Abnormal psychology

“ THE JOURNAL OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY THE SEX WORSHIP AND SYMBOLISM OF PRIMITIVE RACES BY SANGER BROWN II., M. D. Assistant Physician—Bloomingdale Hospital.
PSYCHIATRY, during recent years, has found it to its advantage to turn to a number of related sciences and allied branches of study for the explanation of a number of the peculiar symptoms of abnormal mental states. Of these related studies, none have been of greater value than those which throw light on the mental development of either the individual or the race. ”

“ We can realize now how superficial are those who tell us "we learn but little from the abnormal, for first of all comes the normal." We realize now how detrimental to scientific investigation such a contention is. As a matter of fact the progress of science is not from the normal to the abnormal, but the very reverse, from the abnormal to the normal ”

“ Now considering states in which the mental balance is disturbed, we can easily see, from what has preceded, wherein lies the importance of the unconscious for psychopathology. Let us ponder the question of where and in what manner the unconscious manifests itself in abnormal mental conditions. The way in which the unconscious works is most clearly seen in disturbances of a psychogenic nature, such as hysteria, compulsion neurosis, etc. ”

“ Sense of unreality is one of the commonest psychic alterations through which customary sensation states are displaced by unnatural and usually distressing ones.
Morbid inhibition is an abnormal, negative activity of the will.
Sometimes a patient will try pitifully to express some thought or feeling; the desire to explain is there, but will is blocked in action. Or the patient attempts to dress, makes repeated new beginnings, but cannot succeed. We say, “He is inhibited.”
An obsession is an idea which morbidly dominates the mind, constantly suggesting irrational action. ”

“ I wish, in conclusion, to repeat that through the conscientious and most far-reaching analysis of a single dream, or, in fact, of a single element of a dream or a single element or stimulus in the objective or subjective world, one may, at least not infrequently, unearth the full life history of normal or abnormal individuals, and the genesis and evolution of psychopathic affections. ”

“ Turn now to the psychology of the abnormal mind. Here we find, under the heading of individual psychology, (8) the psychology of deficient and exceptional minds; of blind deaf-mutism, of genius, of the subnormal and the supernormal child; (9) the psychology of temporary mental derangement; of dream, of hypnosis, of intoxications, of occasional hallucination and illusion; and (10) the psychology of permanent mental disorder, of the chronic derangements of insanity. ”

“ In the first case we may expect to find an increasing pressing forward in the unconscious, of a wish for human intercourse, a longing for mother, friends, relations; while in the second case self-criticism will try to establish a correcting balance. Among normal people a condition never arises so one-sided that the natural corrective tendencies of the unconscious entirely lose their value in the affairs of everyday life; but in the case of abnormal people, it is eminently characteristic that the individual entirely fails to recognise the compensating influences which arise in the unconscious. ”

“ Even in the lighter forms of psychic degenerative forms that lie on the borderland of mental alienation, such, for instance, as are present in the various forms of psychopathic maladies we still find that the same relation holds good. ”

“ Our statistical analysis, therefore, set us drifting toward disorder of personality as the source of many delusions apparently derived ab extra and tended to swell the group of autopsychic cases at the expense of the allopsychic group,
In the statistical analysis of a group of cases corresponding roughly with the so-called functional group of diseases, we find false beliefs about the some on a somewhat different plane from those about the patient's self and his worldly fortunes. ”

“ All observers of society, even the most optimistic, are agreed that the prevalence of this mental quality is increasing, while those who are competent to trace its less obtrusive manifestations find it to be very widespread.
When the twenty years just past come to be looked back upon from the distant future, it is probable that their chief claim to interest will be that they saw the birth of the science of abnormal psychology. That science, inconspicuous as has been its development, has already given us a few gen­er­al­i­za­tions of the first importance. ”

“ Since psychology primarily deals with the laws of psycho-physiological functions, it will be admitted that the more important and valuable method is the one that has for its subject matter the changes going on directly in the material under investigation. The investigations, however, of changes or disturbances of mental function itself are really a study of the abnormal, researches into the domain of mental pathology. In psychology, as in many other sciences, especially those of the biological order to which psychology naturally belongs, the pathological method is by far the most important. ”

“ Furthermore when we bear in mind that sentiments thus originating and organized are conserved in the subconscious forming what I call the "setting" which gives idea meaning, the meaning being the most important component of any idea, and when we bear in mind that this subconscious setting is an integral part of the total mechanism of thought—each sentiment in the setting striving to carry itself to completion, and for this purpose repressing every conflicting sentiment—I think we find a satisfactory explanation of the disturbances due to conflict in the psycho-neuroses. ”

“ As a matter of fact there is no need for us to establish hypothetical, intermediate, unconscious or physiological links. The "unconscious" brain-processes are problematic entities and there is no way of getting at them. What we need to discover in cases of mediate association, and especially in cases of psychopathic diseases, is whether the intermediate links, or the original experience that brought about the trauma, or the state of dissociation is present, consciously, or subconsciously, or coconsciously. ”

“ The mental activity of the idiot resembles the lower types of animal psychosis. Although as we have already pointed out, the consciousness of the idiot and that of the animal are by no means identical, still both belong to a low type of moment, and as such, they may be put on the same level.
In pathological cases where mental degeneration sets in we also have a similar course. The moment of the higher type becomes degraded and falls to the level of lower and lowermost types, according to the advance of the process of degeneration. ”

“ All psychopathic functional disturbances consist just in such an interrelation of mental aggregates; in the process of disaggregation of the self-conscious personality aggregates of moments drop out and fall into the domain of the subconscious. What disappears from attentive consciousness may fall into subconsciousness. The disaggregated moment, ceasing to enter into relations with the upper personal consciousness of the highly complex constellation, may still form a component of the lower aggregates of the subconscious. ”

“ When the deterioration of personal moral life and social instincts is well under way, degeneration of other functions sets in,―the patient gives himself over to excesses, to all kinds of debauches, and indulges in the different forms of abnormal sexual practices. ”

“ If they have forced their way anywhere to our perception, we discover from the analysis of the symptom formed that these normal thoughts have been subjected to abnormal treatment and have been transformed into the symptom by means of condensation and compromise formation, through superficial associations, under cover of contradictions, and eventually over the road of regression. ”

“ When we review the abnormal or morbid forms of the affective life: destructive impulses, phobias, incurable melancholy, sexual perversions, failure of the moral sense, insanity of doubt, etc., and seek their causes, we at once find some which are proximate or immediate. Among the most frequent are physical maladies, injuries to the head, sudden shocks, as in railway accidents; sorrow, whatever its origin, whether love, ambition, ruin, separation ”

“ The neurotic consciously comes to realize the unconscious, organic, somatic inferiority, and the endeavor to effect a psychic compensation or to make up for these organic deficiencies by certain definite mechanisms, frequently results in an overreaction or over-compensation. ”

“ The power of the moment's assimilation is well brought in the activity of abnormal moments. Distressing thoughts, gloomy ideas, painful sensations, and feelings of depression form a nucleus round which other mental states become firmly organized. A delusion arises which constitutes the moment-consciousness of the melancholiac. This moment assimilates all other cognate experiences. Everything that takes place is seized on by the moment and assimilated. ”

“ The most common of the resurrected psychic trends is the general tendency to dissociation or disruption of the personality with the reanimification, in varying degrees, of certain mental deficiencies and inferior types of reaction which are indicative of the relative failure of the patient to measure up to and efficiently deal with and adapt to the struggles of life as he must face and meet them. ”

“ The symptoms may be motor (obsessional acts, impulsions) , sensory (obsessional hallucinations or sensations) , ideational (obsessions) , and affective (obsessive emotions, particularly doubt and fear) . In this condition we find that there is an excessive psychical significance attached to certain thoughts. Obsessions are characterized by dissociations from the main personality. They thus exist in the unconsciousness. The original unconscious mental processes have brought about, by displacement, an excess of psychical significance to these thoughts. ”

“ The general drift of my Psychology of Suggestion is the description of the subconscious as a diffused consciousness below the margin of personal consciousness. I sometimes use the term "subconscious self." I designate by "self" not personal consciousness, but mere consciousness. In Multiple Personality, in which I develop the theory of thresholds in regard to the phenomena of normal and abnormal mental life, I define the subconscious as consciousness below the threshold of attentive personal consciousness. ”

“ You must remember that our nightly dream productions show the greatest outer similarity and inner relationship to the creations of the insane, but on the other hand are compatible with full health during waking life. It does not sound at all absurd to say that whoever regards these normal sense illusions, these delusions and alterations of character as matter for amazement instead of understanding, has not the least prospect of understanding the abnormal creations of diseased mental states in any other than the lay sense. ”

“ This belief is erroneous and is only given credence to by people who had not thought much on the subject, and especially by those who belong to the so-called "new psychology" school. As a matter of fact the abnormal in scientific research precedes that, of the normal. The investigation of the abnormal is one of the most potent instruments for new discoveries. The method of experimentation, the most powerful tool of modern science, is in fact the creation of artificial conditions, in other words, the effecting of abnormal states. ”

“ On the other hand, we meet in psychopathology with a vast domain of phenomena, such as recurrent mental states, insistent ideas which force themselves on the patient's mind against his will. The recurrent mental states or the insistent ideas are far more stubborn and uncontrollable than any resistant sensory object. ”

“ But in spite of this, and in spite of the fact that there is some truth also in the statement that the effects—good and bad—of emotional repression make themselves felt, as a partial influence, in all the highest reaches of human endeavor, including art, literature, and religion;—in spite of these partial truths, philosophy and metaphysics are the only means through which the essential nature of many tendencies can be studied of which psychoanalysis describes only the transformations. ”

“ Such associations may naturally occur in the early experiences of even the most normal persons. The degree to which they will influence the subsequent life and thought and feeling depends on the degree of the individual's morbid emotional receptivity, on the extent to which he is hereditarily susceptible of abnormal deviation. ”

“ Moral life is the first to be affected. Social instincts, follow, while disturbances of sex and food instincts set in very late in the course of the pathological process of disaggregation and degeneration. ”

“ That the normalists in this country so persistently ignore the unique opportunity to extend their purview into the psychopathological domain at the unique psychological moment that the development of Freudianism has offered, is to me a matter of sad disappointment and almost depression. ”

“ The fact that psychology postulates an external material world and studies it in so far as it comes to be reflected in consciousness, points to another postulate which psychology must assume in addition, namely, the existence of an inner world consciousness. ”

“ Mental synthesis of psychic content in the unity of a moment-consciousness is a fundamental principle of psychology. ”