The unconscious : $b The fundamentals of human personality, normal and abnormalPrince, Morton
Science
The unconscious : $b The fundamentals of human personality, normal and abnormal
Prince, Morton
Psychology, Pathological; Subconsciousness
construct concepts which are allegories, metaphors, symbolisms,
personifications of concrete phenomena. Their use tends to fallacious
reasoning and to perverted inductions from the facts. Becoming major
premises in a syllogism, they lead to erroneous interpretations of the
simplest facts, just as fixed ideas or obsessions tend to a perverted
interpretation of the environment.
We are now in a position to see that the psycho-physiological theory of
memory has a far-reaching significance. The facts which have been
brought before you in evidence of the theory have been selected largely
from those which were capable of verification by experimentation and by
other objective testimony. They include a large variety of experiences
which occurred in pathological conditions like amnesia and multiple
personality, and in artificial conditions like hypnosis and
intoxication. Such abnormal conditions enable us to show by testimony,
independent of the individual, that these experiences had actually
occurred, and, therefore, to show that the reproductions of these
experiences were in principle truthful memories. They also enable us to
appreciate the enormous variety and quantity of experiences which,
although absolutely beyond the power of voluntary recall, may be
conserved nevertheless as neurograms, and also to appreciate the
minuteness of detail in which the brain records may be preserved.
If you will stop a moment to think, and give play to your imagination,
you will see that the principle of the neurographic conservation of
experiences must be true not only of our outer life, of our experiences
with our environment, but of our whole _inner life_, normal as well as
abnormal. It is always possible that any thought, any feeling, however
trivial and transitory, may leave neurograms in the brain. It is always
possible that even a fleeting doubt or scruple, thoughts which flash
into the mind and straightway are put out again, all may leave their
records and dispositions to function again. Even a passing doubt which
any of you may entertain regarding the interpretation of the phenomena I
have described, and the correctness of our conclusions, may be recorded.
Indeed, it is a matter of some importance for the understanding of
abnormal mental conditions that many of those horrid little sneaking
thoughts which we do not like to admit to ourselves, the thoughts which
for one reason or another we endeavor to repress, to put out of our
minds, may leave their indelible traces. In fact, these are the very
thoughts, the ones which we try hardest to forget, to push aside, which
are most likely to be conserved. The harder we try, the stronger the
feelings attached to them, the more likely they are to leave neurograms
in the brain though they may never be reproduced. This has been shown by
observation of pathological conditions, like hysteria and psychasthenia,
and by experimentation. In repressing our thoughts we do not put them
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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