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
To take simple examples, and to begin with a hypothetical case, but one
which in practice I have frequently duplicated: A subject is hypnotized
and although, in fact, the day is a beautifully fair one we point out
that it is really disagreeable because the sunshine is glowing and hot;
that such weather means dusty roads, drought, the drying up of the water
supply, the withering of the foliage, that the country needs rain, etc.
We further assert that this will be the subject’s point of view. In this
way we form a cluster of ideas as a setting to the weather which gives
it, fair as it is, an entirely different and unpleasant meaning and one
which is accepted. The subject is now awakened and has complete amnesia
for the hypnotic experience. When attention is directed to the weather
it is found that his point of view, for the time being at least, is
changed from what it was before being hypnotized. The perception of the
clear sky and the sunlight playing upon the ground includes secondary
images of heat, of dust, of withered foliage, etc., such as have been
previously experienced on disagreeable, hot, dusty days, and some of the
associated thoughts with their affects suggested in hypnosis arise in
consciousness; perhaps only a few, but, if he continues to think about
the weather, perhaps many. Manifestly the new setting formed in hypnosis
has been switched into association with the conscious perceptions of the
environment and has induced the secondary images and associated
thoughts, emotions, and feelings which give meaning. But it is equally
manifest, though many elements bubble up, so to speak, from the
unconscious setting into consciousness, that most of this setting
remains submerged in the unconscious.
In similar fashion I made a subject regard, metaphorically speaking, as
a cesspool for sewage a river which was being converted into a beautiful
water park by a dam.[172] It is scarcely necessary to cite additional
observations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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