The machinery of the mindFirth, Violet M. (Violet Mary)
Science
The machinery of the mind
Firth, Violet M. (Violet Mary)
Psychology
Geology, zoology, sociology, and comparative psychology, all show us
the evolution of that which is simple into that which is complex, from
the cave man, with his few needs and problems, to the complications
of a modern industrial society. And we see in the little segment of
the evolutionary arc with which we are most closely concerned that
the chief factor is the herd instinct which is pressing us all the
time towards a more complete socialisation of humanity, and that
any adaptation which an individual makes must be in relation to his
integration as a social unit and not to his needs as a solitary
individual.
Diagnostic and descriptive psychology must be distinguished from
remedial psychology of which we have had all too little. Research on
the abnormal mind alone will not give us the key to a healthy life,
we must study social psychology as well as individual psychology,
because man is a social animal, and his mental processes are determined
by this fact; any adaptation he makes, and adaptation is the basis of
psychotherapy, must be in relation to his social group as well as to
his own subconscious wishes; it is not enough to bring these wishes
into the light of consciousness, they must be synthesised with the
rest of the personality, to the social organisation of which that
personality is a unit, and to the great evolutionary drift of which
even the race itself is but a partial expression. Psychotherapy may
begin with the primitive, but it must end with the divine, for both are
integral factors in the human mind.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Spelling and grammatical errors on page 81 (Chapter XXI) have been left
unchanged.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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