousness</i>. +That is, the dissociated self or the separative element is, +by reason of its organic anomalousness, necessarily at +<span class="pagenum" id="p_179">[179]</span>odds with self. For this reason there is inevitably entailed +the universal conflict of unconsciousness, collective and +single, that is man’s disunity, social as well as individualistic, +“normal” as well as “neurotic.” Such is the +disparity that is reflected in his dreams, sleeping and +waking. The diversity of our fabrications, social and +individual, is the diversity of our <i>selves</i>. Our complex is +our complexity. In very truth “<i>our</i> little life is rounded +with a sleep.” We waken only to alter the form of our +dream. Throughout the diurnal cycle the dream-state +remains unbroken, and all efforts of analysis in our +unconscious, separative mode are helpful only in accentuating +the powerlessness of consciousness in its present +state of differentiation. In the separative mode the +elements of the personality are unassembled, and the +result is an absence of organic coherence, of an essential +unity such as may alone be the basis of a truthful inquiry +into the unconscious processes of man’s inversion. In my +own case (the only case upon which any of us may occupy +himself profitably is one’s own) it has become clear that +my attitude toward the night is predetermined by my +attitude toward the day. If I have kept personal and +repressed my real feeling during the day, the secret of my +dissociation will be kept faithfully throughout the night, +and upon waking in the morning such camouflage as will +successfully hide my separativeness will have been +already established by my own order prior to the waking +moment.</p> + +<p>It would seem that sleep is the beneficent leveller, that +mentally as well as physically its function is restorative, +that it is the solvent and the dissolvent of our fancied +differentiations, of our artificial, fear-begotten defences +against one another. It would seem that it is for man the +opportunity of organic rehabilitation, that in this period of +withdrawal and quiescence after the restless day of self-seeking +and antagonism there is a palliative and conciliatory +process at work.⁠<a id="FNanchor_39_39" href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> After all, diplomacy and lying +<span class="pagenum" id="p_180">[180]</span>are wearying in their exactions, and in this period marked +by an absence of social pretences and of the strain of our +separative adjustments, consciousness undoubtedly tends +to reassert its common, primal mode with images that +promote and do not impede organic function—joyous +images, expressive of common need, of organic participation, +of concerted, confluent function. After all, our +dreams are but the shadows our lives cast behind them +when we stand in the light of our own personality.</p> + +<p>It is only as we become one with this inherent personality +through an acceptance of the unity of life in its entirety +that the shadows comprising our dreams, sleeping and +waking, may be truly resolved. Since our dreams of the +night only tend to restore the equilibrium which the +day has destroyed, our dreams are only in so far distorted +as our day is distorted. In so far as the day is an evasion +of the recognition of the infantile wish, with its corresponding +entail of over-compensation and atonement, in so +far does the dream reproduce again the identical wish of +the day after having recourse to the extravagance and +distortion requisite to its disguise. When in our day’s +reactions we shall have entered upon an organic, confluent +mode of consciousness, our dreams will be one with the +organic confluence of the day, furthering in their harmonious +imagery the quiet process of the day’s constructiveness. +It will then be realized that sleep is but the day’s +diastole, that just as the period of diastolic relax following +the rhythmic contraction of the heart has a function that +is reciprocal and harmonious in relation to the systolic +impulse, so in the rhythmic cycle of our day its period of +rest is reciprocal and continuous with, not contradictory +and opposed to, the constructive function of the day’s +activities. The dreams of the separative mode, on the +other hand, only occlude and congest the avenues of our +sleep-consciousness. These obstructive travesties effect +a complete deadlock due to the confluent organism’s +ineffectual effort to arrest and clarify these separative +trends that are reflections even in sleep of the unlived, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_181">[181]</span>fear-ridden, organically discordant experience comprising +the day.</p> + +<p>With our present habitually tutored day, the very +approach of our awaking automatically prompts us to don +a costume of disguise before we rise to move again amid +the tedious maze of masked players who, like ourselves, +have lost the reality of life’s organic meaning. As long as +one’s feeling is thus resolutely set against the surrender of +his artificial defences, as long as one fears to remove +the mask of pretence covering his personality, no amount +of intellectualization, of mental analysis, of theoretical +“truths” (I have tried them all!) will avail to lift his +repression and admit him to the simple reality of his +common, organic feeling. It is in vain that we seek the +truth. Truth, as it is customarily conceived, is but the +theory whereof life, as it may be lived, is the reality. +To seek the truth is again to pursue the phantom of our +own mental imagery. For reality disappoints all formulation. +No symbol may stand for equivalence but only for +equivocation. The lesson the psychoanalyst has yet to +learn is that reality has no substitutes, that no <i>seeming</i>, +however plausible, may replace that which <i>is</i>. It is this +lesson—the very lesson we presume to teach our patients—of +which all our work is as yet but an empty recitation. +Accordingly, no amount of intuitional or theoretical +acumen on the part of the analyst can do other than +thwart a patient’s need of self-realization. Such intellectualism +on the part of the analyst is the substitution +that is <i>his</i> neurosis. Recourse to intellectuality is his +concession to the socially current repression and substitution +which in our collective unconsciousness we +credit as normality, never once suspecting, in the strength +of our numerical security, that <i>normality is but the collective +dream-state of man’s waking life</i>.</p> + +<p>Because of the psychological identity between the +dream that is our day, with its dramatization in the +objective furniture of cubic actuality, and the dream that +is our night, with its scenic reproduction in flat, pictorial +<span class="pagenum" id="p_182">[182]</span>outline, an individualistic analysis in the sense of an +encompassing realization is of its nature precluded. Only +as we can come to stand apart from both, and view them +in their proper light as symbolic phenomena divorced +from life, may they be assessed in their true relation and +thus analyzed in the only sense that gives meaning to the +term. But this is not a merely mental process. This is to +actualize organic life in our daily experience with such +sincerity as to realize within ourselves the spuriousness of +our habitual, dissociated mode. It is so to include the +dream outside the dream, constituted of the separative +day with which the separative night is enclosed, that we +shall have automatically entered upon the mode of self-unification +which is one with a societally unified, confluent +consciousness. The essential mark of such a mode of +consciousness is that, in its subjective consonance, it +regards with an equally objective clarity the vicarious +processes of the day and of the night.</p> + +<p>Our attitude of the day is amply illustrated by our +attitude toward our dramas. As our lives are based upon +unconsciousness, our dramas as well as our dreams are +also necessarily based upon unconsciousness. Since +the logic of the dream is inverted, it is essential to reverse +the dream’s unconscious motive in order to understand +its fallacious sequences. The drama equally represents +the interplay of unconscious motives. Based thus upon +the inverse processes of unconsciousness, its logic is also +necessarily inverse. And so in order to understand the +drama, its motive must likewise be observed in its reverse +trend. In other words, the drama and the dream are +identical in their essential mechanism. When the +psychopathologist is confronted with the drama of <i>actual +life</i>—the inverse process represented in the neurosis—his +immediate recourse should be to intercept as far as +possible the inharmonious development of the patient’s +life history and, having completely reversed its underlying +motive in the light of conscious perspectives, to +unravel its meaning through carefully retracing discoverable +<span class="pagenum" id="p_183">[183]</span>inadvertencies of development to their logical +source.</p> + +<p>In this function the analyst’s attitude toward the +human drama presented in the neurosis of his patient +becomes identical with his attitude toward the dreams of +his patient. One would naturally expect that his attitude +toward the drama of the stage would be equally logical. +But a societal analysis fails to justify this expectation. +For such is the elusive tenacity of the seemingly actual, +as it appears in the dissociative recourses of the social +mind, that the psychoanalyst, too, continues to regard +the bidimensional <i>aspect</i> of life presented in the drama as a +conscious form of art. In consequence it comes to pass +that a train of unconsciously destructive events which he +deplores as an expression of life in the clinic is applauded +by him as an expression of art in the theatre. The same +untoward sequences, which in clinical retrospect are +<i>viewed</i> with compassion, are in the process of their +theatrical portrayal <i>experienced</i> with delight.</p> + +<p>I do not see how such inconsistencies between our +collective and our individual reactions to unconsciousness +are separable from the present confusion that exists +between the objective and the subjective spheres of consciousness. +Because of this confusion, in our dissociation +we take pleasure in participating in the dramatic representation +of the identical processes of unconsciousness +which, subsequently contemplated as actuality, we +interpret only as pain. This inconsistency between our +subjective and objective reactions accounts also for the +many discrepancies in the psychiatrist’s personal attitude +toward the dramas of the clinic and the drama within his +own home. It explains how it happens that we, who are +seemingly competent to trace an individual’s neurosis +directly to the influences that have unconsciously surrounded +him as a child, will yet unconsciously surround +our own children with these selfsame influences. Surely +never was the “other fellow” so abused and ourselves so +tricked as in our psychiatric clinics when, in our self-conscious +<span class="pagenum" id="p_184">[184]</span>formulation of the occasion of his confusion, we +deem ourselves less unconscious than he.</p> + +<p>As it is the especial métier of the unconscious to convert +the actual into the seeming, its subtlest attainment is the +conversion of what is most actual into what is most +seeming. If of realization itself it may effect a semblance, +it is the ultimate achievement in unconscious ventriloquy. +If of analysis itself it may make a pseudo-analysis, it +has secured its entrenchment through a technical recourse +that is wellnigh impregnable. Through such a strategic +manœuvre one often attains a quite faultless analysis of a +dream, when all the while the realization is but seeming. +As the dream is but the reflected image or “negative” +of yesterday’s duplicities and introversions, an attempt +to capture and “analyze” it from the retrospective standpoint +of the replacement and introversion of the day, is +but to retain unaltered and unalterable the unconscious +embroilment of one’s self-delusive introversion. Yet, with +the practised dexterity of our habitual sleight-of-hand +methods of analysis, we still pursue the futile industry of +our objective dream-trapping, idly endeavouring to drag +the travesty of the day’s distortions embodied in the +dream into the self-conscious analytic dissecting-room. +In truth, the real need is that we surrender the analytic +dissecting-room and all its paraphernalia of symbolic +technique to the common reality which underlies it, +realizing that its artificial displacements constitute the +sole function of the dream parody. For set what snare +we will, a dream cannot be taken alive. The chasing of +dreams is like the chasing of rainbows. One may no more +behold his <i>real</i> self in the mirror of the dream than in any +other reflecting surface. The image reproduced may be +never so lifelike but it is not life. As with birds on the +wing, so with our dreams; we cannot capture them +except we destroy them. The attempt to do so is to repeat +without end our habitual offence against the organic +grammar of life constitutive of the double negative of all +unconsciousness. Again it is unconsciousness within +<span class="pagenum" id="p_185">[185]</span>unconsciousness, personal preference within personal +preference, unconsciousness <i>unconscious</i> that is the +baffling complicity in our self-dissociation.</p> + +<p>This self-involvement of the neurosis, this <i>unconsciousness +of the totality of self</i> makes of our individual enfoldment +a wellnigh inscrutable situation. In such a situation the +individual’s efforts of self-help—the recourses of personal +rather than of societal outlooks—become comparable to +the efforts of a man who would attempt to lift himself by +his own boot-straps. This it is that comprises the dream +within the dream of all individuation—of all separateness. +Of course, it quite naturally seems to us, in our now +differentiated mode, that the attainment of a position of +relative inclusiveness is a humanly impossible task. Yet, +if we are to attain to a true recognition of our <i>societal +dissociation</i>, we may do so only through the acceptance +of the basic actuality of our common, organic confluence. +Such alone is the essential recourse of a fully awakened +consciousness.</p> + +<p>Whether we will or no, we are thus brought back again +and again to the essential fallacy of our day’s dreams as +of our night’s—to the illusion of personal causation or +of individual sponsorship that is at the heart of man’s +dissociation, both neurotic and normal. In the presumption +of his self-determined hypothesis of good and +bad, of hope and fear, the individual is assuming unconsciously +the supervision of the universe, and the constant +endeavour of his thoughts as of his dreams is to keep +secret the traces of his personal presumption through the +subtle projections of the disguised image. Some call it +God, some call it evolution, but no matter what the +collective title under which our private prerogative is +symbolized, it is in reality but the cheat that is the +personal illusion of a central causality resident within +ourselves.</p> + +<p>I know that in this subjective statement of the disharmony +of consciousness there is presented a trend that +is wholly unacceptable to the symbolic or absolute +<span class="pagenum" id="p_186">[186]</span>logician; but, on the other hand, the objective statements +of the absolute logician are with equal validity unacceptable +to the relativist. According to the objective logic of +the mental absolutist the fact of our very existence is +theoretically untenable. In the unconscious determinism +of men’s personal prerogative, the postulate, as is generally +known, is that the universe in which we have our being +was either created by some agency existing outside itself +or it was self-creative. Of the two alternatives either is +impossible, but the vital fact remains that here we are! +The logical untenability of a position that limits itself +to these commonly accepted alternatives may some day +offer sobering consideration to our unconscious absolutism. +For the present there is grave need that our absolute or +theoretical logic yield place to the relative logic of a more +organismic point of view. In the world of physical +phenomena prior to Einstein it was impossible for +physicists to proceed with further creative extensions +because of the limitation of their underlying conception. +So in the sphere of human activities around us, as long as +we continue in our present objective fixity of thought, it +will not be possible for life to unfold because of the set +limitations of unessential attitudes of mind that block all +essential creative expression.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_187">[187]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII"> + CHAPTER VII + <br> + THE BIOLOGICAL SUBSTRATE OF THE NEUROTIC CONFLICT IN ITS ORGANIC SIGNIFICANCE + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>In studying the neurotic diathesis one recognizes the +existence of two marked reaction-types more or less +clearly delineated one from another in mood and <i>tempo</i>, +though they equally sustain the same central <i>motif</i>. The +vicarious method of dream-analysis described in the last +chapter as having all the appearance of adequacy, when +inherently it is invalid, is especially characteristic of one +of these two types of personality. The two types may +be distinguished by the contrast between their specific +reactions to the original repressive incident occasioning +the organism’s primary dissociation.</p> + +<p>I am not in sympathy, however, with the <i>implication</i> in +the discrimination of types demarcated as “introvert” +and “extravert.” These terms imply, as they are meant +to imply, an essential difference of type rather than a +circumstantial difference of reaction. In general the +extravert is rather approvingly regarded in the light of +a “jolly good fellow,” as contrasted with the introvert +whose disaffectivity, on the contrary, tends to be regarded +with an undisguised slant. As if the jolly good-fellowship +of the hysterical type, with all its aggressiveness and +ebullience, were not as truly a substitutive alternative +resultant upon repression as is the reaction of his more +silent, ingrown confrère of the opposite type! As if the +affable, effervescent type were not as truly “shut-out” +as his psychological vis-à-vis is “shut-in”! Psychiatry +has a great deal to say about the shut-in type of personality +but it has nothing to say about the shut-out type of +personality. Yet of the two the latter is by no means a less +<span class="pagenum" id="p_188">[188]</span>serious form of dissociation, and certainly it is by far the +more widespread in its results.</p> + +<p>There are, then, two types of reaction to be discriminated. +There is the type of individual who upon the initial +stimulus to defence has recourse to a tactic of unconditional +retreat. He simply withdraws <i>in toto</i>, and his +attitude toward his congeners is thenceforward completely +negative. He no longer sees nor is seen by them. They +are so far outside his ken that their existence is not for a +moment admitted by him. Excluded from the range of +his actualities he does not even concede them an hypothetical +status. Such is the <i>autocentric</i> individual. This +personality is the subsequent precoid, if in his withdrawal +he does not even so much as pretend acknowledgment +of the external world; he is the later psychasthenic, +or normal of the socially detached type, if he adopts the +more temperate policy of a seeming <i>rapprochement</i>. In +either case, enclosed within a system all his own, he lives +entirely apart from the world of actuality, ruling alone +(and of course supreme) over his self-determined cosmogony.</p> + +<p>Then there is the type of personality whose course is the +exact opposite of that just described, the difference of +reaction being due to the modifying conditions, “constitutional” +for aught I know, that attend the repressive +occasion. With this type of personality, due to the fact +that the arresting instance overtakes him, as it were, in +the open, retreat is automatically barred. He is surprised +in the act, discovered with the goods in his possession. +Detection and apprehension are here simultaneous. +Unable to deny the actuality of the situation, his instinctive +recourse is in the direction of a desperate effort to +palliate the attending circumstances. Resort to an alibi +being out of the question, he seeks to exculpate himself +by adopting a policy of a more or less truckling servility. +He would atone his offence by propitiating his accusers +and so winning a recommendation of leniency. Such is the +<i>allocentric</i> type of personality. This type may be seen +<span class="pagenum" id="p_189">[189]</span>either in the so-called normal individual of the socially +adaptive reaction or in the definitely efflorescent or +hysterical neurotic, according respectively as he succeeds +in conniving in the social pretence and unconsciousness +about him and thus saves his own neck, or as he fails in +his effort at social compromise—the process flatteringly +known to-day as “sublimation.” In this event his +failure of adaptation is due to the stronger urge within him +of the factors that are allied with the underlying communism +of his organic consciousness but which in his +mental dissociation he is unable to co-ordinate with his +innate experience.</p> + +<p>Viewed biologically these two types represent, as I see +them, a functional over-emphasis <i>in the individual</i> of the +reactions pertaining to one or the other of the two +fundamental co-ordinated systems underlying the biology +of man’s confluent life and determining, when in balanced +relation to one another, the integral health of the organism. +I refer to the cerebro-spinal and the sympathetic nervous +systems. The opposite recourses of behaviour, manifested +in the two psychological types just cited, represent, I +believe, the two extremes of reaction resultant upon the +disturbed balance between these two systems coincident +with the factor of repression.</p> + +<p>In the preconscious form of life⁠<a id="FNanchor_40_40" href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> preserved among the +animals, there has occurred no break between these two +fundamental systems. In the feline series, for example, +one observes the same graceful, organic undulations in +the movements actuated by the voluntary muscles or in +the reactions presided over by the cerebro-spinal system, +as occur in the rhythmic and harmonious co-ordinations +that characterize the function of the internal viscera +controlled by the sympathetic ganglia. With man the +picture is a very different one. Upon the introduction of +suggestion or repression and their concomitant interdiction +to his inherent feeling, there resulted an organic cleavage +within his personality. Coincident with this artificial +<span class="pagenum" id="p_190">[190]</span>summons to an adaptive and ulterior response, the +spheres of reaction corresponding to these two systems +within the organism of man were henceforth divided. +Affective responses within the organism’s subjective +nuclear life, with its physiological substrate in the vasomotor +and visceral reactions (sympathetic system), were +no longer correlated with affective responses which, +having their substrate in the nuclei of the brain and spinal +cord (cerebro-spinal system), pertain to the objective, +external adaptations observable in the organism’s +voluntary activities. Hence, from this moment forward +the co-ordination between the two systems became automatically +impaired, and there could no longer be the +smooth, uninterrupted confluence of function that originally +united the two systems into a single co-ordinated +unit.</p> + +<p>The disintegrating effect of this artificial cleavage +between these two reciprocal systems occurs only in the +constituent that marks the adaptive cerebral reactions or +in the segment or terminal mediating the relationships +<i>socially</i> of the individual elements <i>inter se</i>. In the central +or visceral system the organic unities remain intact. +Here in the depths of man’s organic being, actuated by his +involuntary, instinctive life, the disparity of separateness +cannot enter. Here is unbroken continuum. Here the +organism is susceptible to no interstitial flaw. In this +central, involuntary system which is organically common +and confluent throughout the species, the extraneous +element of repression with its reaction in disparate, +ulterior quests is automatically excluded, for in its native +inherency the organism is one and indivisible. It is the +peripheral portion of our organisms with its specialization +into the external sense-organs, through which is mediated +our recognition of objective difference or interval and +through which occurs, as has been said, our consequent +inference of intrinsic differentiation. In the peripheral +system, therefore, the fallacy of separateness due to this +biological fission may be enforced with seeming success. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_191">[191]</span>In a word, it is only in our social and external relations +that the fallacy of organic differentiation works havoc in +any positive or active sense.</p> + +<p>In this generic schema is probably represented the +physiological substrate of the schism within the organism +caused by the impact from without of the trauma of +repression, and there is represented as well the basis of +the resultant contrast of reaction-types in accordance as +the repression tends more strongly toward one or the +other side of the divided reaction.</p> + +<p>Replacing essential continuity with mere contiguity, +or the unity of our organic life with the superficial gestures +of an outer code, the <i>normal</i> of the hysterical type may +rub surfaces, as it were, and play desperately at the game +of vicarious unity. We see this everywhere exemplified +among the devotees of normality in reactions that are +apparently confluent but that are, in reality, determined +cerebrally or peripherally in response to the division +within the unitary organism of man. Such are the expressions +to be seen, for example, in our religious hobnobbings, +our spurious social covenants, our ingenious +political and economic affiliations, and in the superficial +flatteries and connivances common to normality generally. +How definitely such vicarious reactions are an infringement +upon man’s organic life is readily seen in the +unfailing equalization that follows swiftly upon them, +exacting their inevitable toll in the ultimate retributive +penalties of national and industrial wars, of social and +political dissension and in the world-wide expression of +disaffection that marks the social periphery of our self-plumed +“civilization.”</p> + +<p>On the other hand the <i>neurotic</i> of the hysterical type, +by reason of the greater sensitiveness of his organism, +is held within the grip of this organic conflict. It permits +him neither to fawn nor to defy whole-heartedly, but +because of the irreconcilable urge of this inner conflict it +keeps him ever torn between its two extremes. As an +expression of the allocentric reaction he lives within a +<span class="pagenum" id="p_192">[192]</span>system that is divided against itself, sensing throughout life, +only intuitively, the unassuageable pain of his division.</p> + +<p>In direct contrast with this reaction the autocentric +type lives within a system that is completely dissociated +from the common, congeneric life. But, though the +system is in itself uniform throughout, he suffers no less +the affliction of his life’s incompleted cycle because of his +organic separation from the socially reciprocal, peripheral +system. The allocentric seeks in vain to atone to himself +for his extradition from the co-ordinated organism in +the spurious compensations of a peripherally (socially) +separative system. The autocentric would annul the pain +of his separation from the co-ordinated organism in the +futile appeasements of a central (individual) system +which, in its insulation, represents no less his complete +dissociation from the world of actuality. The one would +repair the organic breach within him through recourse +to conciliations that lie exclusively within the social +sphere (peripheral dissociation). The other would resort +to reparations, which, being wholly enclosed within the +<i>ego</i>, embody exclusively the individual factor (central +dissociation). In brief, the allocentric sees himself as +<i>picture</i> in the world outside of him. The autocentric sees +the world outside of him as picture <i>within</i> himself. If the +conduct of the latter personifies the smoke-screen, the +conduct of the former is typical of the red-herring!</p> + +<p>Here again we witness the vacillations between the +social consensus and our personal resistance to its behests, +between the opposed factors of suggestion and of repression, +of personal advantage and of personal disadvantage, due +to our unconscious alternatives of good and bad. In +the disorganization pertaining to these two reciprocally +dissociated spheres—the cerebral and the visceral—our +unconsciousness consists, in either case, in the individual’s +inability to realize a unification of personality comprised +of the balanced inclusion of the two through the co-ordination +of the organic and the conscious spheres of his +experience.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_193">[193]</span></p> + +<p>It is my view that in the phenomena of repression or of +sexuality artificial symbols are substituted for the natural +gestures represented in the innate feelings of life and sex. +In substituting the manifold symbols of expression for the +natural gestures of spontaneous feeling, there is manifested +a dissociation of the consciousness of man of which the +union of his nuclear and peripheral fields of feeling +(affectivity) is the biological basis. Just as the gesture +is the motor expression of its concomitant sensory reaction, +so is the symbol the motor expression of the +sensory <i>repression</i> concomitant to it. As the gesture is +the organic accompaniment of reality, the symbol is the +vicarious barrier against reality. We find the sponsorship +for the symbol in unconsciousness or in a mode that is +personal, systematized, repressed, while the gesture has +its sponsorship in a mode of consciousness or in a confluence +of feeling that is impersonal, societal, organic.</p> + +<p>If one may speak of ethnic modes, it may be said that +in what is called the period of Greek thought—with its +preference for form to substance, for “the good” conceived +rather as beauty than as truth, for life felt more +in its outward line than in its inner meaning—there is +ethnically reflected the allocentric or peripheral type of +reaction. A close sympathy with all that pertains to this +early period of Greek culture is certainly characteristic of +the strongly marked types of this reaction.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the era of Christ and of the psychasthenic +reaction of Christianity, with its lugubrious +reversal of the Greek <i>motif</i>, is a mode one finds pre-eminently +adapted to the autocentric type of character, +with its apotheosis of the symbols of love, of truth and of +the spirit. Said Christ: “The spirit is more than flesh,” +thus controverting the tendency of the Greek ideal, and +an ascetic Christianity has flocked to him. But in the +eidolon of Greek as of Christian there is offered again but +the symbol. In the organic incompleteness of each there +is presented only the inadequacy of the letter, of that +which serves as a sign. In the first it is form, colour, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_194">[194]</span>substance; in the second it is the word, the concept, the +spirit. To-day there are not wanting indications that there +awaits man a period that is confluent of the two in which +these symbolic or separative racial modes shall become +absorbed in a unification of word and of substance. This +moment of man’s organic realization within himself of +the integrity of life in its totality will usher in a sociological +renascence when man’s life will embody a mode in which +the spirit <i>is</i> flesh.⁠<a id="FNanchor_41_41" href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p> + +<p>The contrasting systems here denoted as allocentric and +autocentric, corresponding to the contrast between the +cerebral, peripheral or social mode of reaction on the one +hand and the visceral, central or nuclear reaction-type on +the other, merely mark anew a very old and commonly +recognized division. Here in this more physiological +envisagement of it there is offered merely a different +conceptual basis. There is an analogous division in the +experimental psychologists’ discrimination between motor +and sensory. Doubtless also in the contrast more rhetorically +defined as romantic and classical there is contemplated +the same division of types, not to mention the contrasted +reaction-types popularly known as temperamental and +phlegmatic.⁠<a id="FNanchor_42_42" href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p> + +<p>It is needful to remember that the allocentric type of +individual is, within the peripheral division of his cerebro-social +system, as truly self-centred as is the autocentric +type within the central, visceral division of his sympathetic +<span class="pagenum" id="p_195">[195]</span>system. The difference is that the allocentric embodies +dissociation in his seeming adaptation toward the social +dream that is his day, and the autocentric in his seeming +adaptation toward the individual dream that is his night. +Every psychiatrist is familiar with the facility with which +the dementia præcox patient may analyze his own +dreams. But what avails his facility? He is by very +virtue of it not less but rather more shut in, for his +“analysis” is but the trick through which he subtly +evades the social demands existing outside his own +centrally dissociated mode. At all times he holds the +stage of his self-determined drama, viewing the spectacle +of it not as onlooker but as producer. What he permits +you to see is but a play within a play, conceived and +enacted within the theatre of his own mind. And so in +the autocentric type embodied in the psychasthenic personality—the +reaction of the type of normal or neurotic +that is related to the precoid in its extreme expression—one +may be led quite far from the touchstone of reality +by reason of the very simplicity and quite genuine +correctness of his “analysis.” And so no less with the +allocentric type and the equally plausible decoys of <i>his</i> +illusory system. What is needed is our realization that +in the projections of one as in the <i>intrajections</i> of the other +there is equally embodied the identical purpose of self-withdrawal +from the common medium of reality.</p> + +<p>Most significant of all is the need that the psychoanalyst +realize, on the one hand, the peripherally determined +tendencies of his own socially compensative +reactions or of his own allocentric normality, and, on the +other, the centrally biased trends of his own insularly +compensative adjustments or of his own autocentric +adaptation. Failing to accept, through his own analysis, +the possibility of the completely theatrical or symbolic +nature of the so-called actualities of his own day as they +tend to be expressed in the immediate moment at hand, +he may himself easily succumb to the fallacy of a too +ready credence (analyst’s wish-fulfilment) in judging the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_196">[196]</span>validity of a patient’s presumable self-envisagement. +This unconscious alternative which we trace again and +again throughout the varying manifestations of the mind +of man, whether in its single or in its collective expression, +whether in the immediate reaction of the individual or in +the remoter adaptations of the race mind, is equally the +unconscious actuation underlying the system of psychoanalysis.</p> + +<p>It would seem to mark some strange miscarriage in our +sociological progress that a dualistic system, such as +psychoanalysis, should have arisen as an emanation of +Jewish thought, when one considers the essentially +monotheistic tradition of the Hebrew consciousness. In +this sense the sociological reaction of the Hebrew mind +manifested in the dualistic principle of Freud, as exemplified +in his basic theory of psychic ambivalence, +would seem to denote some inadvertence in racial perception. +Monotheism with its principle of a universal +immanence of good is clearly a sublimation of the unitary +preconscious mode (autocentric), just as the dualistic +theism of the Gentiles, with its basis in the alternatives of +good and evil, is the sublimation of an irreconcilable +unconscious mode (allocentric). May it not be that unconsciously +psychoanalysis is a Semitic repudiation of the +basal law of Moses and of its preconscious principle of an +underlying unity, precisely as Christianity is an unconscious +repudiation of the same unitary precept as +exemplified preconsciously in the teachings of Christ? +May it not be, too, that these unconscious alternatives now +actuating the dualistic systems of Jew and Gentile will +ultimately resolve themselves into an organic monism of +accord which, in the societal encompassment of each, +will become equally understanding and inclusive through +the united consciousness of both?</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_197">[197]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII"> + CHAPTER VIII + <br> + THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN SEXUALITY AND + SEX IN RELATION TO UNIFICATION AND + ORGANIC MATING + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>In the impatience of the industrial laboratory to meet the +public need, it happens not infrequently that, through +an omission of adequate qualitative tests due to the +unusual haste of production, an inferior grade of material +is distributed such as would not have been produced +under more temperate circumstances. The time has +come to acknowledge that through a like inadvertence +many of the products of psychoanalysis are seriously +open to criticism upon the same grounds. Owing to +overhasty construction and to a lack of requisite tests +of their genuineness, an appreciable deficiency has +occurred in the quality of the material produced. Due to +this occasion psychoanalysis is answerable for engendering +in the public mind certain conceptions which are utterly +without a basis in fact. Coupled with this want of +moderation, certain publicity experts have disseminated +a wide range of literature embodying a mass of disastrous +misapprehension. In mere zeal for a market they have +circulated it broadcast amid all manner of suggestible, +because unconscious, individuals and communities. Unconscious +doctrines, however, cannot be promulgated +except from unconscious sources. When psychoanalysis +has achieved a sufficiently impersonal and far-reaching +outlook to apply to itself in reality the same tests which +it is now applying to others in theory, it will realize the +need of recalling, as far as is possible, the many conceptual +products of its overhasty output and of offering instead +a more scientifically controlled and a more adequately +<span class="pagenum" id="p_198">[198]</span>tested summation of views such as are suited to serve as +an ultimate interpretation of human consciousness.⁠<a id="FNanchor_43_43" href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p> + +<p>There is a characterological aspect of human consciousness +which psychoanalysis has yet to consider. By +character I do not mean the habituations of personal +bigotry. I have in mind a characterology that is racial +and that furthers the conscious integrations of man as +expressive of his societal life as a whole. Thus far, instead +of regarding the personality of man as a societal aggregate +assembled of the elements comprising individual men, +psychoanalysis has tended to create artificial divisions +within this organic unity. Unconsciously influenced by +a division based upon the bias of its own arbitrary +alternatives, psychoanalysis has assumed contrasts of +behaviour which completely lack the foundations of an +organismic inclusiveness.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the most unwarranted of such conceptual +contrasts, because most harmful and far-reaching in the +confusion it entails, is the artificial discrimination connoted +under the terms homosexuality and heterosexuality. +From an organismic viewpoint the alternatives +presupposed in such a distinction are traceable +alone to the unconscious ambivalence within the psychoanalytic +system itself. From an inclusive position it will +be seen that in the systematization underlying the contrasting +concepts homo- and heterosexuality, the psychoanalyst +himself has fallen a prey to the contrasting images +of hope and fear, “good” and “bad,” underlying the +alternatives of his own absolute system.</p> + +<p>In a situation that is organically false, an organically +false reaction is the inevitable response. As long as +sentimentality—the unconscious projection of the flattering +likeness of one’s own ego—dominates, as now, all +clinical procedure, the tendency to inversion or image-substitution +that underlies the psychoanalytic system +itself will necessarily render what is now the purely +<span class="pagenum" id="p_199">[199]</span>fanciful isolation of the so-called homosexual complex +inaccessible to consciousness.</p> + +<p>It is the tacit assumption among psychoanalysts as +among sexologists generally that the condition described +by Freud as unconscious “homosexuality” deserves +recognition as a true biological phenomenon, and accordingly +they tend to concede it place in the social scheme. +Since the analytic approach is not societal, the analyst +necessarily gives to the homosexual inversion a position +that is positive and static. Whether the case is regarded +as “curable” or “incurable” it is customarily treated +as an objective disease-entity. Many instances of so-called +“analysis” that I have known have consisted in +nothing else than overcoming through suggestion (consensual +assurance) a patient’s social resistance to this +type of adaptation, notwithstanding that to this end +there were pressed into clinical service the external +adjustments of active heterosexuality. This conception +is as unfortunate as it is unnecessary. The adaptation of +the homosexual disorientation within the societal consciousness +is organically as impossible as is the adaptation +of the disorientations of paranoia in the organically +societal aggregate. “Normally” the adaptation of both +phases of inversion are a commonplace, but that it is so +is but an added commentary on normality and its collective +unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>That the natural expression of sex is the union between +man and woman is indisputable. The concomitance +between the sex of man and the sex of woman is self-evident. +Being organic, this reproductive convergence of +the male and female of a species is a process that occurs +spontaneously and without intervention. No dissertation +is required to establish this view. There is, however, the +need to set forth clearly a factor entering into human +behaviour that is not spontaneous and to render conscious +the conditions now obtaining unconsciously among us +through the artificial intervention of this extraneous +factor. When we spoke of the reactions of the child to the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_200">[200]</span>early influences of inducement and prohibition (suggestion +and repression) corresponding respectively to the mental +images of good and bad, we saw that “good” coincides +with the individual’s personal advantage as reflected in +the social approval about him, and that “bad” represents +his personal disadvantage as likewise reflected in his social +surroundings. In the presumptive absolute of our arbitrary +images of good and bad, the system of behaviour +thus unconsciously begotten in us assumes sponsorship +even of the primary and organic instinct of mating. +Not even this fundamental impulse of our human +behaviour is safe from the infringements of our self-reflective +alternatives of good and bad with their attendant +measures of individual advantage. Accordingly, the +organic and inherent impulse of mating is henceforward +seen from the point of view of personal self-interest. +A common, societal instinct of reproduction experiences +thus the inversion of a secret, personal aim.</p> + +<p>This secret element of personal advantage and acquisitiveness +that has come to mar the free and natural +expression of man’s mating impulse is fully attested in +the covert self-consciousness that characterizes his “in-love” +attitude. In the alternative attitude of good and +bad that necessarily limits him to the issues of advantage +or disadvantage for himself, man no longer approaches +the essentially unitary instinct of love with unity in +himself. Either there is the response in the individual +that is “good” in that it concedes the social exaction +(positive suggestion of self-advantage), or the response +that is “bad” in that it repudiates the social consensus +(negative suggestion of self-disadvantage, i.e., repression). +In the first instance the individual accepts the alternative +of the socially approved adaptation of heterosexuality, +in the second the individual’s reaction issues in the +alternative of the socially repudiated adaptation of homosexuality. +In either alternative the factor of psychic +inversion and self-interest is equally decisive. In the first +it is presented in the form that is the individual’s response +<span class="pagenum" id="p_201">[201]</span>to the consensual suggestion, in the second it is presented +in the form that is his response to the consensual repression. +What is significant is the fact that, as each +type of response is an alternation on the basis of the +social suggestion or the social repression answering, in the +first instance, to the desire of personal gain or approval +and, in the second, to the fear of personal loss or disfavour, +both types of response, in returning upon self and self-interest +for their satisfaction, are equally <i>ego-sexual</i>.</p> + +<p>As is universally the case with reactions based on the +unconscious contrasts of good and bad, in the choice of +either alternative there are preserved the elements +actuating both. In the heterosexual alternative there is +the unconscious presence of the homosexual component, +in the homosexual alternative there is the unconscious +presence of the heterosexual component. The reason is +that the underlying factor that equally determines each +of these seemingly opposed reactions is the deeper +unconscious inversion of man’s ego-sexuality with its +inevitable alternatives of self-advantage based upon our +artificial differentiations of good and bad.</p> + +<p>The conclusion is unavoidable that we shall have to +reconstruct entirely our conception of the interrelationship +of man and woman in respect to the instinct of sex. +As has been said before, hetero- and homosexuality are +purely fictitious discriminations. Like the distinctions +presumably expressed by the conception extravert and +introvert, they embody no discrimination <i>in kind</i> whatever, +but are terms for the alternative aspects of one and +the same thing. As the concept connoted by these terms +may with advantage be replaced by the concept connoted +by the terms allocentric and autocentric, so the concept +expressed by the terms heterosexuality and homosexuality +may with propriety give way to a concept such +as we may correspondingly express by the terms <i>allosexual</i> +and <i>autosexual</i>—terms which do not indicate a difference +of content between two reactions but merely an alternation +of aspect in one and the same reaction. With a view, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_202">[202]</span>then, to what I feel will afford a clearer and more encompassing +outlook upon the problems of our human +adjustment, both individual and social, I shall, wherever +convenient, dispense with the term “homosexuality,” +because of the needlessly misleading stigma it imposes +upon the individual, and use instead of <i>homosexual</i> the +term <i>autosexual</i>; correspondingly, instead of the term +<i>heterosexual</i>, with its equally misleading social implication +of “right” comportment, the expression <i>allosexual</i> will +be used, it being understood that by these contrasts I +mean the dual alternations of self-love due to man’s +unconscious repudiation of the organic instinct of sex in +favour of the personal inversions of sexuality.</p> + +<p>Sexuality is the <i>effort</i> of conjunction of peripheral and +visceral spheres, but because of the interposition of the +personal or self-reflexive element, with its necessarily +inverse aim, there results on the one hand (socially) the +mere apposition of periphery with periphery, entailing an +inverse erotism or autosexuality in the form of narcism +(self-reflection), or unconscious homosexuality proper; +and on the other (centrally) the mere (psychic) enfolding +of visceral with visceral, entailing an inverse erotism in +the form of autoerotism or ego-sexuality proper. Sex, on +the contrary, is the spontaneous, effortless and non-personal +conjugation of the organismic poles comprising +male and female. This distinction between sexuality and +sex explains the ulterior quality of a sophisticated and +self-conscious “in-love” state representing <i>contrast</i>, in +replacement for the organismic love-state representing +<i>identification</i>. Hence sexuality is but the temporary +self-appeasement of a reciprocal adjustment, whereas sex +is the permanent self-realization of a mutual co-ordination.⁠<a id="FNanchor_44_44" href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_203">[203]</span></p> + +<p>A consideration that cannot fail to be of interest to the +psychoanalyst is the obviously complementary relation +of the two types, the allocentric and the autocentric, in +respect to one another, and its undoubted significance as +regards the instinct of mating among the more conscious +personalities such as we should expect to follow the +unifying process of analysis. The marked unconscious +affinities observable between the two types I take to be a +fact of general recognition among psychoanalysts if not +among the laity itself. But unconscious affinities, being +infantile or adaptive in character, are obviously attachments +of an ego-sexual nature. It is an organic corollary, +however, which in its social implication is unconsciously +blinked by psychopathologists, that an individual who is +infantile or unweaned or ego-sexual is in his objective +sexual interest also <i>de facto</i> ego-sexual—ego-sexuality here +being nothing else than the extension of the ego-sexual or +autoerotic mode into the sexual objective of another +individual. If, as would appear, normality is the expression +of the unweaned and unconscious mode of +society generally, it is not to be wondered at that the +admission of this fact has been so generally suppressed, +since there follows logically the distasteful conclusion +that, unconsciously, normality or society in general, +which includes us all, is ego-sexually constellated.</p> + +<p>Accustomed as we are to think so much more readily +in objective than in subjective terms, the conception of +ego-sexuality as the determinant of the relationship +between persons of the opposite sex, or the conception +of our supposedly “normal” or “heterosexual” society +as being in essence ego-sexual, has not yet entered the +analytic consciousness, nor is it likely to do so without a +violent storm of social protest and “resistance.” But +the typical expression of sexual union, as it exists among +“normals,” is redolent of this inverted bias. The folk-reaction +<span class="pagenum" id="p_204">[204]</span>of the social mind represented in the custom of +marriage, if clearly confronted, reveals throughout the +unmistakable signs of this alternative. If we note carefully +the countenance of this social reaction, we cannot fail to +observe that its instigation is based upon the mutual +desire to mollify, to “please.”</p> + +<p>Hence, marriage is for the most part a process of mutual +adjustment of the ego-sexual claims upon one another of +the two parties involved. After all, the “oneness” of +marriage is an achievement due to the pooling of the +private unconscious of the two parties to the arrangement. +It is the permanent coalition of the unconscious of both, +collectively, with a view to the temporary guarantees of +each, severally. For marriage is an arrangement in +accordance with the terms of which each party to the +covenant secretly withdraws from his organic place as a +societal element, in exchange for his fanciful sovereignty +as a circumscribed domestic aggregate! That is, in +marriage two unconscious elements have merged into a +single unconscious entity. Through the self-reflection +one achieves in his unconscious mate, through the self-reduplication +he achieves in his unconsciously begotten +offspring, one’s family is again but the unconscious of the +individual freshly reinforced through a subtle recourse +to symbolic replacement. It is the substitution of the +single, self-limited social group for the all-inclusive, +organic consonance of the societal aggregate. Thus the +social cluster comprising the family is but the <i>symbol</i> of the +societal unity comprising one’s own confluent life. The +transaction is, in reality, nothing else than the unconscious +reinstatement of the early childish mode of separateness, +fear and dependence, such as actuated the mental bias of +one’s own domestic traditions. In the marriage and homemaking +of each of us there is but the unconscious transmission +of the marriage and home of our parents.⁠<a id="FNanchor_45_45" href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> For +<span class="pagenum" id="p_205">[205]</span>as the child is nurtured amid a codified system of opinionativeness, +this self-reflective (suggestive) habit about him +engenders a self-reflective habit within him. Having early +formed an image of himself in the social reflection with +which he is surrounded, he begins early to examine his +own reactions from the sector of this habitual self-reflection. +It is in this reflection of the self that consists +the repercussion of consciousness constitutive of self-consciousness +or the manifestation we unconsciously +personify as <i>behaviour</i>—an off-hand term for a reaction +which we have not yet begun half adequately to analyze.</p> + +<p>As self-consciousness is of its nature personal and +adaptive, it does not lend itself to analysis on the static +basis of a merely adaptive and personal premise. Its +true analysis is the realization on an inclusive basis of a +genetic and relativistic principle of consciousness. In the +mere match-making of our pictorial affects, human +relationship has become throughout artificial. It is this +private impersonation of affects which we have substituted +for the common unity of our real affects. In this +mutual comparison of reflected impressions our relation +to one another becomes a superficial and meaningless +balancing of one affect against another. This artificial +substitutive quality has entered even into the expression +of man’s mating and reproductive impulse, and it is +blindly venting itself to-day in the merely mutual attritions +of our so-called sexual life. But this suggestive, +substitutive image-systematization of sexuality is the +direct antithesis to the unification and spontaneity of sex. +Where there is unity of spirit, the symbol of unity expressed +in bodily congress assumes a totally different +significance. Sexuality is the mere apposition of bodies +in place of a unity of spirit. In this apposition of the +personal is the very abrogation of personality. It is the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_206">[206]</span>mark of sexuality that it is autocratic and exclusive; it is +the mark of sex that it is relative and inclusive. This +bidimension or image-substitution of sexuality is the +psychological mechanism of our sexual resistances. For +resistances, after all, are but the irksome oppression of our +habitually enforced adjacencies. For this reason marriage +is habituative, suggestive, inverted.</p> + +<p>Wherever conditions require the isolation together of +any two normal individuals though of the same sex, +over a protracted period, there appear very unexpected +phenomena in the mental reactions of the two with respect +to one another. These reactions may be noted not only +where their isolation is due to the accidents of circumstance, +but also where it is due to voluntary withdrawal +from habitual associations in the mutual interest of a +common pursuit. The observation is noteworthy that, in +such instances, the dreams of each individual show a +persistently autosexual trend whose invariable object is +the other, while, on the other hand, the fancies of their +days’ dreams disclose a no less persistent criticism and +repugnance on the part of each toward the other. It is +the more interesting that this identical ego-sexual reaction +(secret antagonism) is found also in two persons of unlike +sex under the mental conditions of isolation involved in +the mutual pursuance of self-interests represented in the +bilateral attitude of marriage.</p> + +<p>It is not inevitable that marriage should be the expression +of inversion we make of it at present. Marriage is inverted +or ego-centred not because of an organic necessity but +because, in its mistakenness of form or its violation of the +organic inherencies, marriage, like all mere external forms, +is not biological but symbolic. In the present stage of +society’s arrested growth marriage is not the outcome of +a mode of societal confluence but of a mode of personal +preference. It is the unconscious enforcement of a self-predicated +want, not the conscious acceptance of an +organically determined need. When I speak of marriage, +I have not in mind the permanent union of man and +<span class="pagenum" id="p_207">[207]</span>woman that is biological and true and that is the natural +basis of our human society. I refer to the <i>mental attitude</i> +toward marriage that we have come to substitute unconsciously +for marriage itself. In place of the bipolar +position of man and woman, we have substituted the +bidimensional attitude of male and female. Because of +this mental attitude of “marriage,” people whose lives +might be mutually necessary become, on the contrary, +merely inevitable to one another. It is again our paramount +image of self with its resultant reflection in the +bidimensional picture. But whatever is pictorial is +personal, whatever is personal is factional, and wherever +there lurks the unconscious element of the factional or +separative, union is organically interdicted.</p> + +<p>Glancing even superficially at the obvious aim toward +the mutual exchange of egoistic satisfactions and at the +give-and-take of superficial coquetries and accommodations +generally characterizing the marriage relationship, +there is ample evidence of the completely infantile, undeveloped, +ego-sexual nature of the motives determining +such unions. If one considers the large number of women +who are supported by men in the capacity of sexual +partners, and observes their obsessive self-ornamentation, +their voluptuous exaggerations of dress and manner, +their liberal use of perfume and cosmetics with which to +enhance their personal appeal, and considers correspondingly +the large sums of money contributed annually by +their votaries in maintenance of such sexual commodities, +the ego-sexual character of such mutual arrangements is +not far to seek.</p> + +<p>In contrast with this state of affairs in the sexual life of +“normals,” it has for some time interested me to observe +the unconscious autosexuality invariably presented by +neurotic individuals. The unconscious character of it, +whether latent or actual, always manifests itself in a +privately repressed, unsatisfactory form or in a form that +invariably entails conflict. It has long seemed to me that +this repressed and tormenting expression of the tendency +<span class="pagenum" id="p_208">[208]</span>to the enfolded satisfactions of autosexuality, or to the +unconscious extension of one’s ego-sexuality to others of +one’s own sex, is but the aim of the personality toward an +organic unification deflected into the symbolic form +represented in <i>bodily</i> identification or in objective likeness.⁠<a id="FNanchor_46_46" href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> +It has further seemed to me that such a symbolically +distorted urge, if converted into its true meaning, would +issue in an organic identification representing a completer, +more conscious order of union. I am not unmindful that +in the fixity of our own symbolic substitutions our +tendency is to make such organic conceptions needlessly +difficult of assimilation. In a paper read before a psychoanalytic +meeting several years ago⁠<a id="FNanchor_47_47" href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> I gave expression to +this same view, and my meaning was so completely +misconceived that I was actually quoted subsequently as +having said that I considered neurotic autosexuality +(I then suggested the use of the term homo-phyllism) +to embody a “higher expression of love” than that +represented in allosexuality. Such a statement could not +be otherwise interpreted than as an outspoken advocacy +of homosexuality! It is, of course, not to be denied that +the union <i>typified</i> in the allosexual relationship is alone +an adequate expression of sex-unity. But it is adequate +only as organic unity or conscious love, not as sexuality or +self-love, the basis on which at present it very generally +rests.</p> + +<p>Biologically, autosexuality cannot be other than +essentially infantile and regressive in character and as +such it runs counter to the basic aims of analysis. But +emphasis should be placed upon our need of recognizing +to what a very large extent actual autosexuality exists +under the objective symbols of allosexuality. Marriage, +I repeat, as it largely obtains in the present stage of +<span class="pagenum" id="p_209">[209]</span>society, fairly teems with this infantile mode of sexuality. +As the dominant impulse between “lovers” with their +coy, infantile aim of secret self-satisfaction amply attests, +the relationship, under whatever guise of exterior circumstance +it may be concealed, is necessarily egoistic or +autosexual.</p> + +<p>I feel sure that sooner or later it will be recognized that +allosexuality and autosexuality are synonymous, that +these seemingly contrary adaptations are really but +alternate aspects of one and the same thing. Sooner or +later it will be seen that, while the neurosis entails in every +instance an autosexual undercurrent, it is an expression of +autosexuality that is organically intolerable, and that the +social adaptation underlying normality is equally the +unconscious expression of a collectively assimilated ego- or +autosexuality. Thus our pseudo-normality is an unconsciously +conceded (socially assimilated) inversion to +this infantile mode of sexuality in substitution for the +original organic instinct of sex. This is why it has seemed +to me that in the neurotic reaction, for all its distortion, +there is presented a progressive urge of evolution—that +in the very distortion of the neurotic personality there +is the premonition of a type of a clearer, more conscious +social order. In his distorted effort to assimilate to +himself a vicarious, objective (bodily) likeness, the +neurotic expresses symbolically, unconsciously, an inherent +urge toward a subjective, organic identification. +In this view normality with its allosexual reaction is +psychologically more autosexual than the reaction we +recognize as unconscious or neurotic autosexuality. +Although this repressed expression is symbolically the +more infantile and regressive of the two, yet, of the +two, it is potentially far the more competent to the truly +complemental relationship whose fulfilment is merely +symbolized in the allosexual adaptation as it commonly +exists among us. What really underlies the conflict +of the neurotic or the unconsciously autosexual is +his organic urge toward a completer oneness of life. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_210">[210]</span>His autosexuality is but symbolic. It is a disposition +the essence of which is what I have elsewhere called +“homophyllic”⁠<a id="FNanchor_48_48" href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> and the organic culmination of which +can be realized only in the unification of the complementary +systems embodied in a corresponding monophyllic +union.</p> + +<p>In the beginning of my analytic work I fully believed +with other psychoanalysts that there was a condition of +neurotic or “unconscious homosexuality” distinguishable +from what I then believed to exist conversely as “heterosexuality.” +I was too theoretical, habituative, academic, +too limited in the freedom of unsystematized observation +to recognize that sexuality, as it now exists socially, is +everywhere of one cloth, that all sexuality being narcistic +is “homosexuality,” that it is of its nature an expression +of the infantile desire of self-supremacy, of self-seeking, of +self-gratification, that, in a word, sexuality is synonymous +with autosexuality or ego-erotism. As homosexuality is +but the projection socially of what is ego-sexuality +individually, sexuality or ego-erotism is the very essence +of homosexuality or homo-erotism. But, like the rest of +my confrères, it was my habit to refer the question of +health or disorder of adaptation to the artificial distinction +between heterosexuality and “unconscious homosexuality” +respectively. In other words, my criterion of +health and growth was formerly the merely unconscious +conventionalization of sex, the mere procuring for it, as it +were, the external formality of the social blessing. It is +only in the last years that I have seen in its fuller clarity +that health is essentially unity and identity of personality +as contrasted with the introversions of an unconsciously +alternative adaptation. Only in the last years have I seen +that as life and sex are one, so are self-worship and +sexuality one, and that the real contrast as seen in the +light of the health and growth of the organism, whether +individual or societal, is the contrast between the organic +<span class="pagenum" id="p_211">[211]</span>instinct of sex on the one hand and the introversions of +sexuality on the other.⁠<a id="FNanchor_49_49" href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p> + +<p>It is the unerring test of unconscious autosexuality that +the quest that manifestly registers itself under this +artificial form of expression can find its answer only in a +realization which, in its true sex determination (love), +is latently the precise reverse of this expression. In the +attitude of lust and autosexuality toward the male there +is presaged love or sex toward the woman; in the attitude +of lust or autosexuality toward the female is the earnest +of love or sex toward the man. On the contrary, it is +the unfailing test of the delusionally systematized autosexuality +(ego-sexuality), which is social or “normal,” +that the quest thus recorded in its manifest content can +find its satisfaction only in the no less manifest “reliefs” +of a <i>seemingly</i> opposite sexual determination (allosexuality). +In the self-lusts (autosexuality) of the male, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_212">[212]</span>his objective is the body of the female with her autosexuality +or self-lusts; in the self-lusts (autosexuality) of +the female, her objective is the body of the male and his +self-lusts or autosexuality. In the satisfactions of these +objective conquests lies the whole meaning of sexuality, +as in the inclusiveness of a subjective unification lies the +meaning of love.</p> + +<p>The type of union biologically natural and fitting is that +between man and woman as unified personalities. But in +the present repressed, vicarious, infantile state of the +individual and society, such a union is as yet in very large +measure merely a type. To make of the union of personalities +something more than a type—to make of it an +organic reality—there is needed some such unification +within each through the personality of the other as would +be realized in a relationship representing the union of the +two complementary systems, the peripheral and central, +the societal and individual. The separation of these two +systems we have seen to be the response to external repression +from without, and in the re-uniting of these artificially +separated complements there would be re-established +the originally confluent organism, individual and societal, +such as alone embodies the free and unified personality.</p> + +<p>Union is not a thing of body in the contrasts of male +and female with their artificial dissociation from life. +The female in her rôle of costly <i>objet d’art</i> and the male +as collector of such wares do not approach in this mere +surface affinity a consummation even remotely akin to +any such organic reality. No man or woman ever understood +the other’s body who has not understood the other’s +mind; no man or woman ever understood the other’s +mind, who has not understood the body of the other. +It is only in an organic identification such as is inclusive +of both that there is fulfilled the united understanding, in +both, of the mind and body of each. Union is of personality +as realized in man and woman through the fulfilment +in each of their identification with life in its totality, the +one (male or female) embodying the peripheral, societal, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_213">[213]</span>allocentric complement, the other (male or female) the +internal, central, autocentric complement, the two divided +personalities realizing in the welding of each with each +the organic unity of both.</p> + +<p>In saying “male or female” I am advisedly avoiding +assigning specifically either sex element to either organic +rôle. In general the societal or peripheral rôle and the +visceral or central rôle would seem analogous to the +respective rôles of male and female, in the fact that the +former is more fittingly adapted biologically to the +external demands of life as hunter and provider and the +latter to the more retired, enclosed conditions of life +pertaining to the functions of conservation and maternity. +There is the further parallel that in the female the reproductive +organs are organs of receptivity, lying deeper, +more centrally within her organism, while those of the +male are more contiguous to the external skeletal tissues +and are invasive in function. Nevertheless, because of +the frequent transposition between the two sexes of the +traits supposedly specific of each—a far more frequent +transposition than the conventional division between the +sexes affords opportunity to observe, the woman being +often the more aggressive, the man the more retired of the +two—to assign forehandedly one or the other complement +to one or the other sex is arbitrary and without warrant. +This is true particularly in respect to the distinction +between the neurotic exaggerations of type described as +auto- and allocentric, in which the conventional psychosexual +differentiations are practically indeterminable.</p> + +<p>These and kindred reflections lead me to feel that the +term “opposite” sex is subjectively an unfortunate +misnomer. To the neurotic especially, whose life has +been crippled through repression in response to external +opposition, all “oppositeness” is felt as a menace. +Consider the inhibiting intimidations to the subjective +child, resulting from the implied oppositeness between +teacher and pupil, that characterizes the attitude of our +prevailing pedagogical systems. Consider to what extent +<span class="pagenum" id="p_214">[214]</span>our systems of education are really barriers to education. +In the very idea of oppositeness the child is instinctively +revolted. His organism shrinks from it as from a blow. +It is under such circumstances that, in his sense of the +oppositeness of the sexes, the individual’s unconscious +recourse is to the sex that is not opposite his own. Yet +here too, as we have seen, he has only turned to the +objective symbol of unity, and the inherent opposition +remains. For the symbol of unity or that which stands +instead of unity is itself opposition. Thus in the neurotic’s +unconscious recourse to this symbolic or autosexual form +of identification the opposition or separation is only +accented anew.</p> + +<p>Organically, or from the point of view of personality, +woman is not opposite to man but each is the complement +of the other. As in a current of electricity the flow +between its two termini is dependent not upon their +opposition but upon the functional confluence between +its positive and negative poles, each being incomplete in +the absence of the other, so is the relationship of sex +between two organisms; it is confluent and not opposite, +it is of the nature of complement and not of contrast. +And so the need of the neurotic, as of the normal individual, +is such a completion of his personality in the organic +complement of his mate as is co-extensive with his +unification with life in its organic compass.</p> + +<p>In the symbolic unification or unconscious autosexuality +represented in an objective likeness or bodily +identification there is but the short-circuiting of a true +organic unification. Where it has occurred in personalities +of a high intellectual or social order, the phenomenon +has tended to be accounted for through recourse to a +conceptual accommodation that is more generous than +scientific. A plea has been advanced for the acceptance of +the comrade-love of such individuals on grounds of the +high character of the expression of their inverted tendency. +To this end there has been invoked the conception of an +“intermediate sex.” But in this undoubtedly hospitable +<span class="pagenum" id="p_215">[215]</span>envisagement there is to be seen the sentimentality that +is as always but inverted sentiment. The conception of an +intermediate sex is the creation of an intermediate +imagination. An intermediate sex is a biological solecism. +It represents the attempt of a divided mind to reconcile a +divided state of feeling that is prior to it. It is again the +arbitrary assumption of opposition and the vicious circle +of separateness and unconsciousness. As for the high +order of many of its representatives, there is no high +order of infantilism or autosexuality. The existence of a +high order, moral and intellectual, of this type only +imposes upon its representatives the greater societal +obligation to understand and encompass its meaning. +Their need is to relinquish the infantile distortion of life +symbolized in this inverted bias of their unconscious autosexuality, +and concurrently to enter into the organic +realization of their innate consonance. It is only when +this organic inherency has become disturbed, whether +neurotically or normally, singly or societally, that there +occurs the reflex effort toward vicarious restitution, +resulting either in the exaggerations of self-assertiveness +or in an over-emphasized self-derogation representing +respectively the spurious bravadoes of an alternative +maleness on the one hand and the artificial propitiations +of an alternative femaleness on the other.</p> + +<p>As has been said, because of our objective, perceptual +attitude toward one another, our contacts, whether +mediated through visual, auditory, tactile or other stimuli, +are necessarily superficial and attributive. This superficial +registry of stimuli includes also the sphere of our sexological +responses. Thus in civilized man the sexual +reaction, in both male and female, is restricted to the +superficial sexual zones. Because of man’s repression of +this essential sphere of his feeling, the natural flow of +the sexual impulse is artificially intercepted. Hence the +genital stimulus in man is limited to the superficial +tactile organs. It does not radiate to the deeper visceral +structures constituting its nuclear terminus—in the male +<span class="pagenum" id="p_216">[216]</span>the rectal, prostatic and crural zones, in the female the +rectal, the deeper vaginal zones and the cervix uteri +(the homologue in the female of the prostate in the male). +It is because of this intercepted radiation of the natural +sexual response that there has arisen the necessity for +the formulation of an “anal complex”—a complex that +is regarded by psychoanalysts as existing quite sporadically +in certain neurotic individuals and that is by no means +recognized as a condition common to the race of civilized +man! For naturally with the interception of the sexual +impulse at its nuclear pole, or with repression of the +visceral sex zone, there can only result in its stead a +“complex” and along with it such artificial sexual +adaptations as have been described as intermediate. In +addition to this repression of our organic sex feeling there +has occurred a corresponding compensation in the sphere +of the mental and social life, which in the woman has led +to the social adoption of the rôle corresponding to the +<i>mental image</i> female and in the man to the <i>mental image</i> +male.</p> + +<p>Among the lower orders of animals the distinction +between male and female entails no organic opposition. +In one and the same organism this bipolar condition is +undifferentiated and self-contained. On the other hand, +with the mental sophistication connoted under the +distinction man and woman we have come to assume the +presence of an artificial opposition between the male and +female organism. With the male element or organism we +demand the mental and physical attributes we arbitrarily +posit as “man,” with the female element or organism we +demand the mental and physical attributes we arbitrarily +posit as “woman.” Thus we repudiate the polarity that +is confluent of the two elements male and female and +exact of the organism we discriminate as man that it +repudiate the characteristics we discriminate as woman, +and of the organism we discriminate as woman that +it repudiate the characteristics we distinguish as +man.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_217">[217]</span></p> + +<p>This arbitrary, unbiological dictum necessitates that +a “man” shall repress the female component within him +notwithstanding that his organism is compounded of it +along with the male element. Conversely, it makes +obligatory upon the woman that she repress the male +element within her notwithstanding that it is a no +less constituent factor than the female element in +composing the bipolar quality essential to the unity of +her organism.</p> + +<p>With this artificial condition and its edict of enforced +repression there often occurs such a one-sided development +within the organism that the result is the exaggerated +reaction we see in the bilateral extremes we +have described as good and bad, as saint and sinner. It is +interesting to observe, though, that upon analysis one +discovers within the repressed sphere of the sinner’s +personality all the factors that constitute the personality +of the saint, and that within the repressed +sphere of the saint’s personality, there are disclosed +all the elements that constitute the personality of the +sinner.</p> + +<p>Such findings as we owe to our deeper penetration into +individual psychology make clearer the superficiality of +our normal, social distinctions. They afford us reason to +believe that when psychiatry has loosed itself of its +superficial acceptations we shall find that wherever the +bipolar life of the organism, male or female, is permitted to +fulfil its natural expression there will be no longer the +repressed or unconscious instigation to such exaggerated +distortions or over-compensations as now issue as a result +of the organic repression of these artificially dual phases. +We shall then recognize that the “intermediate sex” +is a fallacy due to discriminations that arise from a +disregard of the inclusive nature of sex. What is really +apprehended by the term intermediate sex is the <i>composite +sex</i> whereof the unification of personality within every +individual, normal as well as neurotic, is the inherent +embodiment. It is in this concomitance of the social and +<span class="pagenum" id="p_218">[218]</span>nuclear systems that consists the organic co-ordination of +the individual element. Without it there is lacking the +organic correlation of the societal aggregate such as is the +essential biology of man.</p> + +<p>The organismic postulate here proposed sets out from +the conception of a <i>principle of primary identification</i> +within the original psychic organism as the biological basis +of consciousness.⁠<a id="FNanchor_50_50" href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> Upon this principle rests the biological +significance of the unity of personality that comprises the +consonance of life, individual and societal. The essence of +the neurotic diathesis, socially and singly, is merely the +reflection within the individual of these surface diversifications +of external suggestion or repression, as more +and more they infringe upon this original consonance of +the organism. This gradual replacement of our original +unity and inherency by the external inducements of the +extraneous and alternative is the whole significance of +unconsciousness. This, in reality, is the meaning of the +manifold dissimilitudes of men as compared with the +unified personality of man.</p> + +<p>If, in the androgynous personalities represented in +such autocentric types as Buddha, Plato or Christ, there +is manifested this unifying urge of the inherent organism +of man, so the allocentric personalities of Socrates, of +Napoleon and of Nietzsche are equally expressive of +this same composite urge. If this unifying urge of man’s +common sex incited the genius of an Hypatia in centuries +past, it has directed no less in our own times the creative +impulse underlying the genius of George Eliot or of Olive +Schreiner. In the contemplation of such genius we see +presented the unity and concentration of personality that +is the real meaning of the artist as contrasted with the +extraneous dissipations and diversities of the average +reaction-type. It is this unity of personality that is the +source of the artist’s creativeness as it is the inspiration +<span class="pagenum" id="p_219">[219]</span>of his genius. This composite quality of the sex life +explains the gentler intuitions we often find in the personality +of a man. There is undoubtedly the feminine in +man though as yet he stands in fear of it. It does not +wrangle or contend. It does not calculate success. The +feminine in man is the artist in man. It is because of this +that there can be in the societal unity of the artist’s +intuitive instinct no place for the illusion that is called +“the public.” To him “the public” is but the collective +repudiation of the common soul of man—a repudiation +that corresponds to this same disavowal within the private +soul of each of us. Unmoved by its clamorous demands, +the artist feels within these manifestations of the public +mind the common soul that underlies it, and senses within +it the pain of denied needs identical with his own. This +is the unfailing intuition of the artist. It is because of this +sense of the unity of life that no artist was ever yet +successful, that his triumph or his failure are above all +public concern.</p> + +<p>And so by “the artist” I mean the quality of personality +that is enticed by no external advantage, that +entertains no indirection, is unmoved by the inverse +compensations of egoism and the unconscious wish. +Such a quality is organically, societally self-contained and +subsists without object. It does not sue for favour nor +seek to please. In this confluence of the personality of the +artist as of the neurotic, in this creative concentration of +man’s genius, whether articulate or denied, is embodied the +societal instinct that is the composite life of the race. +This organic integrity of personality that is the composite +life of man and that is organically inseparable +from the unifying urge embodied in the impulse of +mating has its clearest intimations in the affirmations +of the artist as in the frustrations of the neurotic. +In the unifying urge represented in these two opposite +extremes of reaction—an urge which shall neither +impose nor accept an adjustment extraneous to the +inherent personality—is expressed the demand for a self-realization +<span class="pagenum" id="p_220">[220]</span>in a unification which, being organic, is all-inclusive.⁠<a id="FNanchor_51_51" href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p> + +<p>Only in such a conjunction will man realize his original +mode of societal confluence. When such a conjunction +will enable him truly to realize in the instinct of mating +the deepest need of his being, union will no longer as now +be <i>represented</i> through juxtaposition in the mere physical +symbol of bodily interpenetration, but it will <i>be</i> through +unification the societal reality of an organic intussusception.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_221">[221]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX"> + CHAPTER IX + <br> + ULTIMATE RESOLUTION OF THE SOCIETAL NEUROSIS IN ITS SOCIAL IMPLICATION + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>The first demand of our organic completion through a +unification with another is a unification within oneself. +From a basis of a divided self one can look out only +dividedly. From a separative mode one can judge only +separatively. If the individual embodies a symbolic +replacement within himself, others about him appear to +him necessarily also as symbolic replacements, and the +degree of his resentment toward his own separateness is +the measure of his resentment toward theirs. After all, +the only implacable enemy of man is his own unconsciousness, +and the reconcilement of himself to himself the +severest test of his essential personality. Its realization +is born of a patience that is not virtue but encompassment.</p> + +<p>Man, in his unconsciousness, stands ever by himself and +for himself. In the separateness of his personal resistances +toward the societal organism as a whole, the individual +has become marooned within his own insular +habituations. But this isolated attitude of mind is a +condition which, in our interpretation, is societally +anomalous. Though originally imposed, this condition +now automatically imposes itself upon the social personality. +Thus far this organic disaffection of man has sought +alleviation in the social convivialities that are but the +syndicate of men’s collective unconscious. Men have +sought to appease their personal isolation through the +accommodations of mere objective agreement. They +have substituted the symbols of social fraternization for +the actuality of man’s organic consonance. Within the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_222">[222]</span>unconscious of man his secret disaffection has remained +unaltered still.</p> + +<p>So often this statement that every man is for himself +alone has brought the rejoinder: “But why may he not +be? Surely such selfishness is natural to man.” But is +it? I do not think so. Of course I have not in mind the +individual’s effort of preservation in the interests of his +natural life and growth. I have in mind the private +differentiations due to man’s <i>mental attitude of self-distinction</i>. +In the conservation of interests incident to +the individual’s instinct of physical preservation, man’s +native experience entails no secret <i>self-conscious</i> design. +But it is the tell-tale of man’s mental attitude of personal +separatism that he is constantly under the necessity to +<i>pretend</i> that he is not separative or for himself. This +universal pretence reveals a biologically specious condition +of life for which we feel a universal need of concealment. +For whatsoever attitude of mind is not openly +compatible with the personality imposes a division of the +personality. A socially divided personality is a socially +insecure personality. Back of the social mind that +pretends it is not concerned exclusively for self lies a basis +of social fear and distrust. Pretence is division of personality, +and division of personality is fear. If the +pretence and the division are social, the fear is social. +The effort of numbers or of the social consensus to combine +in support of their mutual fear is unavailing, for a consensus +begotten of fear is an organically spurious consensus. +At the heart of it lies a secret division. This is the +travesty of normality with its secret soviet of fear.</p> + +<p>The analyst or the psychiatrist whose outlook is +objective fails to regard this consensual fallacy in its social +as in its personal implication. Being of the social unconscious +he cannot contemplate the social unconscious. +Being himself divided he cannot realize his own division. +We all prefer the satisfaction of seeming together socially +to the reality of being together organically. We like the +seeming integrity of the social unconscious because it +<span class="pagenum" id="p_223">[223]</span>conceals our own disaffection. It is only this seeming +security of numerical preponderance, however, that affords +us comfortable protection against the aberrations of the +isolated, non-conformable or neurotic personality. Nowhere +is the autocracy of unconsciousness more blindly +cruel than in the mass impetus of our social consolidation. +We are not unaware of the resistance of the individual +to the social consensus, but we have yet to discover the +resistance of the social consensus to the individual. +The psychopathologist has offered interesting formulations +regarding delusions of persecution, but none whatever +regarding delusions that persecute.</p> + +<p>The group work that has been gradually developing +among my students and myself has consisted essentially +in a reversal of this habitually objective course of the +psychiatrist. Instead of studying ideas of reference +objectively as expressed in the individual, we have +studied ideas of reference subjectively as they occur +socially among ourselves. Our experience as a group has +led us inevitably to the conclusion that the personal +analysis is a self-contradictory process, that only as the +individual realizes through his societal experience the +futility of the personal or private basis is it biologically +possible to be truly in harmony with a healthy and +constructive environment. If our position has any value +and significance it is because it has come to us through +the daily test of an actual living experience, and because +as a societal experience it cannot fail to extend itself +societally to others also.</p> + +<p>Let it not be thought, however, that our efforts toward +a social analysis have proceeded upon a smooth and +untroubled course. If the individual has his “ups and +downs” in the effort to unify his consciousness on the basis +of a personal analysis, he meets no less with alternations +of satisfaction and depression according as his resistances +surge or ebb in his efforts toward a social unification of +consciousness. If the individual analysis presents a +situation that is unconscious and bidimensional, a group +<span class="pagenum" id="p_224">[224]</span>analysis presents a condition that is equally unconscious +and bidimensional. In the bidimensional reaction of the +individual toward the personal analysis, he tends, as we +have seen, toward a permanent fixation upon the analyst +which shows itself alternately in the mental reaction of +“love” or of “hate.” But in either the personal or +social situation he tends to hold tenaciously to this new +object of his infantile affect in the secret hope of ultimately +reconciling and amalgamating it with the love that +underlies still the original mother-image. Unhappily, +it is the invariable failure of the personal analysis that the +patient carries his secret purpose to a successful issue. +For either he remains fastened between the old and the +new love-objects in a consolidated image-fixation upon +the analyst, or else he returns to the original love-image +afforded by the parent or to its surrogates, with or without +the collateral aids of sublimation.</p> + +<p>In the actual experience of our group analysis the +tendency was essentially no different. But there was an +additional recourse in the group analysis that is precluded +in the personal analysis. In the personal analysis there is +a bidimensional attitude toward the analyst that alternates +constantly between infantile docility and infantile resentment, +between sentimental approbation at one time +and outraged disillusionment at another. But this +alternation always occurs, of course, within one and the +same individual. In the social analysis the situation is +expressed quite differently. It was my experience that this +diversity of reaction within the group led at first to the +formation of reaction-clusters within the group, so that +one unit became consistently docile toward the analyst +and resentful among themselves, while the other unit +became hostile toward the analyst and docile toward one +another. Both alternations (resentment or docility) +were, of course, equally spurious within each group of +reactions.</p> + +<p>The practical outcome in each sub-group was very +different however. In the cluster that united against the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_225">[225]</span>analyst, a confederacy was formed that presented all the +features of unconsciousness we have seen to characterize +the collective reactions occurring everywhere throughout +the domain of our normal adaptation. The psychology of +this reaction, as we know, is the collective pooling of the +unconscious of its members severally, with a view to the +mass support afforded each individual within the unit +separately. The result as it occurred in this cluster was a +temporary deadlock and a corresponding re-adoption of +the normal level of bidimensional standards, personal and +social.</p> + +<p>In the cluster in which the sense of resentment was +limited to inter-reactions among its own members, while +as a unit all held an attitude of friendliness toward the +analyst, there was offered a form of group-unconsciousness +that at least lent itself to progressive analysis and resolution. +But here again there was discoverable the +secret pooling of unconscious motives of personal interest +and self-protection that in no way differentiated this +group division from the former, that did not separate +the “faithful” from the “unfaithful,” nor absolve the +“docile” any more than the “resentful” from a secret +complicity in the collective reaction that is the mass +neurosis of normality.</p> + +<p>It should be remembered that the plan of group +analysis was adopted not because I had <i>a priori</i> found in +it the logical solution of the neurosis. Not by any means. +Neither had I inductively reached conclusions that led +to any such logical determination. Not even theoretically +was there at hand anything of the nature of a <i>logical</i> +solution. A dissociation is not logical and its solution +could not be logical. The neurosis is not a matter +of the intellect and the process of its unravelling could +not have been intellectually predetermined. As thought +and affect are processes that occupy essentially different +spheres, to <i>think out</i> a solution for a disorder of affect is +self-contradictory. To attempt to do so is beyond the +range of organic possibility. All that I had in mind in our +<span class="pagenum" id="p_226">[226]</span>group undertaking was <i>to obtain affective conditions shared +in common that might afford a basis for the observation of +affective conditions withheld separately</i>. It seemed to offer +the opportunity to secure a relative and societal background +against which the individual would be enabled to +view in impersonal perspective his own hitherto absolute +and personal evaluations. Up to this time I had for years +worked on the group conception in the absence of any +tangible background of experimentation. There was now +needed the practical substantiation of this group conception +in the actual assembling of “analyzed” individuals +into an organized social aggregate. While the programme +of group analysis entered upon by my students and myself +came into an intensive application with the beginning of +the year 1923,⁠<a id="FNanchor_52_52" href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> it was actually the summer of that year +that marked the active inception of our experiment as an +organized unit, our group having then its first opportunity +of a practical test in the daily contact of its members; +so that we were still at this time only feeling our way +toward the ultimate outcome of an analysis involving +more than two or three individuals.</p> + +<p>In my view the really significant finding that has +resulted from our close mental association as a group has +been the opportunity of demonstrating through group +experience the practical significance of the very unexpected +disclosure upon which I chanced some years ago +in my conception of the bidimensional image and its +influence upon the reactions of consciousness at large. +It is this conception which has proved to be the real +foundation of our work. I am convinced that an adjustment +of consciousness, whether analytic or conventional, +whether of the laboratory or of the street, will ultimately +demand that we bring to book the very origins of our +mental and social systems of “thinking,” that we challenge +our customary values of mental adaptation at their very +<span class="pagenum" id="p_227">[227]</span>foundation. Our problem resolves itself into one that +shall challenge in every detail the fixed basis of an arbitrary +and unconscious position of absolutism as contrasted with +the fluent evaluations that alone pertain to a basis of +conscious relativity.</p> + +<p>Upon the basis of our prevailing personal criterion first +inculcated through the alternative precept of good and +bad, the mind of every individual existing under our +present social system is disposed toward a dualism of +outlook that renders every affective judgment of the +individual irreconcilable and self-contradictory. For a +basis that rests upon a mental <i>standard</i> or criterion of +evaluations is necessarily moralistic and divided. A +moralistic command entails a moralistic interdiction. +Every affirmation contains <i>in itself</i> a negation that is +equal and contrary. That is, every criterion <i>of its nature</i> +entertains its opposite. Whatsoever I must be or think +or feel, I must at the same time also not be or think or feel. +Whatsoever I believe, to that precise degree I likewise +disbelieve.⁠<a id="FNanchor_53_53" href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p> + +<p>This is not so simple. It is not by any means so simple +as we tend to make it. It does not merely mean, as we +would like to think, that if I love good people I do not love +bad people. Not at all. That would be obvious and a +matter of fact. It would leave our absolutism quite +intact and our criteria quite unchallenged in their fallacy. +It means something far subtler than this. It means that if +I love good people I <i>do not</i> love good people. It means that +in the measure in which I love an object, in that measure +I hate that object. It means, in sum, that, within a +system of absolute measures, my concept “love” as my +concept “good” is throughout fanciful and artificial, +that, in disturbing the natural equilibrium of the organism, +my mental criterion is resisted by a counter-judgment, +which, being fanciful and artificial, tends in a precisely +reverse direction at one and the same time. It means that +every mental image, arising on the basis of our present +<span class="pagenum" id="p_228">[228]</span>absolute criterion, possesses unconsciously an ambivalent +value. <i>Stating the proposition in psycho-dynamic terms, +every affective mental image is counterbalanced by an +opposite image having an attractive force that possesses the +quality of all bidimensional (or pendular) motion and accordingly +it acts with a momentum the direction of which is at +every moment precisely equal and reverse to its own impulse.</i></p> + +<p>After many years in which I have been delving into the +processes of the unconscious and striving to unearth its +intricate mechanisms, I have come upon no phenomenon +that has seemed to me of such basic significance as this +illusory mechanism of unconscious dualism and conflict +that underlies our absolute criteria of values, individual +and social. Through Freud we have learned that a +psychic ambivalence underlies the neurotic processes of +the individual, but we have not yet learned that an equal +ambivalence underlies the processes of the social unconscious. +Furthermore, while Freud has shown that +there is this ambivalence of motive underlying the +individual process represented by the neurotic conflict, +it remains to be seen that each term within this ambivalent +outlook is itself likewise ambivalent—that +psychic ambivalence necessarily presupposes at all times +an essential condition of ambivalence that repeatedly +doubles upon itself. For, if we will examine either term +of our ambivalent proposition, we shall find that it too +is based on opposed valences. That is, on our present +absolute basis of evaluation, every term of our subjective +judgment necessarily divides and re-divides with its very +inception. Not only does the contrast between love and +hate represent ambivalence, but love contains in itself an +ambivalent motive, and hate contains in itself a motive +that is equally ambivalent. And so, to whatever subjective +determinant we may turn, there is inevitably this +inseparable element of contrast due to our own subjectively +bidimensional basis.</p> + +<p>As regards the neurosis of the individual, we have +learned through Freud that an unconscious system of +<span class="pagenum" id="p_229">[229]</span>images, operating to inhibit spontaneous thought and +action, is the essential meaning of this disorder. Of +course, Freud attributes such disorders of development to +an associative inadequacy resident in the individual +organism. But in the study of the social unconscious +upon the inclusive basis of a relative method of approach, +we shall recognize that an identical system of images +operates to hinder the spontaneous expression of the +social organism; that as there exists a neurosis of the +individual that is due to an unconscious system of personal +images, so there exists a neurosis of the social mind due +to an equally unconscious system of social images; and +finally that the latter condition within the social consciousness +as a whole is the primary and essential disorder +of which the individual manifestation is but a subsequent +and secondary symptom.⁠<a id="FNanchor_54_54" href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p> + +<p>It is not possible to speak of the group basis of analysis +that has become the central feature of my own work +without calling attention to a bidimensional situation +that has made itself felt within the ranks of psychoanalysts +themselves. Moreover, this situation has forced +into prominence a hitherto unrecognized impasse within +our psychoanalytic interpretations, precisely because of +the inevitable conditions of an individualistic basis of +analysis. The outstanding theoretical feature of Freud’s +position toward his patients has always been a policy of +“hands off.” With the inception of psychoanalysis it has +been the signal position of Freud, and subsequently of us +all, that the patient shall be left free of all domination or +direction or suggestion, that in order that he come into +a sense of adult responsibility toward his social environment +generally he must come into a responsibility toward +his own mental processes as they relate directly to +the analyst. This policy of non-interference is one which +those of us who have attempted to follow the psychoanalytic +programme have adhered to with strict conformity. +But it is clear that the analyst becomes automatically the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_230">[230]</span>all-engrossing criterion (transference) of the patient’s +unconscious and that unconsciously the analyst assumes +toward his patient a corresponding position of personal +criterion. So that, however sincere our intention, there +has resulted what is perhaps the weakest point in our +psychoanalytic technique, a point that has warranted the +most severe criticism of our work, namely, that treatment +by psychoanalysis continues for a far too long and indefinite +term.</p> + +<p>To offset this embarrassment recourse is now had +to a procedure whereby the analysis is brought to a conclusion +at a certain definitely assigned period—a period +to be determined by the analyst according to the circumstances +in each case. The change proposed, then, is from +a course of indefinite to a course of definite duration; from +a procedure that, at least theoretically, places upon the +patient the responsibility of terminating the analysis to a +procedure that definitely takes this responsibility from +him and places it in the hands of the analyst. But, in +proposing that the analyst shall at an assignable moment +in the analysis peremptorily determine upon a definite +period at which the analysis shall cease, and in formally +pronouncing that from this moment on the patient shall +be cured, we are confronted again with the deadlock of +the bidimensional and alternative. In this recourse we +are merely resorting again to the legislation of suggestion +and, unconsciously falling a victim to the pictorial +concept “cure,” we are in no sense meeting the issue. +For in the criterion of the suddenly achieved “cure” we +are not less the unconscious victims of an illusory and +absolute criterion than we were victims of a criterion that +is illusory and absolute when we presumed the position +that the patient must at all hazards be left in a position of +freedom toward the analysis.⁠<a id="FNanchor_55_55" href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> In my view, this proposal +<span class="pagenum" id="p_231">[231]</span>of psychoanalysts themselves that we no longer assume +a policy of non-interference but that we offer instead +the arbitrary suggestion of spontaneous “cure,” there is +sounded the death-knell of psychoanalysis as administered +on the basis of the personal analysis. This does not mean, +however, the death-knell of the basic position of psychoanalysis +as deducible from the principle first enunciated +by Freud. On the contrary, if we would enlarge the +application of psychoanalysis to include the wider scope +of our societal personality, there would be realized the +necessary advance toward the full significance of Freud’s +essential principle.</p> + +<p>It is admittedly a part of the purpose of the present +thesis to show that there do exist conditions which make +treatment through the method of psychoanalysis, as it is +at present, needlessly long. But to reduce the length of +treatment calculated to adjust the distorted mind would +seem as unreasonable as to curtail the length of treatment +intended to adjust the distorted limb. As Freud remarked +long ago, no one would question the validity of the +orthopaedist’s method because of the length of time it +requires. Why then all the outcry because of the length +of time often required by the psychoanalyst’s method? +It is my own feeling that if there are conditions which +make the method of psychoanalysis needlessly long, +what is required is the analysis of these conditions. I +believe that under these circumstances the method will +automatically adjust itself. But to shorten a course of +treatment because it is long seems unintelligent to me. +It seems merely shifting from one unconscious condition +to its equally unconscious alternative.</p> + +<p>Let us examine more closely the real alternative here. +The fact is that by reason of the dualistic basis existing in +the personal analysis, the analyst necessarily invites the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_232">[232]</span>indefinite continuation of the analysis on the part of the +patient, no matter what he may theoretically say or do +to the contrary. For the analyst is himself the victim +of an unconscious criterion represented in his personal +standard of “cure.” That is, he entertains for the patient +an image of self-dependence obtainable alone through +psychoanalysis. But in this standard of “cure” he +entertains a wish-motive that is self-contradictory. For, +in wishing to cure a patient through a process of self-dependence, +the analyst, because of the involvement of +his personal wish toward the patient, necessarily presents +his cure through processes that interfere with self-dependence. +It is again the bidimensional dilemma of the +absolute or personal criterion, and an absolute criterion +necessarily involves a wish-motive of two terms either of +which unconsciously invites its opposite. In his personal +criterion the analyst would both release a patient with a +view to the patient’s self-dependence and at the same +time retain a patient in order to make sure that his self-dependence +is complete. With one gesture he would detain +him while with the other he would set him free. +This is undoubtedly an awkward deadlock. This is the +very contrary of a cure that aims at self-dependence. +For the analyst, whether in detaining or dismissing a +patient, is acting for him. But, on the basis of the +criterion of the personal image, there is inevitably this +alternative. It is unescapable.</p> + +<p>This solicitous attitude of mind, I concede, has undoubtedly +tended to extend the course of the analysis to +an indefinite duration. But does the alternative—the +arbitrary manifesto that a certain time limit shall peremptorily +conclude the analysis—really settle the issue? +Does it not rather sustain than remove the dilemma? +Of course, a theoretical assumption has been invoked that +is calculated to warrant this procedure upon psychological +premises—the premises, namely, that the analysis +consists in the fanciful reproduction of the birth experience, +that the trauma in which the birth culminates +<span class="pagenum" id="p_233">[233]</span>physiologically must be psychically reproduced through +the trauma of sudden separation of the personality of the +patient from that of the analyst. But does corroborating +the illusory and symbolic dramatization occurring within +the neurotic mind assist such a patient in disabusing his +mind of the fallacy of the illusory and symbolic? In this +alternative of a predetermined period for a patient’s +withdrawal from analysis are we not merely having +recourse to the more decisive position of the father as +contrasted with the more lenient and compromising +attitude of the mother-image? Further, in what we call +the mother-father alternation are we not again merely +projecting the dualistic criterion that is our own personal +and contrasting basis of evaluation?</p> + +<p>In my own work I have had an opportunity to realize +convincingly the completely illusory and arbitrary +character of this mother-father alternation. This has +been shown in the fact that patients undergoing analysis +with me have turned to my assistant, Mr. Shields, in the +thought that they would find in him a less severe analyst +than in myself, while patients who were being analyzed +by Mr. Shields have turned to me in a similar hope. +Needless to say, in either case, the patients were equally +disappointed in their quest. Yet this alternation would +have continued indefinitely had not a solution been found +elsewhere, namely, under conditions of a social analysis +in which a personal attachment is not permitted the +conditions of lodgment necessary for completing the +personal illusion of permanence and fixation.</p> + +<p>I have come to the definite conclusion that in the +individual analysis the neurotic patient pulls the wool over +the eyes of the analyst and inevitably comes out the +victor, because unconsciously the analyst is inevitably +on the patient’s side. Besides, to show sufficient interest +in an individual to sit with him in personal conference +daily or three times weekly (whatever the routine may be) +is to indicate to the very susceptible emotions of the +neurotic patient that his presence is personally desirable. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_234">[234]</span>The situation is only interpretable on the part of the +neurotic patient, with his unfulfilled personal emotions, as +the implication that those emotions are fully reciprocated +personally on the part of the analyst. For with whomsoever +we enter into a personal situation of mutual secrecy +we are in a situation of mutual complicity. In the +secrecy and confidence of the individual analysis, in which +there is the close, private, specialized relationship of one +individual to another, there is the tacit disavowal in each +of the commonness of the socially prevalent quality of all +unconsciousness. As long as there is a private and +personal system resident within the analyst, he necessarily +corroborates the private and personal system resident +within the patient in front of him. The fallacy of the +private system is the illusion of personal secrecy. Clinically, +it is the secrecy of unconsciousness that is the backbone +of unconsciousness. Though a patient divulge in +minutest detail all the data entering into his unconscious +experience, he yet retains his unconsciousness if he +retains a sense of secrecy toward it.</p> + +<p>In our group activity, as we have seen, there were +several, who in refusing to meet the organic demand for +a social amalgamation of their personality, were forced +unconsciously to seek the protective regression afforded +either in family, in friends, or in some form of defence-reaction +that led to the isolated activities of mere social or +normal connivance. On the other hand, others, with no +less motive of personal defence-reaction, sought protection +in the alternative of family union which they +contrived to secure among themselves, and unconsciously +assumed collectively that I, as the analyst, could +be arbitrarily delegated by them to the rôle of <i>pater-mater +noster!</i> As I have said, there was thus formed once +more an unconscious cluster, a cluster, however, that was +no less an unconscious form of social encapsulation than +the first.</p> + +<p>Biologically it is the natural process that with the +growth of their strength offspring become less and less +<span class="pagenum" id="p_235">[235]</span>attached or dependent upon the parent and that concomitantly +there is more and more aptitude for equal +give-and-take activities or play with their fellows, at first +with brothers and sisters and later with those of their +congeners with whom chance affords association. Of +course, though, if the parent has a mental background +that attaches the child artificially to him through the +image-suggestion of omnipotence, then, on the basis of +our present individual and social adaptation, the child +cannot find in any of his contacts a natural medium of +association. Although the child may leave his natural +parent and associate objectively with his congeners, he +carries with him the image of the parent, and naturally he +foists this image upon all with whom he comes in contact. +At the same time all who come in contact with him +equally foist upon him the image of <i>their</i> omnipotent +parent. Our position is that <i>as this image is not personal +but social it cannot be personally but only socially resolved</i>.</p> + +<p>The point would seem to be that the child cannot look +for companionship in the mother or father as long as he +holds the mother or father in the light of an image or +criterion. Neither can he come into simpler relationships +with his fellows on the basis of this criterion of the mother-image +without investing the personalities of his associates +with an equal image or criterion. The difficulty of the personal +analysis is the preservation of an image-situation +the while one endeavours theoretically to dispel the image. +But in the natural give-and-take of human beings in their +work and play activities under conditions of social +analysis, there is afforded the reality of a social equalization +that renders untenable the secret and obsessive +fixation with which we merely <i>look on</i> one another from +the background of the bidimensional picture.</p> + +<p>The result of our group affiliation, to express it symbolically, +has been a family of “good” and “bad” children, +of whom some desired to run away from home while +others were content to remain beside the family hearth. +Socially, the result was a bidimensional division or +<span class="pagenum" id="p_236">[236]</span>alternative that exactly parallels the division or alternative +within the individual. But there is this significant +difference between the personal and the social analysis. +In the individual the component that is unwelcome may +be permanently repressed, while in the alternatives +represented socially it is possible to stimulate these components +into repeated recognition through the constant +clashing resultant upon placing the opposed elements, +represented by the alternate issues, under conditions +of socially irritating contrast or competition. In the +social analysis there is no letting sleeping dogs lie. Once +the unconscious of one alternative reaction has been set +upon the other, the fight is to the finish. There is not +the private recess of personal secrecy into which one may +retreat. There is not the recourse to self-partiality that +allows a smoothing over of unpleasant reminiscences and a +successful substituting of more flattering condolences.</p> + +<p>According to our group or social conception of the +neurosis it is assumed that the causative element in the +production of these disorders is social or phyletic and that +the correction of these disorders must proceed upon a +social or phyletic basis. Our position is that the individual +cannot be healthy whose consciousness is the +outgrowth of an unhealthy social mind about him. It, +therefore, becomes the essence of our group conception +that the disorder of the individual presented <i>manifestly</i> +in the individual’s “symptoms” may only be corrected +through the analysis of the social processes constituting +<i>latently</i> the individual’s collective medium.⁠<a id="FNanchor_56_56" href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p> + +<p>As we first learned from Freud and as has been corroborated +through researches in psychoanalysis made +independently of Freud, the neurosis is synonymous with +the repression of the instinctive life of man, and in the +prevailing interpretation of psychoanalysis the remedy +lies in the successful adaptation of the personal satisfaction +<span class="pagenum" id="p_237">[237]</span>of sexuality expressed both in direct physiological +release and in the equivalents of sublimation. It is our +position that this interpretation is far too narrow, that in +interpreting the neurosis as due primarily to disorders +within the sphere of man’s reproductive instinct, there is +left out of account the disorders of instinct due to the +obstruction of man’s tribal or congeneric life and to the +consequent interruption of the creative expression of his +personality as a societal unit. Our feeling is that sexuality, +as it now exists, is very generally of an over-stimulated or +obsessive character, owing to the undue and greatly +aggravated insistence that has been vicariously brought +to bear upon this sphere. In the absence of the natural +outlets of man’s societally instinctive expressions through +the common avenues of concerted work and play, the +function natural to the physiological process of reproduction +has been overburdened and inflated out of all +proportion to its primary significance. While, as a consonant +part of the congeneric instinct of man, sex is an +undoubtedly powerful urge, in the self-interested and +bidimensional bias of its autosexual, personal quest, this +manifestation has become but a symbolic exaggeration +of the natural instinct of sex. This exaggerated condition +is due secondarily, however, to a repression of the reproductive +faculty of man as naturally expressed in the +creative interests of his common societal activities. As +our give-and-take expressions among our fellows develop +into activities that are reciprocally creative, in the same +measure our obsessive drive toward the satisfactions of +sexuality, whether repressed or indulged, will cease to +dominate human personality in its present completely +unconscious and bidimensional image insistence.⁠<a id="FNanchor_57_57" href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a></p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_238">[238]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X"> + CHAPTER X + <br> + ULTIMATE RESOLUTION OF THE SOCIETAL NEUROSIS IN ITS PERSONAL IMPLICATION + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>I well recognize that in its matter this essay offers little +that is new. What I have sought to do is rather to speak +of our human reactions in the large from the basis of the +altered consciousness of the handful of men and women +whose group experience, as gradually it has grown and +gathered strength and cohesion among us, has permitted +the more subjective or societal realization of these reactions. +But though it is true that there is little that is +new in the matter of this essay, yet, in so far as the +collective differences existing among us as a group have +been allowed slowly to diffuse themselves gradually into +the solution of our common acceptance of one another, +it seems to me that in its mode at least our position offers +an approach that brings us a step closer to the increasingly +urgent problem of our human adjustment.</p> + +<p>After all, the intrinsic mode underlying our conception +is the real significance of our conception. To understand +our position the reader’s only recourse is to repudiate the +bidimensional alternatives of extrinsic moralities based +upon precepts of a personalistic or self-restricted behaviourism. +For the position of this thesis will be little +understood in the light of the accustomed interpretations +of the conventional social mind. Because of the unconscious +bias of its own mental absolute it will appear to the +social polity that, in the altered attitude here outlined, the +social polity is threatened at its very foundations. In its +tenacious hold upon habitual prepossessions the organized +consensus does not realize that these foundations are +already tottering. It will not see that in order to further +<span class="pagenum" id="p_239">[239]</span>the replacement of the already disintegrating structures +of our present social system, a more widely envisioning +concept of the organized consciousness of man must needs +be invoked. In some way, though, there must first be +brought home to each of us the realization that there can +be no true unity within the societal organism as long as we +are a prey to impressions that are but the give-and-take +reflection of mental attitudes existing mutually in one +another. As long as we fail to identify the tyranny of +mental attitudes within the social unconscious with the +reflection of similar tyrannical mental attitudes within the +personalism and defection of each of us, man cannot rise +to the reality of an organized social consciousness. As +long, for example, as we fail to understand that when +a mental attitude in others pleases or incenses us, it is +necessarily but the reflection of a corresponding mental +attitude in ourselves, we shall continue to praise or punish +such mental attitudes, together with the acts resulting +from them, with the mere retaliative measures of personal +reward or redress. So that our attitude will continue to +be, as now, the mere pro-and-con reaction to impressions +determined by the unconscious self-reflection of our own +“good and bad.”</p> + +<p>It is precisely this illusion of mental oppositeness that +we need to dispel. Harmony will follow automatically +once we have accepted in its societal significance the +affective unity of life. With this realization there will +be no further need of the restraints of an alternative +principle of morality which, in its bidimensional legislation, +aims to establish merely a temporary balance +between essential opposites. With the elimination of the +individual hope-fear alternation the whole incitement to +personal infringement will have been removed. What +inducement will I have to cheat a man if he is myself? +Or betray a woman if she is I? To what purpose will I +seek to enslave another to my whim (call it love, marriage +or what you will) if between us there is the acceptance of +an organic compliance that allows the realization in each +<span class="pagenum" id="p_240">[240]</span>of the common unity of both? Why would I seek to +outdo anyone in the invidious competitions of what is +called “success,” if I know clearly that success comprises +only the self-reflective distinctions existing +within the unconscious of the social mind in response +to the spurious incentives of the personal alternative +as it exists within the unconscious of the individual +mind?</p> + +<p>Our prevailing personalistic basis is not applicable to an +organismic viewpoint, because a policy that is self-reflective +in the unconscious is self-contradictory in consciousness. +Unity or consciousness of personality is organically +preclusive of whatever is personal or unconscious in the +personality. For every wish that is attained an equal +disappointment is incurred. For every satisfaction that +is secured a corresponding denial is imposed. To fulfil +one’s wish is to abjure one’s reality. Asking is its own +postponement, as striving is its own defeat. This inner +homology between desire and its non-attainment is alike +the hope and the despair of atoning to oneself unconsciously +or personally for what is one’s need consciously +or societally. As with compulsion-replacements elsewhere, +the real occasion of prayer is one’s unanswerable attitude +of mind in prayer. In the self-compensation of man’s +want as an individual organism, he necessarily repudiates +his inherent consonance as a societal organism. Thus our +personal dearth and our personal plenty are organically +the same. As the part embodied in one’s personal wish +(unconsciousness) is intrinsically opposed to the whole +embodied in one’s societal unity (consciousness), to desire +is at the same time to fail of attainment as well as +to covet. This is the paradox of our personalism and +unconsciousness, as it is the impasse of the personal +absolute underlying it. In the personal opportunism of +the unconscious wish we would fancifully summon the +processes of life to ourselves in place of contributing our +individual function as common participants in the reality +of these processes. Our contradiction, after all, is the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_241">[241]</span>division within ourselves, and the real impasse as always +is the self-image embodied in the delusive alternative of +good and bad.</p> + +<p>I know, of course, that much that I have tried to set +down in these pages has been said many times before and +by those more competent of expression than I. Indeed, +in its objective envisagement, the recognition among us +of differences, personal, national and international, has +become a commonplace. Even in the columns of our daily +news items, these conditions of societal defection are +mentioned time and again in the casual tone of the matter +of course. Among the current comments one reads, +for example: “The task of saving civilization seems +rather hopeless when it doesn’t promise an immediate and +private profit”; “When a statesman says he despairs of +the world he means that he despairs of getting what he +wants”; “All nations seem agreed that chaos may +result unless other nations forsake their evil ways”; +“Civilization is just a slow process of envisioning more +rights to fight for”; and so on without end.</p> + +<p>But no amount of objective observation, however +astute, will avail in clearing personal outlooks. Too +easily is one’s mere observation, however right and +seemingly true, the embodiment of secret self-satisfaction +and detachment. Personalistic observation, far from +resolving the affective illusion of the onlooker, serves only +to accentuate it. Dissociation within another individual +that is observed by us but that does not quicken us to a +realization of our own implication, automatically embeds +us still deeper in the fixity of our own unconscious personalism. +There is need to withdraw from our accustomed +observations and to include within ourselves the dissociation +that seems to lie outside of us but that is, in fact, +the unconscious projection of our own dissociation. In +this affective illusion of the onlooker, we are ever hoping +merely to convince others of the disinterestedness of our +interference with them. A disinterested interference is +biologically impossible. To wish to convince others is to +<span class="pagenum" id="p_242">[242]</span>be unconvinced ourselves. True disinterestedness consists +alone in our own self-realization.</p> + +<p>The familiar French saying, “Tout comprendre est tout +pardonner” is, like so much that is proverbial, <i>almost</i> true. +It has assembled the right elements but in the wrong order. +It gives to the letter dynamic priority over the spirit.⁠<a id="FNanchor_58_58" href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> +It is hysterical replacement refurbished in the condensation +of the epigram. It is but the literature of the neurosis. +If we transpose the equation in such manner as to convert +intellectual values into their organic terms, the proposition +resolves itself into a form that is, I believe, much +nearer the answer to the problem of our human pathology: +To forgive all is to understand all. I have only this in +mind in saying that the neurosis is societal, that it is +common. This is what I mean in saying that differentiation +is unconsciousness and that the factor of societal +repression or the societal factor of separatism is anterior +to the separatism of sexuality or to the factor of our +individual repression. As the societal and the individual +are organically one in mode, the unification of the individual +is at least a step toward the unification of our +societal consciousness. This is all I have in mind in +speaking of consciousness as the encompassment of life. +It is a mode of consciousness that is inclusive and that +reconciles within itself the disparity that is social.</p> + +<p>All this I had at first “in mind” only. It was, I confess, +a theory with me and, like all such substitutive replacements, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_243">[243]</span>the theory held for me only an unconscious +or symbolic significance. There was lacking in myself the +recognition that the theoretical is identical with the +symbolic. And so my position in stating that the theory +of analysis is the neurosis of the analyst has lacked its +personal acknowledgment within my own consciousness. +Truly, unconsciousness cannot envisage unconsciousness. +Secret separateness cannot encompass secret separateness. +The division of each of us is the division within himself. +The real grudge is one’s own grudge. After all, there is +only one vice and that, paradoxically, is the virtue of +being better than other people. Yet so tenacious are we +of this our solitary shortcoming, that we will acknowledge +all other “faults” rather than disclaim this one. But the +task of ourselves as the task of our patients is the recognition +of our own personalism and resentment. It is to +forgive all <i>within ourselves</i>, that we may understand all +within others who are societally no less ourselves. It is +to realize that the whole intricate problem of our “understanding” +is but the retributive fabrication of our own +unforgiveness.</p> + +<p>It is just here that the repressed and isolated individual +resolutely balks. Such a solution, he declares, offers +nothing for him. He does not discover in it an advantage +for himself. Quite true. In his unconscious sense, there +is nothing for him. His self-seeking is itself the very +kernel of his delusion. It is only in the disparate bias +of his arbitrary individualism (I do not say individuality) +that he can apprehend anything so dissociative as an +advantage for himself as a separate individual. It is only +as the wilful, defiant, separative child that he is, that he +would seek the treasure of life for himself, that he comes +demanding a governmental form embodying a system of +monarchical autocracy whereof he is to be the supreme +ruler, when, in truth, life is of its very essence an organic +democracy and the individual an element in its societal +confluence. In the quandary of his organic involution the +neurotic, if one might so crudely express it, is literally +<span class="pagenum" id="p_244">[244]</span>“hell-bent” on attaining heaven. He does not see, for +he will not see, that life and self are irreconcilable. On +the contrary, with every available device, with every +recourse of subtlety and with ever more enticing symbols, +he seeks to decoy the common, free gift of life into +the circumscribed and artificial confines of his own +self-bias.</p> + +<p>In this deflection of his mental outlook he is far from +the basis from which his experience originally set out—the +organic basis in which the secret of life is its commonness +and in which the commonness and the joy of it are one. +As the analysis proceeds, synchronous with the gradual +acceptance on the part of the patient of his mistakenness +and of his growing responsibility toward this mistakenness +through the widening of his societal outlook, +there comes his automatic awakening to the realization of +the inherent confluence of life in its utmost fulfilment. +It is a slow process this that demands our reversal from an +habitual attitude of disparity and separation to one of +participation and confluence, from self and unconsciousness +to consciousness and life, but it is the inevitable task +of an analysis that bases its procedure upon an organismic +conception of consciousness in its relative inclusiveness.</p> + +<p>I am under no illusion as to the futility of reckoning +upon any far-reaching assent to such a thesis as this. I +know well that a thesis which confronts the securely +entrenched ranks of the social unconscious is, in general, +predetermined to defeat. In this unpromising outlook, +however, I am not dismayed. Were I guided solely by +personal inclination I would endeavour at least to narrow +the scope of a challenge such as this. I would, for instance, +absolve myself from the obligation of recording so sweeping +and unwelcome an indictment as that which lays to +the door of normality in the large the imputation of autosexuality +and infantilism. To many, such a statement +will seem extravagant, bizarre, unwarranted. So that, if I +would propitiate my readers through the presentation of a +more acceptable thesis, I should naturally wish, if I may +<span class="pagenum" id="p_245">[245]</span>not wholly withdraw this statement, at least to palliate its +implications.</p> + +<p>But as this statement seems to me essentially true, as it +is the very crux of this thesis that unconsciousness is +social and not individual, that the collective unconscious +is the anterior factor to which the individual factor +involving the neurosis is but the reflex response; as the +central issue upon which my entire position must stand +or fall is the conviction that the <i>responsibility for the +neurosis rests upon the societal consciousness in its ontogenetic +phase within each of us</i>; and above all, since my +indictment of the social unconscious is one from which I am +no more exempted than others, to withhold such a statement +would be nothing other than the hesitation to affirm +my real conviction and so retain the servility and introversion +of my own social unconsciousness. This position +is precisely the expression of what I believe to be the +essential embodiment of the neurosis, and my wish to +keep silent would be nothing else than my own unconscious +wish not to relinquish the neurosis in which I +share as a social element within it. Upon closer view, my +unconscious fear becomes merely my wish to save my own +individuation and unconsciousness at the expense of the +participatory, societal confluence that alone constitutes +consciousness.</p> + +<p>This, as I think of it, is interesting, for upon reflection it +grows still clearer that my reluctance would be again the +neurosis within myself or the retention of the very +separateness I am presumably undertaking to observe. +After all, my irresolution would amount to my withholding +not the statement but myself. It would represent +my preference (as always it is my preference unconsciously) +to withhold myself from my organic place as a +confluent part in the societal aggregate. Instead of being +one, therefore, with every other element comprising it, +it would mean that I preferred to retain the illusion of +my own disparateness, phantastically hoping in my +dissociative mode thus to comprise in my individual self +<span class="pagenum" id="p_246">[246]</span>the self-possession that alone pertains to the acceptance of +one’s share in our common, societal aggregate.</p> + +<p>And so I have come to believe that, however unwelcome +the imputation, it is only the societal indictment as it +applies to oneself personally that affords the real opportunity +of release from the neurosis of society. It is the +illusion of differentiation that is the essence of the neurosis. +It is the fallacy of our personal separateness that is the +meaning of our societal discord. Through our mutual +analyses and also in the contacts of our daily living as a +subjectively organized group, we have come to realize +that this subtle attitude of disaffection is extraneous to the +essential life of man. Affective conditions recognized as +results outside of us are affective conditions unrecognized +as causes within us. Subjectively, societally, they are +the same. From a relative or organismic basis there is no +difference. Just as cosmically or in the objective universe +there is no absolute time and space, so organically or in the +subjective universe there is no absolute cause and effect. +As objectively time and space are “relative to moving +systems,” so subjectively cause and effect are relative to +organic sequences. Accordingly, our need is to recognize +the implication of the unconscious not as directed against +others nor against oneself, but as including oneself equally +with others in constituting together in our common life a +single, societal unit.</p> + +<p>There will, I know, be much misunderstanding in regard +to what has been set down in these pages. If, by chance, +the conventional artist should read this thesis, he will tell +you that he understands and that he accepts it fully, on +the ground that he finds its full realization within his own +intuitions. But the artist will be mistaken. Should the +conventional scientist read it, he will tell you that it is not +possible to find substantiation for such a thesis within the +scope of his authenticated formulations and that therefore +he cannot understand or accept it. But the scientist will +also be mistaken. Both will be quite right objectively, +but this is, in itself, to miss the meaning of a conception +<span class="pagenum" id="p_247">[247]</span>that is essentially subjective.⁠<a id="FNanchor_59_59" href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> This thesis has been +felt and written from an intrinsically relative mode, and it +is only from an intrinsically relative mode that it can be +felt and understood. As yet the artist knows feeling only +in the absolute form of the images that exist within +himself; as yet the scientist knows feeling only in the +absolute form of the images that exist outside himself. +The one lives within the dreams (fanciful formulations) +arising within the personal system that is individual; +the other lives within the concepts (theoretical formulations) +transmitted to him from the personal system that is +social. Yet I do not doubt that among both artists and +scientists, as well as among many people who are technically +neither artist nor scientist, there will be those who +will partake more or less consciously of what is here more +or less consciously partaken of. In the form of its presentation +it is inevitably restricted to the objective +symbol of the written word; nevertheless, in the subjective +encompassment of each that is its common inclusion of +both, it may equally reach and unite the basic personalities +of poet and craftsman, of male and female, of artist and +scientist.</p> + +<p>In this sense and in this spirit of a common involvement +in the unconscious of my fellows, I feel that to some, +at least, my meaning will seem clear and my motive not +untoward. For there are those who, like myself, are only +“normal” under duress and who secretly revolt against +the compromising yoke of the social as well as of the +individual unconscious. It is for these that I have written. +To speak fearlessly and with freedom to the few, who are +fearless and free enough to understand, means far more to +me and will, I believe, prove ultimately far more fruitful in +making clear the real meaning of our human need than +half-hearted statements muttered with bated breath and +trimmed to suit the fear-ridden prepossessions of the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_248">[248]</span>collective mind as it tends in its blind autocracy to +dominate the clearer vision of us all.</p> + +<p>The more I consider the factor of one’s personal +hesitancy to entrust himself unreservedly to the societal +aggregate through unbosoming his own unconscious wish +to repress his share in its collective dissociation, the more +it is clear to me that in this very symptom of one’s own—for +such it is—lies the strongest corroboration of the +impersonal or societal interpretation of the neurosis. For, +as I have said, it is the acceptance of the oneness of each +of us individually within the encompassing societal +organism as an aggregate that alone points the way to our +release from the fear or separateness that is the neurosis of +the societal organism.</p> + +<p>To consider the instinct of the societal bond without +mentioning its influence in the development of the formulations +that have resulted from the conceptions of Freud, +would be to waive acknowledgment of the very determinants +which have made possible the present societal +interpretation. Abstract truths are the personal relics of +genius; their vindication in the concrete text of experience +is the heritage of our common consciousness. If the +significance of personality lies in the organismic consciousness +of man, the springs of all creative genius are to +be traced to this common source. This organic consanguinity +is the very essence of genius. Holding its +incisive course against all obstacle, this societal urge +makes of genius the socially solitary expression that it is. +The source of genius is nuclear, original, essential. Moving +amid the surface crusts of “types” which in their restriction +of outer contact may only absorb or reflect the +impressions about them, genius eradiates from the +common centre of our societal organism sustained by an +impulse that is cosmic. For this reason, it is the unalterable +sentence of genius that it break with every +accustomed adherence. It is its law that it raise itself out +of habitual inertias and see straight and clear, beyond all +temporary immediacies, into the unfurbished truth of +<span class="pagenum" id="p_249">[249]</span>things. In this wise, in face of the personal criticism and +resentment of the very world whose progress it was the all-engrossing +effort of his genius to further, Sigmund Freud +saw and reported what he saw, fearless, determined and +alone. There is no more isolated appointment than this +to which genius is summoned. It is in this appointment +and in the societal implication of it, that lies the real +significance of Freud. Should we fail to realize this, we +would ourselves be overlooking the societal urge that is +phyletically inherent in Freud’s psychology.</p> + +<p>In the course of our development the period of men’s substitutive +image-production was first interrupted through +the return to reality inaugurated by Darwin’s theory +of evolution. What still remained over in man’s mental +life has been further threatened by Freud’s theory of +the evolutionary processes of the unconscious. When the +evolutionary theories of Darwin and Freud are carried +to their ultimate social conclusion, the result will be the +entire repudiation of man’s image-production and a +re-uniting of his organic and conscious life into a single +constructive whole.</p> + +<p>In an essentially psychological study of this kind in +which the effort has been made to trace the mechanisms of +unconscious processes in their social application, there is +not place for discussing the practical outcome, political, +economic and industrial, that must follow through the very +altered position of man’s conscious outlook as a result of a +more inclusive interpretation of our societal background. +It is impossible to conjecture the influence upon man’s +behaviour socially and nationally that would result from a +complete dispelling from his mind of the images that now +occupy the place of his organic reality. How much the +reaction that is ostensibly the most disastrous in our social +life—the reaction of war—is due to the obsession of the +social mind with mere images having no reality, it would +only be extravagant to attempt to surmise. But these are +practical considerations that must occupy us in subsequent +discussions if the basis here outlined in its fundamental +<span class="pagenum" id="p_250">[250]</span>biology shall be found of value amid the growing processes +of man’s thought.</p> + +<p>There is a further statement I wish to make. In this +statement I should like to be understood as speaking in the +fullest sincerity of which I am capable, my feeling being +uninfluenced either by sentimental modesty or by any +deprecatory wish to refer to extraneous agencies the +sponsorship for this record. This thesis in a very true sense +is not my thesis—it represents no intellectual achievement +of mine. On consideration it will readily be seen +that of its very nature it could not be my thesis. The +outgrowth of automatic conditions stoutly resisted by me, +it is the product of environmental circumstances over +which I had no control. It was exacted under pain of +repudiating in actuality the theoretical interpretations for +which my work has stood. It is the outcome of inevitable +concession to the ordeal of facing in its grim detail the +fabric of substitution and disparity composing the +structure of my own daily living. Convictions have been +wrung from me against my own personal will, against +every tradition about me and in spite of every effort of +subtlety on my part to escape their exactions. Through +many months I have fought their acceptance over every +step of the way. As, little by little, a more relative and +societal conviction has been borne in upon me, it has +proved that the realization I have so long and so resolutely +resisted has been the actuality of my own +separatism and unconsciousness, as contrasted with the +undifferentiated, organic life of which my personal work +has been but the theory. It is because this work in its +actuality is the expression of an urge common to life, +sweeping aside in the strength of its organic tide every +claim to personal consideration, that there is due the +acknowledgment that it has come to expression unbeholden +to me, that its motive has been, as far as +humanly possible, not personal but societal.</p> + +<p>The organic theory here offered has been advanced by +me hitherto on grounds of mere conceptual intuitions. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_251">[251]</span>Its present form embodies in its spirit of an impersonal, +affective participation, however imperfectly fulfilled, the +subjective record of an organic experience. In its plea +for a wider acceptance of the common fellowship of man’s +native consciousness, I well realize that it is only with the +years that we may hope to yield it fuller accord.</p> + +<p>I shall be glad if this embodiment of whatever societal +acceptance may have found expression in these pages +may bring a clearer meaning, a quieter understanding to +any whose need has been deep and unfulfilled. For my own +part, this expression is the response to what is the deepest +demand of my own life—the need for the organic unification +of personality that I feel resides alone in the common +consciousness of man.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="p_252"></a><a id="p_253"></a>[253]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX"> + INDEX + </h2> +</div> + + +<ul class="index"> + <li class="ifrst">Absolutism—</li> + <li class="isub1">in affects, <a href="#p_39">39</a>, <a href="#p_227">227</a></li> + <li class="isub1">in present system of consciousness, <a href="#p_33">33</a>, <a href="#p_43">43</a>, <a href="#p_63">63</a>, <a href="#p_104">104</a>, <a href="#p_227">227</a></li> + <li class="isub1">in psychoanalysis, <a href="#p_67">67</a>, <a href="#p_68">68</a>, <a href="#p_73">73</a>, <a href="#p_101">101</a></li> + <li class="isub1">in the Church, <a href="#p_66">66–68</a>, <a href="#p_73">73</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Personal absolute</li> + + <li class="indx">Adler, <a href="#p_113">113</a>, <a href="#p_174">174</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Affects, <a href="#p_115">115</a>, <a href="#p_121">121</a>, <a href="#p_130">130</a>, <a href="#p_178">178</a>, <a href="#p_205">205</a>, + <a href="#p_227">227</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Affective life, <a href="#p_115">115</a>, <a href="#p_125">125</a></li> + <li class="isub1">components, <a href="#p_57">57</a>, <a href="#p_58">58</a>, <a href="#p_62">62</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Allocentric and autocentric—</li> + <li class="isub1">complementary, <a href="#p_203">203</a>, <a href="#p_213">213</a></li> + <li class="isub1">definition, <a href="#p_188">188</a></li> + <li class="isub1">reactions, <a href="#p_191">191–196</a>, <a href="#p_218">218</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Allosexuality—</li> + <li class="isub1">and autosexuality, <a href="#p_207">207</a>, <a href="#p_208">208</a>, <a href="#p_211">211</a></li> + <li class="isub1">definition, <a href="#p_201">201</a>, <a href="#p_202">202</a></li> + <li class="isub1">identical basis, <a href="#p_209">209</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Sex</li> + + <li class="indx">Alternative—</li> + <li class="isub1">bidimensional, <a href="#p_80">80–85</a>, <a href="#p_93">93</a>, <a href="#p_96">96</a>, <a href="#p_97">97</a>, <a href="#p_226">226–228</a>, + <a href="#p_239">239</a></li> + <li class="isub1">in art and drama, <a href="#p_85">85–87</a>, <a href="#p_96">96</a></li> + <li class="isub1">in psychoanalysis, psychology, and psychopathology, <a href="#p_97">97</a>, <a href="#p_100">100–103</a>, <a href="#p_229">229–233</a></li> + <li class="isub1">individual expressions of, <a href="#p_88">88–91</a></li> + <li class="isub1">occurrence in group analysis, <a href="#p_223">223</a>, <a href="#p_224">224</a>, <a href="#p_236">236</a></li> + <li class="isub1">social expressions of, <a href="#p_85">85</a>, <a href="#p_92">92–95</a>, <a href="#p_99">99</a>, <a href="#p_102">102</a>, <a href="#p_207">207</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> “Good and bad”</li> + + <li class="indx">Ambivalence, <a href="#p_86">86</a>, <a href="#p_94">94</a>, <a href="#p_196">196</a>, <a href="#p_228">228</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Alternative</li> + + <li class="indx">“Anal complex,” <a href="#p_216">216</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Analysis—</li> + <li class="isub1">aim of, <a href="#p_26">26</a>, <a href="#p_137">137</a>, <a href="#p_164">164</a>, <a href="#p_165">165</a>, <a href="#p_166">166</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Dream; Group analysis; Psychoanalysis</li> + + <li class="indx">Aquinas, <a href="#p_158">158</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Art, <a href="#p_87">87</a>, <a href="#p_96">96</a>, <a href="#p_183">183</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Artist, <a href="#p_96">96</a>, <a href="#p_218">218</a>, <a href="#p_219">219</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Autocentric—</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see</i> Allocentric</li> + + <li class="indx">Autosexuality, <a href="#p_206">206</a>, <a href="#p_215">215</a>, <a href="#p_244">244</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Allosexuality</li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Besant, Annie, <a href="#p_139">139</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Belief, <a href="#p_47">47</a>, <a href="#p_143">143</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bidimensional plane, <a href="#p_41">41</a>, <a href="#p_42">42</a>, <a href="#p_58">58</a>, <a href="#p_60">60</a>, <a href="#p_62">62</a>, + <a href="#p_104">104</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Alternative; Relativity of consciousness</li> + + <li class="indx">Bleuler, <a href="#p_94">94</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Buddha, <a href="#p_218">218</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Calvin, <a href="#p_158">158</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Cerebro-spinal nervous system, <a href="#p_189">189–192</a>, <a href="#p_194">194</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Childhood—</li> + <li class="isub1">consciousness of, <a href="#p_22">22</a>, <a href="#p_23">23</a>, <a href="#p_145">145</a></li> + <li class="isub1">imposition of social images upon, <a href="#p_52">52–55</a>, <a href="#p_58">58</a>, <a href="#p_59">59</a>, <a href="#p_92">92</a>, <a href="#p_93">93</a>, + <a href="#p_116">116</a>, <a href="#p_123">123</a>, <a href="#p_132">132</a>, <a href="#p_145">145</a>, <a href="#p_213">213</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Christ, <a href="#p_218">218</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Christianity, <a href="#p_85">85</a>, <a href="#p_193">193</a>, <a href="#p_196">196</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Church—</li> + <li class="isub1">as social systematization, <a href="#p_65">65–75</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Claparède, <a href="#p_156">156</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Collective unconscious—</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see</i> Social unconscious</li> + + <li class="indx">Complexes, <a href="#p_47">47</a>, <a href="#p_72">72</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Compulsion neurosis, <a href="#p_81">81</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Consciousness—</li> + <li class="isub1">absolutism of present system, <a href="#p_43">43</a>, <a href="#p_44">44</a></li> + <li class="isub1">as unconsciousness, <a href="#p_24">24</a>, <a href="#p_110">110</a>, <a href="#p_111">111</a>, <a href="#p_114">114</a>, <a href="#p_115">115</a>, + <a href="#p_119">119</a>, <a href="#p_143">143</a></li> + <li class="isub1">definition, <a href="#p_119">119</a></li> + <li class="isub1">individualistic compared with societal, <a href="#p_51">51</a>, <a href="#p_62">62</a>, <a href="#p_109">109</a>, <a href="#p_144">144</a></li> + <li class="isub1">ontogenesis, <a href="#p_119">119–121</a></li> + <li class="isub1">phylogenesis, <a href="#p_118">118</a>, <a href="#p_160">160</a>, <a href="#p_162">162</a></li> + <li class="isub1">relativity of, <a href="#p_32">32–40</a>, <a href="#p_48">48</a></li> + <li class="isub1">unification of, <a href="#p_122">122</a>, <a href="#p_126">126</a>, <a href="#p_169">169</a>, <a href="#p_173">173</a>, <a href="#p_212">212</a>, + <a href="#p_218">218</a>, <a href="#p_242">242</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Dissociation; Self-consciousness; Societal concept of consciousness</li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Darwin, <a href="#p_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dementia præcox, <a href="#p_124">124</a>, <a href="#p_136">136</a>, <a href="#p_137">137</a>, <a href="#p_195">195</a>, <a href="#p_203">203</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Depression, <a href="#p_91">91</a>, <a href="#p_94">94</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Descartes, <a href="#p_124">124</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Differentiation, <a href="#p_129">129</a>, <a href="#p_169">169</a>, <a href="#p_178">178</a>, <a href="#p_242">242</a></li> + <li class="isub1">delusion of, <a href="#p_120">120–122</a>, <a href="#p_125">125</a>, <a href="#p_131">131</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="p_254">[254]</span>Dissociation—</li> + <li class="isub1">individual and social, <a href="#p_45">45–47</a>, <a href="#p_76">76</a>, <a href="#p_109">109</a>, <a href="#p_110">110</a>, <a href="#p_132">132</a>, + <a href="#p_144">144</a>, <a href="#p_148">148–153</a>, <a href="#p_155">155</a>, <a href="#p_176">176</a>, <a href="#p_185">185</a>, <a href="#p_241">241</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Division of personality, <a href="#p_81">81</a>, <a href="#p_85">85</a>, <a href="#p_95">95</a>, <a href="#p_147">147</a>, <a href="#p_222">222</a></li> + <li class="isub1">genesis of, <a href="#p_116">116–119</a></li> + <li class="isub1">physiological substrate, <a href="#p_189">189–191</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Dissociation; Neurosis; Repression</li> + + <li class="indx">Doubt—</li> + <li class="isub1">attitude of Church toward, <a href="#p_65">65</a>, <a href="#p_66">66</a>, <a href="#p_68">68</a>, <a href="#p_69">69</a>, <a href="#p_71">71</a></li> + <li class="isub1">compared with resistance, <a href="#p_71">71–74</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Drama, <a href="#p_85">85–88</a>, <a href="#p_182">182</a>, <a href="#p_183">183</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dream, <a href="#p_178">178–183</a>, <a href="#p_185">185</a>, <a href="#p_195">195</a></li> + <li class="isub1">analysis, <a href="#p_88">88</a>, <a href="#p_176">176</a>, <a href="#p_177">177</a>, <a href="#p_184">184</a></li> + <li class="isub1">and personal absolute, <a href="#p_90">90</a>, <a href="#p_111">111–113</a></li> + <li class="isub1">and wish, <a href="#p_89">89</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Eddington, A. S., <a href="#p_32">32</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Education, <a href="#p_92">92</a>, <a href="#p_93">93</a>, <a href="#p_214">214</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Childhood</li> + + <li class="indx">Ego-sexuality, <a href="#p_201">201–203</a>, <a href="#p_206">206–208</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Sex</li> + + <li class="indx">Einstein, <a href="#p_32">32</a>, <a href="#p_36">36</a>, <a href="#p_37">37</a>, <a href="#p_38">38</a>, <a href="#p_186">186</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Eliot, George, <a href="#p_218">218</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ellis, Havelock, <a href="#p_158">158</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Extravert, <a href="#p_187">187</a>, <a href="#p_201">201</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Family, <a href="#p_204">204</a>, <a href="#p_234">234</a>, <a href="#p_235">235</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Feeling—</li> + <li class="isub1">as subjective experience, <a href="#p_20">20</a>, <a href="#p_21">21</a>, <a href="#p_115">115</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Freud, <a href="#p_1">1</a>, <a href="#p_4">4</a>, <a href="#p_5">5</a>, <a href="#p_9">9</a>, <a href="#p_14">14</a>, <a href="#p_38">38</a>, + <a href="#p_47">47</a>, <a href="#p_101">101</a>, <a href="#p_108">108</a>, <a href="#p_109">109</a>, <a href="#p_110">110</a>, <a href="#p_111">111</a>, <a href="#p_112">112</a>, + <a href="#p_113">113</a>, <a href="#p_126">126</a>, <a href="#p_154">154</a>, <a href="#p_156">156</a>, <a href="#p_157">157</a>, <a href="#p_158">158</a>, + <a href="#p_159">159</a>, <a href="#p_174">174</a>, <a href="#p_199">199</a>, <a href="#p_204">204</a>, <a href="#p_236">236</a>, <a href="#p_248">248</a>, + <a href="#p_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Freudian analysis, <a href="#p_1">1–5</a>, <a href="#p_38">38</a>, <a href="#p_47">47</a>, <a href="#p_138">138</a>, <a href="#p_168">168</a>, + <a href="#p_172">172</a>, <a href="#p_231">231</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Freud’s theory—</li> + <li class="isub1">of the neuroses, <a href="#p_12">12</a>, <a href="#p_14">14</a>, <a href="#p_37">37</a>, <a href="#p_94">94</a>, <a href="#p_108">108</a>, <a href="#p_109">109</a>, + <a href="#p_126">126</a>, <a href="#p_156">156</a>, <a href="#p_157">157</a>, <a href="#p_196">196</a>, <a href="#p_228">228</a>, <a href="#p_229">229</a>, + <a href="#p_236">236</a>, <a href="#p_237">237</a></li> + <li class="isub1">of resistance, <a href="#p_61">61</a>, <a href="#p_154">154</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">“Good and bad”—</li> + <li class="isub1">as image of personal advantage, <a href="#p_55">55</a>, <a href="#p_59">59</a>, <a href="#p_62">62</a>, <a href="#p_81">81</a>, <a href="#p_85">85</a>, + <a href="#p_90">90</a>, <a href="#p_192">192</a>, <a href="#p_200">200</a></li> + <li class="isub1">bidimensional alternative, <a href="#p_53">53</a>, <a href="#p_58">58</a>, <a href="#p_62">62</a>, <a href="#p_65">65</a>, <a href="#p_78">78</a>, + <a href="#p_81">81</a>, <a href="#p_91">91</a>, <a href="#p_102">102</a>, <a href="#p_103">103</a>, <a href="#p_201">201</a>, <a href="#p_227">227</a>, + <a href="#p_239">239</a></li> + <li class="isub1">pretence underlying, <a href="#p_54">54–56</a>, <a href="#p_58">58</a>, <a href="#p_92">92</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Image</li> + + <li class="indx">Group analysis, <a href="#p_131">131</a>, <a href="#p_223">223–226</a>, <a href="#p_234">234–238</a>, <a href="#p_246">246</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Heterosexuality—</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see</i> Allosexuality; Homosexuality; Sex</li> + + <li class="indx">Homophyllic, <a href="#p_208">208</a>, <a href="#p_210">210</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Homosexuality, <a href="#p_94">94</a>, <a href="#p_97">97</a>, <a href="#p_199">199</a>, <a href="#p_211">211</a></li> + <li class="isub1">and heterosexuality, <a href="#p_198">198</a>, <a href="#p_200">200–202</a>, <a href="#p_210">210</a></li> + <li class="isub1">and paranoia, <a href="#p_174">174</a>, <a href="#p_175">175</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Sex</li> + + <li class="indx">Hysteria, <a href="#p_63">63</a>, <a href="#p_97">97</a>, <a href="#p_143">143</a>, <a href="#p_189">189</a>, <a href="#p_191">191</a></li> + <li class="isub1">social, <a href="#p_16">16</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Ideas of reference, <a href="#p_136">136</a>, <a href="#p_223">223</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Image, <a href="#p_40">40–42</a></li> + <li class="isub1">as substitution, <a href="#p_16">16</a></li> + <li class="isub1">basis of marriage, <a href="#p_207">207</a></li> + <li class="isub1">basis of sexuality, <a href="#p_14">14</a>, <a href="#p_15">15</a></li> + <li class="isub1">bidimensional, <a href="#p_53">53</a>, <a href="#p_57">57–59</a>, <a href="#p_226">226–228</a></li> + <li class="isub1">contrasted with reality, <a href="#p_41">41</a>, <a href="#p_79">79</a></li> + <li class="isub1">of male and female, <a href="#p_96">96</a>, <a href="#p_216">216</a></li> + <li class="isub1">of parent, <a href="#p_55">55</a>, <a href="#p_103">103</a>, <a href="#p_173">173</a>, <a href="#p_235">235</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> “Good and bad”; Mother-image; Social images</li> + + <li class="indx">Incest-Awe, <a href="#p_147">147</a>, <a href="#p_148">148</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Individual—</li> + <li class="isub1">as systematization, <a href="#p_70">70</a>, <a href="#p_76">76</a></li> + <li class="isub1">as separative element, <a href="#p_126">126</a>, <a href="#p_150">150</a>, <a href="#p_152">152</a>, <a href="#p_153">153</a>, <a href="#p_160">160</a>, + <a href="#p_243">243</a></li> + <li class="isub1">as societal element, <a href="#p_115">115</a>, <a href="#p_117">117</a>, <a href="#p_127">127</a>, <a href="#p_130">130</a>, <a href="#p_148">148</a>, + <a href="#p_156">156</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Infantilism, <a href="#p_215">215</a>, <a href="#p_244">244</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Insanity, <a href="#p_23">23</a>, <a href="#p_24">24</a>, <a href="#p_91">91</a>, <a href="#p_124">124</a>, <a href="#p_137">137</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Neurosis; Social neurosis</li> + + <li class="indx">Instinct, <a href="#p_60">60</a>, <a href="#p_127">127</a></li> + <li class="isub1">common societal, <a href="#p_200">200</a></li> + <li class="isub1">organic instinct of sex, <a href="#p_202">202</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Introvert, <a href="#p_187">187</a>, <a href="#p_201">201</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Jung, <a href="#p_113">113</a>, <a href="#p_156">156</a>, <a href="#p_204">204</a>, <a href="#p_205">205</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Kropotkin, P., <a href="#p_159">159</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Libido, <a href="#p_156">156</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Mania, <a href="#p_91">91</a>, <a href="#p_94">94</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Marriage, <a href="#p_93">93</a>, <a href="#p_94">94</a>, <a href="#p_204">204</a>, <a href="#p_206">206–209</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Masturbation, <a href="#p_211">211</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Meyer, Adolf, xx</li> + + <li class="indx">Mood-alternation, <a href="#p_91">91</a>, <a href="#p_94">94</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Mother-image, <a href="#p_141">141</a>, <a href="#p_172">172</a>, <a href="#p_234">234</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Mysticism, <a href="#p_125">125</a>, <a href="#p_134">134</a>, <a href="#p_139">139–142</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Napoleon, <a href="#p_218">218</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Narcism, <a href="#p_157">157</a>, <a href="#p_202">202</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Nettleship, Richard Lewis, <a href="#p_106">106</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Neurosis, <a href="#p_15">15</a>, <a href="#p_76">76</a>, <a href="#p_77">77</a>, <a href="#p_83">83</a>, <a href="#p_102">102</a>, <a href="#p_117">117</a></li> + <li class="isub1">and sexuality, <a href="#p_157">157</a>, <a href="#p_173">173</a>, <a href="#p_174">174</a>, <a href="#p_209">209</a>, <a href="#p_237">237</a></li> + <li class="isub1">marital, <a href="#p_93">93</a>, <a href="#p_94">94</a></li> + <li class="isub1">source, <a href="#p_53">53</a>, <a href="#p_125">125</a>, <a href="#p_169">169</a>, <a href="#p_173">173</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Normality; Social neurosis</li> + + <li class="indx">Neurotic personality, <a href="#p_13">13–16</a>, <a href="#p_24">24</a>, <a href="#p_44">44</a>, <a href="#p_168">168</a>, <a href="#p_191">191</a>, + <a href="#p_214">214</a>, <a href="#p_243">243</a>, <a href="#p_244">244</a></li> + <li class="isub1">and organic consciousness, <a href="#p_11">11</a>, <a href="#p_12">12</a>, <a href="#p_23">23</a>, <a href="#p_153">153</a>, <a href="#p_209">209</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="p_255">[255]</span>Newton, <a href="#p_35">35</a>, <a href="#p_36">36</a></li> + <li class="isub1">Newtonian system, <a href="#p_32">32</a>, <a href="#p_33">33</a>, <a href="#p_35">35</a>, <a href="#p_37">37</a>, <a href="#p_38">38</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Nietzsche, <a href="#p_23">23</a>, <a href="#p_130">130</a>, <a href="#p_218">218</a>, <a href="#p_247">247</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Normality—</li> + <li class="isub1">and personal absolute, <a href="#p_47">47</a>, <a href="#p_63">63</a></li> + <li class="isub1">and sexuality, <a href="#p_173">173</a>, <a href="#p_203">203</a>, <a href="#p_209">209</a>, <a href="#p_244">244</a></li> + <li class="isub1">as criterion, <a href="#p_11">11</a>, <a href="#p_27">27</a>, <a href="#p_30">30</a></li> + <li class="isub1">as neurotic manifestation, <a href="#p_12">12–16</a>, <a href="#p_175">175</a>, <a href="#p_176">176</a>, <a href="#p_191">191</a></li> + <li class="isub1">mysticism in, <a href="#p_125">125</a>, <a href="#p_134">134</a>, <a href="#p_139">139–141</a></li> + <li class="isub1">unconsciousness of, <a href="#p_26">26</a>, <a href="#p_27">27</a>, <a href="#p_147">147</a>, <a href="#p_179">179</a>, <a href="#p_181">181</a>, + <a href="#p_203">203</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Objective observation, <a href="#p_18">18</a></li> + <li class="isub1">within subjective sphere, <a href="#p_19">19–21</a>, <a href="#p_51">51</a>, <a href="#p_121">121–124</a>, <a href="#p_167">167</a>, <a href="#p_176">176</a>, + <a href="#p_178">178</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Organismic—</li> + <li class="isub1">definition, <a href="#p_3">3</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Societal concept of consciousness</li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Paranoia—</li> + <li class="isub1">and homosexuality, <a href="#p_174">174</a>, <a href="#p_175">175</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Paranoiac, <a href="#p_94">94</a>, <a href="#p_97">97</a>, <a href="#p_143">143</a>, <a href="#p_199">199</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Personal absolute, <a href="#p_102">102</a>, <a href="#p_103">103</a></li> + <li class="isub1">and war, <a href="#p_83">83</a></li> + <li class="isub1">as resistance, <a href="#p_61">61</a>, <a href="#p_62">62</a>, <a href="#p_76">76</a>, <a href="#p_82">82</a>, <a href="#p_84">84</a></li> + <li class="isub1">as right, <a href="#p_82">82</a>, <a href="#p_83">83</a>, <a href="#p_90">90</a>, <a href="#p_92">92</a>, <a href="#p_98">98</a>, <a href="#p_112">112</a></li> + <li class="isub1">in psychoanalysis, <a href="#p_73">73</a>, <a href="#p_101">101</a>, <a href="#p_102">102</a></li> + <li class="isub1">underlying social system, <a href="#p_45">45–48</a>, <a href="#p_63">63</a>, <a href="#p_70">70</a>, <a href="#p_72">72–76</a>, <a href="#p_80">80–84</a>, + <a href="#p_240">240</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Absolutism; Resistance; Will-to-self</li> + + <li class="indx">Personal equation, <a href="#p_4">4</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Plato, <a href="#p_218">218</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Precoid, <a href="#p_63">63</a>, <a href="#p_97">97</a>, <a href="#p_195">195</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Preconscious mode, <a href="#p_10">10</a>, <a href="#p_119">119</a>, <a href="#p_137">137</a>, <a href="#p_189">189</a>, <a href="#p_196">196</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Primary identification, <a href="#p_115">115</a>, <a href="#p_116">116</a></li> + <li class="isub1">principle of, <a href="#p_218">218</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Psychasthenic, <a href="#p_94">94</a>, <a href="#p_193">193</a>, <a href="#p_195">195</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Psychiatrist, <a href="#p_107">107</a>, <a href="#p_124">124</a>, <a href="#p_136">136</a>, <a href="#p_223">223</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Psychiatry, <a href="#p_123">123</a>, <a href="#p_136">136</a>, <a href="#p_137">137</a>, <a href="#p_183">183</a>, <a href="#p_187">187</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Psychoanalysis—</li> + <li class="isub1">alternative in, <a href="#p_103">103</a>, <a href="#p_196">196</a>, <a href="#p_198">198</a>, <a href="#p_229">229–233</a></li> + <li class="isub1">as social systematization, <a href="#p_65">65</a>, <a href="#p_67">67–76</a>, <a href="#p_101">101</a></li> + <li class="isub1">as theory, <a href="#p_17">17–19</a>, <a href="#p_21">21</a>, <a href="#p_25">25</a></li> + <li class="isub1">duration of treatment, <a href="#p_230">230–233</a></li> + <li class="isub1">impasse in, <a href="#p_109">109</a>, <a href="#p_172">172</a>, <a href="#p_223">223</a>, <a href="#p_224">224</a></li> + <li class="isub1">misconceptions, <a href="#p_2">2</a>, <a href="#p_197">197</a></li> + <li class="isub1">personal absolute in, <a href="#p_3">3</a>, <a href="#p_73">73</a>, <a href="#p_101">101</a>, <a href="#p_102">102</a></li> + <li class="isub1">position of, <a href="#p_9">9</a>, <a href="#p_10">10</a>, <a href="#p_229">229</a></li> + <li class="isub1">unconscious element in, <a href="#p_3">3</a>, <a href="#p_143">143</a>, <a href="#p_167">167</a>, <a href="#p_234">234</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Analysis; Group analysis</li> + + <li class="indx">Psychoanalyst—</li> + <li class="isub1">attitude toward patient, <a href="#p_24">24</a>, <a href="#p_166">166–172</a>, <a href="#p_181">181</a>, <a href="#p_183">183</a>, <a href="#p_195">195</a>, + <a href="#p_229">229</a>, <a href="#p_230">230</a>, <a href="#p_232">232–234</a></li> + <li class="isub1">involvement in social unconscious, <a href="#p_110">110</a>, <a href="#p_111">111</a>, <a href="#p_183">183</a>, <a href="#p_184">184</a>, <a href="#p_222">222</a>, + <a href="#p_223">223</a></li> + <li class="isub1">qualifications of, <a href="#p_28">28</a>, <a href="#p_29">29</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Psychology, <a href="#p_5">5</a>, <a href="#p_33">33</a>, <a href="#p_36">36</a>, <a href="#p_38">38</a>, <a href="#p_65">65</a>, <a href="#p_97">97</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Psychopathology, <a href="#p_63">63</a>, <a href="#p_100">100</a>, <a href="#p_101">101</a>, <a href="#p_123">123</a>, <a href="#p_124">124</a>, + <a href="#p_223">223</a></li> + <li class="isub1">of war, <a href="#p_130">130</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ptolemaic system, <a href="#p_38">38</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Relativity of consciousness, <a href="#p_32">32–40</a>, <a href="#p_43">43</a>, <a href="#p_45">45</a>, <a href="#p_48">48</a>, <a href="#p_51">51</a>, + <a href="#p_57">57–62</a>, <a href="#p_104">104</a>, <a href="#p_246">246</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Religion, <a href="#p_64">64</a>, <a href="#p_96">96</a>, <a href="#p_98">98</a>, <a href="#p_99">99</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Repression—</li> + <li class="isub1">and bipolarity, <a href="#p_216">216</a>, <a href="#p_217">217</a></li> + <li class="isub1">and sexuality, <a href="#p_156">156–159</a>, <a href="#p_162">162</a>, <a href="#p_163">163</a>, <a href="#p_174">174</a>, <a href="#p_193">193</a>, + <a href="#p_215">215</a>, <a href="#p_242">242</a></li> + <li class="isub1">and suggestion, <a href="#p_55">55</a>, <a href="#p_142">142</a>, <a href="#p_189">189</a>, <a href="#p_192">192</a>, <a href="#p_200">200</a>, + <a href="#p_201">201</a>, <a href="#p_218">218</a></li> + <li class="isub1">individual and social, <a href="#p_7">7</a>, <a href="#p_13">13</a>, <a href="#p_15">15</a>, <a href="#p_30">30</a>, <a href="#p_76">76</a>, <a href="#p_77">77</a>, + <a href="#p_131">131</a>, <a href="#p_154">154</a>, <a href="#p_162">162</a>, <a href="#p_163">163</a></li> + <li class="isub1">physiological substrate, <a href="#p_189">189–193</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Resistance—</li> + <li class="isub1">as personal absolute, <a href="#p_61">61</a>, <a href="#p_62">62</a>, <a href="#p_76">76</a>, <a href="#p_82">82</a>, <a href="#p_84">84</a>, + <a href="#p_230">230</a></li> + <li class="isub1">attitude of psychoanalysis toward, <a href="#p_69">69–76</a></li> + <li class="isub1">compared with doubt, <a href="#p_71">71–74</a></li> + <li class="isub1">individual and social, <a href="#p_43">43–45</a>, <a href="#p_65">65</a>, <a href="#p_75">75</a>, <a href="#p_76">76</a>, <a href="#p_152">152</a>, + <a href="#p_154">154</a>, <a href="#p_155">155</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Schreiner, Olive, <a href="#p_218">218</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Self—</li> + <li class="isub1">and sexuality, <a href="#p_15">15</a>, <a href="#p_173">173</a>, <a href="#p_200">200</a>, <a href="#p_201">201</a>, <a href="#p_210">210</a>, + <a href="#p_211">211</a></li> + <li class="isub1">image of, <a href="#p_16">16</a>, <a href="#p_58">58–61</a>, <a href="#p_79">79</a>, <a href="#p_82">82</a>, <a href="#p_83">83</a>, + <a href="#p_141">141</a></li> + <li class="isub1">preservation and race-preservation, <a href="#p_127">127</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Self-consciousness, <a href="#p_116">116</a>, <a href="#p_118">118–120</a>, <a href="#p_125">125</a>, <a href="#p_132">132</a>, <a href="#p_147">147</a>, + <a href="#p_161">161</a>, <a href="#p_162">162</a>, <a href="#p_205">205</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sex—</li> + <li class="isub1">and sexuality, <a href="#p_11">11</a>, <a href="#p_156">156–159</a>, <a href="#p_163">163</a>, <a href="#p_193">193</a>, <a href="#p_200">200–217</a>, + <a href="#p_237">237</a></li> + <li class="isub1">as organic unity, <a href="#p_11">11</a>, <a href="#p_163">163</a>, <a href="#p_199">199</a>, <a href="#p_208">208–212</a>, <a href="#p_220">220</a></li> + <li class="isub1">intermediate, <a href="#p_214">214</a>, <a href="#p_215">215</a>, <a href="#p_217">217</a></li> + <li class="isub1">oppositeness in, <a href="#p_211">211</a>, <a href="#p_213">213</a>, <a href="#p_214">214</a>, <a href="#p_216">216</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sexuality, <a href="#p_15">15</a></li> + <li class="isub1">as replacement, <a href="#p_10">10</a>, <a href="#p_163">163</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Repression; Sex</li> + + <li class="indx">Shields, Clarence, xix, <a href="#p_233">233</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Social images, <a href="#p_96">96</a>, <a href="#p_102">102</a>, <a href="#p_135">135–138</a>, <a href="#p_161">161</a>, <a href="#p_229">229</a></li> + <li class="isub1">and childhood, <a href="#p_51">51–55</a>, <a href="#p_58">58</a>, <a href="#p_59">59</a>, <a href="#p_92">92</a>, <a href="#p_93">93</a></li> + <li class="isub1">as distortion of reality, <a href="#p_87">87–90</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Image; Mother-image</li> + + <li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="p_256">[256]</span>Social neurosis, <a href="#p_101">101</a>, <a href="#p_125">125</a>, <a href="#p_130">130–133</a>, + <a href="#p_162">162</a>, <a href="#p_245">245</a></li> + <li class="isub1">and images, <a href="#p_229">229</a></li> + <li class="isub1">individual implication, <a href="#p_84">84</a>, <a href="#p_246">246</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Social unconscious, <a href="#p_117">117</a>, <a href="#p_133">133</a>, <a href="#p_162">162</a>, <a href="#p_222">222</a>, <a href="#p_223">223</a>, + <a href="#p_228">228</a>, <a href="#p_245">245</a></li> + <li class="isub1">as basis of normality, <a href="#p_11">11–14</a>, <a href="#p_26">26</a>, <a href="#p_27">27</a>, <a href="#p_44">44</a>, <a href="#p_47">47</a>, + <a href="#p_176">176</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Unconsciousness</li> + + <li class="indx">Societal concept of consciousness, <a href="#p_31">31</a>, <a href="#p_45">45</a>, <a href="#p_46">46</a>, <a href="#p_127">127–131</a>, <a href="#p_148">148</a>, + <a href="#p_149">149</a>, <a href="#p_160">160–163</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Relativity of consciousness</li> + + <li class="indx">Socrates, <a href="#p_218">218</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Subjective sphere—</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see</i> Feeling; Objective observation</li> + + <li class="indx">Sublimation, <a href="#p_189">189</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Suggestion—</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see</i> Repression</li> + + <li class="indx">Sympathetic nervous system, <a href="#p_189">189–192</a>, <a href="#p_194">194</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Transference, <a href="#p_167">167</a>, <a href="#p_172">172</a>, <a href="#p_230">230</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Unconsciousness, <a href="#p_5">5</a>, <a href="#p_15">15</a>, <a href="#p_111">111</a>, <a href="#p_126">126</a>, <a href="#p_135">135</a>, <a href="#p_144">144</a>, + <a href="#p_173">173</a>, <a href="#p_178">178</a>, <a href="#p_183">183–185</a>, <a href="#p_192">192</a>, <a href="#p_193">193</a>, <a href="#p_204">204</a>, + <a href="#p_234">234</a></li> + <li class="isub1">as resistance, <a href="#p_34">34</a>, <a href="#p_76">76</a></li> + <li class="isub1">underlying normality, <a href="#p_47">47</a>, <a href="#p_125">125</a></li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see also</i> Consciousness; Dissociation; Social unconscious</li> + + + <li class="ifrst">War, <a href="#p_14">14</a>, <a href="#p_16">16</a>, <a href="#p_34">34</a>, <a href="#p_35">35</a>, <a href="#p_83">83</a>, <a href="#p_129">129–132</a>, + <a href="#p_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wilde, Oscar, <a href="#p_78">78</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Will-to-self, <a href="#p_13">13</a>, <a href="#p_75">75</a>, <a href="#p_90">90</a>, <a href="#p_98">98</a>, <a href="#p_129">129</a>, + <a href="#p_156">156</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wish, <a href="#p_89">89</a>, <a href="#p_111">111–113</a>, <a href="#p_173">173</a>, <a href="#p_180">180</a>, <a href="#p_195">195</a>, + <a href="#p_232">232</a></li> +</ul> + + +<p class="center"> +PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY<br> +THE EDINBURGH PRESS, 9 AND 11 YOUNG STREET, EDINBURGH +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES"> + FOOTNOTES + </h2> +</div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1_1" href="#FNanchor_1_1" class="label">[1]</a> The word “organismic” refers to the feelings and reactions common +to the social body regarded as a coherent, integral organism. The +term organismic, as I use it in its social application, is identical with +the term organic in its individual application. The difference is that +the term organismic is employed in a more generic sense. But in +general the usages, organic and organismic, are interchangeable.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2_2" href="#FNanchor_2_2" class="label">[2]</a> “The Preconscious or the Nest Instinct,” a thesis presented in outline +at the Seventh Annual Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic +Association, Boston, Mass., May 25, 1917.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3_3" href="#FNanchor_3_3" class="label">[3]</a> “Social Images versus Reality,” <i>The Journal of Abnormal Psychology +and Social Psychology</i>, Vol. XIX, No. 3, Oct.-Dec., 1924.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4_4" href="#FNanchor_4_4" class="label">[4]</a> “Our Social Evasion,” <i>Medical Journal and Record</i>, Vol. CXXIII, +No. 12, June 16, 1926.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5_5" href="#FNanchor_5_5" class="label">[5]</a> “Giebt es vielleicht—eine Frage für Irrenärzte—Neurosen der +Gesundheit?”—Nietzsche’s <i>Werke</i>. Erste Abt., Band I. <i>Die Geburt +der Tragödie.</i> Leipzig, 1903.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6_6" href="#FNanchor_6_6" class="label">[6]</a> An instance of this inversion of natural expression is seen in the +system of technique that is the obsession <i>par excellence</i> of singers. In +the art of singing, as correspondingly in any art of life, technique is +applicable only to the theory of vocalization but not to the actuality +of spontaneous musical expression.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7_7" href="#FNanchor_7_7" class="label">[7]</a> I realize that a patient should have the protection of the medical +expert’s knowledge. This means that the analyst, if not himself a +physician, should be directly associated with the office of a physician. +We know, of course, that charlatanry exists no less within the medical +profession than elsewhere; yet while a medical degree is in no sense a +certificate of personal sincerity, it is a social surety of professional +responsibility. On the other hand, I have yet to hear the suggestion +offered that a physician who is not himself a psychoanalyst should be +closely associated with the office of a psychoanalyst. It seems odd, +as one thinks of it, that this provision should not have been offered by +those who have been conscientious enough to recognize the reverse need. +As a matter of fact, the number of instances in which mental disorders +are mistaken for somatic conditions is incomparably greater than those +in which there is failure to recognize the existence of the somatic component. +If it is important that the analyst should be competent to +trace the source of structural diseases, the internist should be equally +competent to trace the source of mental disharmonies.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8_8" href="#FNanchor_8_8" class="label">[8]</a> “To free our thought from the fetters of space and time is an +aspiration of the poet and the mystic, viewed somewhat coldly by the +scientist who has too good reason to fear the confusion of loose ideas +likely to ensue. If others have had a suspicion of the end to be desired +it has been left to Einstein to show the way to rid ourselves of these +‘terrestrial adhesions to thought.’ And in removing our fetters he +leaves us, not (as might have been feared) vague generalities for the +ecstatic contemplation of the mystic, but a precise scheme of world-structure +to engage the mathematical physicist.”—A. S. Eddington, +F.R.S., “The Theory of Relativity and its Influence on Scientific +Thought,” <i>The Scientific Monthly</i>, Vol. XVI, No. 1, Jan. 1923.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9_9" href="#FNanchor_9_9" class="label">[9]</a> It is, of course, not possible to trace through mathematical intricacies +a detailed analogy between the cosmic theory of relativity, +as it bears upon the objective data of an abstruse calculus, and the +organic theory of relativity, as it bears upon the subjective data of +the all-inclusive principle of psychology here regarded as the basis of +a universally comprehensive scheme of consciousness. The comparison +has significance for me merely in the aptness of its theoretical alignment +with a conception of consciousness which includes data extrinsic to +our habitual psychological system, i.e. the system intrinsic to ourselves +and commonly accepted as the totality of consciousness.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10_10" href="#FNanchor_10_10" class="label">[10]</a> Newton observed the universe from the point of view of his fixed +position upon the earth. Einstein observes the universe from the +point of view of all possible positions within the universe. Likewise +our present-day systems of psychology regard the conditions of life +from the position of observation that is one’s individual point of view +toward them. In the conception here advanced these conditions, on +the contrary, are regarded from points of view that are socially relative +to and inclusive of all possible positions of observation.</p> + +<p>The reader will recall that the conceptions of the physicists first +led them to a theory of special relativity through their calculations of +uniform motion, while their deductions came only later to embrace +data pertaining to difform motion, or to motion that is not uniform, +as contained under the conception of general relativity. With regard +to the theory of relativity in the subjective sphere, it was upon noting +the habitual deflections from a predictable organic constant, observable +in the erratic reactions of the neurotic personality, that the conception +of relativity in the sphere of consciousness first occurred to me. It +was only subsequently that the relativity of consciousness as applied +to the uniform reactions characteristic of the collective social mind +came to shape itself into the organismic conception of relativity here +outlined as the underlying principle of consciousness.</p> + +<p>While representing in no sense a detailed correlation between them, +there is nevertheless a certain analogy, not only in the manner of +inception of the objective and subjective theories with respect to the +observation first of difform or abnormal deviation, and later of discrepancies +of normal or uniform reactions; but there is also this further +concomitance between the two aspects of the principle. The Newtonian +hypothesis takes account of motion or reaction in the planetary system +only in the large, while the theory of Einstein is adequate in contemplating +the motion of planets both in the large and in the small. Conversely, +our present Freudian theory of the unconscious takes care of +the reactions of the personality in the small or in an individual or particular +sense, while the theory of the relativity of consciousness regards +personality not only individually or particularly (whether regarded +singly or in its collective social expression) but also societally or in +the sense of consciousness in its universal or organismic meaning.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11_11" href="#FNanchor_11_11" class="label">[11]</a> This psychobiological misconception is doubtless also aided in large +measure by the physiological conditions of our visual organs of perception +and by the bidimensional surface upon which our impressions +of objects are received. Because of the disposition of the nerve terminals +of the retina upon a flat or bidimensional area, our visual perception +of objects is limited to impressions of a flat or bidimensional plane. +If by means of binocular accommodation objects present to us the +appearance of “depth,” it is of course not to direct visual perception +that we owe our sense of perspective but to stereoscopic inference, +seconded by our stereognostic experience of tridimensional solidity. +Hence, what is actually “perceived” upon looking at an object of +three dimensions is a visual facet, as it were, due to our own mentally +flattened “cross-section” of the solid object before us as determined +by the particular aspect of it that is momentarily presented to view. +I think it cannot be doubted that this mechanism of our visual perception +is a contributing factor in influencing our tendency to “see” mentally. +One says “I see” when he means “I understand.” There is the same +implication in saying that one “sees” the logic of such and such a +statement. So, too, we speak of a “mental point of view” or of +“intellectual vision.” This illusory character of our mental percepts +probably owes its explanation also in part to the fact that our visual +sense is the sense that best permits a distant and detached observation +<i>of</i> rather than a contact <i>with</i> the surrounding world.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_12_12" href="#FNanchor_12_12" class="label">[12]</a> “Our Mass Neurosis,” <i>The Psychological Bulletin</i>, Vol. 23, No. 6, +June, 1926.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_13_13" href="#FNanchor_13_13" class="label">[13]</a> “The Reabsorbed Affect and Its Elimination,” <i>British Journal of +Medical Psychology</i>, Vol. VI, Part 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_14_14" href="#FNanchor_14_14" class="label">[14]</a> “Speaking of Resistances,” address before the Sixteenth Annual +Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association, New York City, +June 10, 1926. <i>Psyche</i>, No. 27, January, 1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_15_15" href="#FNanchor_15_15" class="label">[15]</a> “The Heroic Rôle—An Historical Retrospect,” <i>Psyche</i>, No. 25, +July, 1926.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_16_16" href="#FNanchor_16_16" class="label">[16]</a> Needless to say the distinction here made between “actual” and +“real” is used very specifically.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_17_17" href="#FNanchor_17_17" class="label">[17]</a> “Insanity a Social Problem,” <i>The American Journal of Sociology</i>, +Vol. XXXII, No. I, Part I, July, 1926.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_18_18" href="#FNanchor_18_18" class="label">[18]</a> I recall an incident that occurred several years ago in the office of +a prominent newspaper that well illustrates this point. A member of +the staff was called to the phone to receive the details of a drowning, +word of which had just been reported. One can picture the professional +zeal with which he turned to the phone, alert with the eagerness of +expectant acquisition. If a moment later he dropped the receiver and +drew back with a sudden cry of horror, his whole face gradually altering +to a look of dejection and pain, it was not because he had been disappointed +in the expectation of a thrilling item of news. Not at all. +The item was as tragic in its details as one could wish. The disappointment +lay only in the fact that, on inquiring the name of the +boy who had been drowned, he learned that it was his own son. It +was only this circumstance, then, that explained why his countenance +suddenly changed from satisfaction to pain. A matter of information +which was to have been sold to his readers as a delectable item of news +concerning the drowning of another man’s son became a poignant +sorrow when the self-same news related to his own son. And so, upon +examination, it may be seen that what really happened was an unexpected +shift of affect due to the sudden alternation of the personal +motive through the reversal of the bidimensional vantage.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_19_19" href="#FNanchor_19_19" class="label">[19]</a> “Psychoanalytic Improvisations and the Personal Equation,” +<i>The Psychoanalytic Review</i>, Vol. XIII, No. 2, April, 1926.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_20_20" href="#FNanchor_20_20" class="label">[20]</a> Consider the legend of the origin of the life of man as symbolized +through the intuitions of the folk unconscious recorded in the Book of +Genesis. For its discussion see “The Origin of the Incest-Awe,” <i>The +Psychoanalytic Review</i>, Vol. V, No. 3, July, 1918.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_21_21" href="#FNanchor_21_21" class="label">[21]</a> The term “consciousness” is used by the writer in two different +senses, the one having to do with the mental sophistication of individual +awareness, the other with consciousness regarded as an inclusive +racial principle. The reader must rely upon the context for the distinction +between the restricted individualistic interpretation on the one +hand and the organismic interpretation on the other.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_22_22" href="#FNanchor_22_22" class="label">[22]</a> This mistaken tendency of inference has so far laid hold upon us +as to mislead our perceptions even in respect to judgments concerning +data which lie altogether within the objective mode. To cite an instance +of homely type quite remote from the present argument:—when we +speak of two buckets of water, drawn from a common source, in reality +our concept is buckets of two waters. For the accident of their separation +in space and of the demarcation of the bulk of each by the outline of +its container leads the mind, habituated to the fallacy of subjective +inference, to posit a difference or a <i>twoness of essence</i> where there is but +a difference or twoness of outer circumstance or accidental condition. +Hence there results a concept not of two buckets but of two waters, +whereas the apparently two waters dipped from the same source are +essentially one.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_23_23" href="#FNanchor_23_23" class="label">[23]</a> “The Need of an Analytic Psychiatry,” <i>The American Journal of +Psychiatry</i>, Vol. VI, No. 3, January, 1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_24_24" href="#FNanchor_24_24" class="label">[24]</a> An example of the blindly impulsive character of this instinct often +recurs to me. I was standing with a lady on the shore of Lake Zürich. +A sudden storm arose and we could see plainly that two young men +in a sail-boat well out in the middle of the lake had lost complete control +of their craft. To the crowd that had gathered on the quays it was +evident from the way the sail was jibing from side to side that the boat +would overturn. A number of launches began hurrying toward it. +As the boat capsized, throwing the men into the lake, my companion, +suddenly tearing off her gloves, dashed toward the water. I managed +to seize her just as she reached the water’s edge. On my rallying +her and inquiring just what might be her plans with reference to two +men a full quarter of a mile out in the lake and closely surrounded by +competent rescue parties, she was unable to account for her impulsive +reaction beyond declaring that she “just couldn’t let them drown like +that!” Here was an individual with as goodly a share of unconscious +egotism as the rest of us, but in whom at the sight of danger to others +the self-instinct was completely subordinated to the organic behests +of our common societal instinct.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_25_25" href="#FNanchor_25_25" class="label">[25]</a> “Character and the Neuroses,” <i>The Psychoanalytic Review</i>, Vol. I, +No. 2, February, 1914.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_26_26" href="#FNanchor_26_26" class="label">[26]</a> We overlook the fact that it is not the content of a belief but rather +the mere condition of believing that determines its errancy or truth. +The word <i>belief</i>, as has been said, is a derivative of the Anglo-Saxon +<i>leof</i>, meaning <i>preference</i>, but we do not recognize that what one +“believes” is merely what one <i>wants to think</i>. There are undoubtedly +as many devout believers among the devotees of Science as of Religion, +and upon inquiry we should probably find that the pet <i>beliefs</i> of the +scientist rest upon as unreasoning an attitude of mind as those of the +religionist. The point is that whatever is thus believed in response +to personal preference is arbitrary and doctrinaire, be it evolution, +relativity, or God.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_27_27" href="#FNanchor_27_27" class="label">[27]</a> It is really the element of secret emotionalism that constitutes +mysticism. It is again a phase of the private alternative whereby we +get what we want. What is called “intellectual mysticism” is but +a secondary rationalization of this emotional element. But there is +need of discrimination. While it is true that conceptions arising from +intuitional inference may readily be begotten of emotionalism, yet the +same inferences when based upon biological analogy cease to be mystical. +Nietzsche’s “primordial unity,” because biologically inferred, seems +to me a quite unemotional and inclusive conception. In the biological +consistency that unites the most highly differentiated species with the +lowest single unicellular organism, the mind straightway finds substantiation +for Nietzsche’s conception. Whereas the “metaphysical +unity” of the religionists is, on the contrary, a wholly mystical conception. +Through this postulate the mind is immediately involved in +such vagaries as one connects with the doctrine of transubstantiation +or with the flights of Annie Besant and her astral bodies!</p> + +<p>But one can perhaps still more aptly illustrate the distinction in +question by considering the totally opposed meanings—the one intellectual, +the other emotional—contained in the word “vibrations” +according as it is used by the scientist in regard to mathematically +mensurable physical wave-lengths or as it is employed by the “hypersensitive +personality” to describe certain sensations presumably +recorded somewhere in the region of the epigastrium in response to +subtle but invisible “psychic communications.” In defining the term +mystical one must not fail to include the attitude of mind that leads +one scientist, who has failed to understand the investigations of another, +to refer to those investigations as mystical. I am inclined to feel somewhat +strongly on this point because of the fact that my conception of +the primary biological unity of the organism and its influence upon the +subsequent development of the personality has tended to be regarded +quite arbitrarily in the light of a mystical interpretation. (See note 1, +page 10.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_28_28" href="#FNanchor_28_28" class="label">[28]</a> There is a story reminiscent of juvenile days in my own home +that is to the point. An older brother, then between four and five +years of age, was being given his bath in the nursery as was customary +in those days. Hanging above the mantel was a picture of the Sistine +Madonna. The youngster being freed of his clothing ran skipping +about the room. His governess happened to be present, and being +duly horrified or, what is more probable as I remember her, acting in +response to a sense of duty, she gently chid him for his lack of modesty, +saying “Jesus doesn’t love little boys who go about that way.” The +child looked up at the picture of the nude infant with doubtless a more +discerning sympathy with Jesus’ views than grown-ups are wont to attribute +to the wisdom of childhood, and looking his would-be instructress +quietly in the eyes he replied incontrovertibly: “He does it hisse’f!”</p> + +<p>If the story of my brother’s life should ever be fully told, as some +day I hope it may, it will help us realize the unerring fatality of an early +enforced system of repression and its logical effect upon the individual’s +subsequent life as upon its close.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_29_29" href="#FNanchor_29_29" class="label">[29]</a> The biological (organic) continuity between the societal or psychological +and the functional or physiological spheres is interesting in view +of their obvious homologies as shown in the marked suggestive influences +which we see passing over from the psychological sphere and affecting +the processes pertaining to the functional or physiological sphere and +doubtless operating no less in the reverse direction. One wonders +without undue presumption how many so-called “organic” diseases +are not primarily functional and hence functionally modifiable through +the integral, societal agency of an organic analysis, provided, of course, +that the separative process has not already crystallized into the static +condition of structural alteration. At least it is clear that many so-called +physical derangements need to be frankly regarded in the light of sheer +somatic hysterias. See “The Psychological Analysis of So-called +Neurasthenic and Allied States,” <i>The Journal of Abnormal Psychology</i>, +Vol. VIII, 1913–14, page 246, note 1.</p> + +<p>An analogous condition is demonstrable in the physical universe in +the fact that the phenomena of gravitation (such as planetary motion) +and the phenomena of electricity (including the motion of light) have +been proved to be so intimately related to one another as to be regarded +now by the physicists “as parts of one vast system embracing all +Nature.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_30_30" href="#FNanchor_30_30" class="label">[30]</a> The Southern negro has a definition of libido that is biologically truer +than that of either Freud, Jung or Claparède. He refers to inadequacy +of the sexual life as a lack of “ambition.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_31_31" href="#FNanchor_31_31" class="label">[31]</a> It should be recalled that in the view of the present thesis sexuality +as it exists socially among us is, in essence, narcistic throughout and +that hence sexuality, including so-called <i>normal</i> sexuality, is, in my +conception, a repression, and must be definitely discriminated from +the spontaneous and biological expression embodied in the native +instinct of sex. (See p. 10.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_32_32" href="#FNanchor_32_32" class="label">[32]</a> One may find the objective evidence of this statement amply set +forth in P. Kropotkin’s <i>Mutual Aid, a Factor of Evolution</i>. Here +Kropotkin traces in a very conclusive way the presence of the societal +instinct in the lower animals and in primitive man. Kropotkin errs, +however, when he reaches the levels of development expressed in the +social organizations of man. For he fails to discriminate between the +instinct of societal solidarity that is the natural cohesion of a species +and the quite premeditated and ulterior expressions of social accord +represented in the mutual self-interests of man’s collective adaptations.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_33_33" href="#FNanchor_33_33" class="label">[33]</a> “An Ethnic Aspect of Consciousness,” <i>The Sociological Review</i>, +Vol. XIX, No. 1, January, 1927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_34_34" href="#FNanchor_34_34" class="label">[34]</a> If, in the flash of so brief an interval of time (speaking ethnologically) +as fifty years or so, a plan were effected involving the complete +segregation from one another of all the individuals comprising the +societal organism of the species, the result, notwithstanding the many +millions of years required for the gradual evolution of the race up to +the present time, would be its complete extermination! Such a +consideration allows us to realize, at least objectively, how closely +interwoven are the elements comprising our societal organism and how +dependent is the integrity of the whole upon the organic participation +of its parts.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_35_35" href="#FNanchor_35_35" class="label">[35]</a> A striking instance of psychoanalytic unconsciousness may be seen +in the analyst’s quite naïve attitude toward his own unconscious need +for such infantile pacifiers as he finds in the obsessive use of tobacco. +That such diversions are no more adult than the use of the rubber +ring or nipple of his infancy he does not for a moment suspect, the +concomitance of such practices with the oral eroticism of his childhood +having only a <i>theoretical</i> significance for him. The truth is, the psychoanalyst +<i>wants to smoke</i>. Of course, it is not consistent with his teaching +and if he is to have his way in the matter some process must be devised +that will make it consistent. And so in his authoritarian suzerainty +he forthwith decrees that the patient who objects to a smoke-filled +room is a prey to unseemly resistances, and that his or her attitude +of mind, not the analyst’s, must be promptly looked into with a view +to summary treatment.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_36_36" href="#FNanchor_36_36" class="label">[36]</a> Let me say at once that this nomadic young lady did me the honour +to remark that she sensed immediately upon meeting me that <i>my</i> +attitude was entirely different from that of other analysts. Of this she +made haste to assure me at the outset. In thinking of it, a wince gives +place to a smile as I recall the trustful complacency with which I +benignly accepted as a statement of fact the cunning decoys of this +seraphically unconscious individual, her flattering reassurances seeming +to me at the time clearly to indicate the very rare perceptions of this +unusually discerning young person! The aftermath as it has come to +pass in the brief succeeding years enables me unhesitatingly to aver +that my severely reproved colleagues were at least not more unconscious +than I.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_37_37" href="#FNanchor_37_37" class="label">[37]</a> See note 1, page 15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_38_38" href="#FNanchor_38_38" class="label">[38]</a> See note 1, page 56.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_39_39" href="#FNanchor_39_39" class="label">[39]</a> See note 1, page 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_40_40" href="#FNanchor_40_40" class="label">[40]</a> See note 1, page 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_41_41" href="#FNanchor_41_41" class="label">[41]</a> Perhaps this distinction of type has its societal counterpart also +in the opposite psychological reactions embodied in the esoteric tendencies +of Catholicism with its markedly autocentric organization, as +compared with Protestantism’s more allocentric trends. The difference +between the two types of reaction is also seen in the broad geographical +contrast that separates the consciousness of Asia from that of Europe.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_42_42" href="#FNanchor_42_42" class="label">[42]</a> See discussion of opposed reaction-types independently determined +by M. Geiger, “Neue Complicationsversuche,” <i>Philos. Studien</i>, XVIII, +1903, pp. 347–436 and also by myself, <i>The Determination of the Position +of a Momentary Impression in the Temporal Course of a Moving Visual +Impression</i>, The Johns Hopkins Studies in Philosophy and Psychology, +No. 3, The Psychological Review, Psychological Monographs, Vol. XI, +No. 4, September, 1909.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_43_43" href="#FNanchor_43_43" class="label">[43]</a> “Psychiatry as an Objective Science,” <i>British Journal of Medical +Psychology</i>, Vol. V, Part 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_44_44" href="#FNanchor_44_44" class="label">[44]</a> Narcism (homo-erotism) is a reversion of interest representing a +sexual reaction to the pictorial affect or to the personal image. Autoerotism +(ego-erotism) represents an arrest of the individual’s sexuality +due to its impact with the personal image or with the social self-reflection +about him. Narcism embodies the reflection of the individual’s erotism +in its social phase. Autoerotism is the absorption of the individual’s +erotism in its personal phase. Autoerotism is thus central and +represents the retroversion or interception by the organism of its +efferent interests. This occurs in the individual inversion expressed +in the sensory images of dementia præcox. Narcism is peripheral and +is expressed in the social inversion pertaining equally to the motor +images of homosexuality as to the sensory images of paranoia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_45_45" href="#FNanchor_45_45" class="label">[45]</a> While a student of Jung’s in the early days of psychoanalysis, at +the time when Jung was the very organ of Freud’s genius, the clear +emanation of his spirit, I remarked to him one day that I had come +to the conclusion that the neurotic individual inevitably married his +mother. Jung’s reply, alert as a flash, was characteristic of his brilliant, +inclusive scope of vision. “I have come to the conclusion,” he said, +“that <i>every</i> individual inevitably marries his mother.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_46_46" href="#FNanchor_46_46" class="label">[46]</a> The word <i>like</i> is from Anglo-Saxon <i>gelic</i>, compounded of <i>ge</i>, meaning +together, and <i>lic</i>, meaning body.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_47_47" href="#FNanchor_47_47" class="label">[47]</a> “Convention in Psychoanalysis and Its Interpretative Inhibitions,” +a paper read at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic +Association, Atlantic City, May 10, 1918.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_48_48" href="#FNanchor_48_48" class="label">[48]</a> See note 2, page 208.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_49_49" href="#FNanchor_49_49" class="label">[49]</a> In a recent meeting of psychopathologists a paper was presented +which described the results of a questionnaire that had been distributed +among the students of one of our prominent American +universities, the object of which was to learn the nature of the sexual +life of the college students. The figures compiled from the answers +submitted showed in the author’s view a surprisingly high percentage +of masturbation and homosexuality. But what is of interest is the +fact that in the interpretation of the author of the paper, as well as in +that of every member who participated in the discussion, the concept +of masturbation was restricted solely to personal practices on the part +of the single individual, while the concept of homosexuality was confined +entirely to the manifestation of sexual interests or activities occurring +between persons of the same sex! Apparently it was not suspected +that these manifest expressions of autoerotism or homosexuality are +the least widespread or significant forms of its occurrence, that the +really important and far-reaching expression of these disorders of +instinct occurs in the latent form represented in the symbolic substitutions +of heterosexuality as commonly practised, for example, in +houses of prostitution. Yet these latter expressions were avowedly +regarded as real expressions of heterosexuality and, accordingly, its +devotees were naïvely interpreted as presenting a psychological adaptation +which showed a frank contrast to that of their “homosexual” +confrères! It is hopeless to expect any scientific understanding of +anomalies of reaction that pertain to our subjective life as long as +scientists themselves persist in confusing the objective appearances +under which these anomalies are disguised for the subjective actuality +of these anomalies themselves.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_50_50" href="#FNanchor_50_50" class="label">[50]</a> “The Genesis and Meaning of ‘Homosexuality’”—a development +of <i>the principle of identification or the primary subjective phase of consciousness</i>. +See <i>The Psychoanalytic Review</i>, Vol. IV, No. 3, July, 1917.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_51_51" href="#FNanchor_51_51" class="label">[51]</a> It is not by accident but by some inner, intuitive design that man +has adopted the symbol he employs as the sign of infinity. In the +mark of the mathematicians—consisting of two circles that are one, +one circle that is two, wherein is neither beginning nor end—is expressed +the character of the infinite and all-inclusive in a form of conjunction +so complete as not to be susceptible of possible increment.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_52_52" href="#FNanchor_52_52" class="label">[52]</a> The reader is reminded that this book was outlined in 1923. From +that time to the time of publication (1927), the group analysis, proceeding +along the lines indicated in this chapter, has further substantiated +the thesis here stated.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_53_53" href="#FNanchor_53_53" class="label">[53]</a> See note 1, page 53.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_54_54" href="#FNanchor_54_54" class="label">[54]</a> See note 1, page 15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_55_55" href="#FNanchor_55_55" class="label">[55]</a> We are warned, of course, that this new shift of technique will +arouse in us unprecedented resistances. But let us be wary lest we +capitulate too easily to this ready-to-hand ogre of “resistances”; for +by the same token we have been warned throughout these analytic years +that we must expect unprecedented resistances to the former dictum of +psychoanalysis—a dictum which imposed without parley or mitigation +a rigid analytic policy of non-interference. Our inconsistency is but +another instance of the automatic illogic of the alternative, of the +inevitable compulsion of the personal criterion.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_56_56" href="#FNanchor_56_56" class="label">[56]</a> “The Group Method of Analysis,” <i>The Psychoanalytic Review</i>, +Vol. XIV, 1927, “The Laboratory Method in Psychoanalysis,” <i>The +American Journal of Psychiatry</i>, Vol. V, No. 3, January, 1926.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_57_57" href="#FNanchor_57_57" class="label">[57]</a> It should be clearly explained that <i>group analysis is not my analysis +of the group but that it is the group’s analysis of me or of any other individual</i>. +In our laboratory usage, “group” does not mean a collection of individuals. +It means a phyletic principle of observation. This phyletic +principle of observation as applied to the individual and to the aggregate +is the whole significance of group analysis.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_58_58" href="#FNanchor_58_58" class="label">[58]</a> I hold that the word “spirit” employed in its biological connotation +belongs to the legitimate equipment of the laboratory. Because the +religionists have carried it off and perverted it to sentimental uses, I shall +not surrender the claim of the scientist upon it. And so by “spirit” +I do not wish to indicate anything akin to the ghostly itinerants reputed +to stalk o’ nights, nor to that beneficent impulse that moves people +to cheer the afternoon of life by “doing good” when the infelicities of +age or infirmity have dulled the edge of less salutary proclivities. +Neither have I in mind any philosophical concept whatever, nor least +of all a conception savouring of a religious purport, all of which seem +to me equally apparitional. I mean merely man’s innate, unprompted +or unchecked feeling as expressive of his organic life. That which in +man responds to natural beauty, actual or inferred, is of the sphere +of the spirit as I use the term.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_59_59" href="#FNanchor_59_59" class="label">[59]</a> “There are ages, when the rational and the intuitive man stand side +by side, the one full of fear of the intuition, the other full of scorn for +the abstraction; the latter just as irrational as the former is inartistic.” +Nietzsche, <i>Early Greek Philosophy and Other Essays</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="transnote">Transcriber’s note: the ebook cover was made by the transcriber, and is placed +in the public domain.</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78616 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78616-h/images/cover.jpg b/78616-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..108d767 --- /dev/null +++ b/78616-h/images/cover.jpg |
