appeared during his attacks, we are safe in assuming that one factor at
least in the production of an attack was the lifting of some inhibition
which kept the cruder ideas from entering consciousness except in a form in
which they could be objectively viewed and so logically arranged. Scattering
of thought therefore arises from the intermittent action of this censor or
from an incomplete abolition of the inhibition allowing varying formulations
of the crude ideas to gain expression which have no logic surface
connection. If entirely done away with, of course, the latent ideas
appearing in perfect crudity would have a logical connection. The content
of consciousness is what is within the sphere of introspection. We can
therefore say that the praecox who is scattered really does not know his own
ideas. This is, of course, an every day experience for those who examine
such patients. A suitable case left to himself will give expression to a
limited number of delusions which he does not correlate. A few suggestive
questions, however, will educe a mass of delusions, which when pieced
together demonstrate the logical unconscious ideas that give rise to them.
If such a patient be asked "What are your ideas?" he can give no reply. Ask
him, however, if any one is mistreating him and you will start a train of
thought in which one fancied insult leads to another or to delusions which
do not represent mistreatment at all. On the other hand approach a patient
with constructive delusions with the same question as to his ideas and he
will produce a theory of the universe, often with a chronological account of
how these ideas developed. He is insane in that his fancies do not reach an
outlet in action being an end in themselves; but he is sane in so far as he
keeps his ideas within the range of introspection and has not allowed them
to become autonomous. The inferences from this to the laws of normal
association are obvious.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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