Chapter L: E. W., forty-nine years of age, farmer and lawyer by occupation, a (8)

Every instinct has an aim or end which it strives to fulfil and which alone satisfies it; and it contains in itself the driving force which, as an urge, or impulse, sets into activity the mechanism and carries the instinctive process, unless blocked by some other process, to completion and satisfies the aim of the instinct. Thus the instinct of flight impelled by the urge of fear has an aim to escape from danger and is not satisfied until the danger is escaped. Until that end is gained fear will not subside. If impeded in its activity it may awaken the pugnacity instinct which coming to the rescue may fight for safety. Similarly the instincts of acquisition and self-assertion are not satisfied and their urge persists until their ends are gained—the acquisition of certain objects in the one case and self-display or domination of other individuals or situations in the other case. Obviously the instincts and other innate dispositions have a biological significance, ontogenetically and phylogenetically, in that they serve the preservation of the individual and species and the perpetuation of the latter. And obviously in the drive to satisfy their aims they determine and govern behavior. But in doing this they become modified and controlled by experience—by the dispositions which are acquired by experience. In this way the behavior of the individual becomes adapted to the specific situations of the environment. Necessarily these modifications of the workings of the innate mechanisms by the imposition of experience upon and within them become very complicated and the problems of instinct and experience thereby evoked have been the object of much study and debate.

Now with such fundamental innate mechanisms as a basis the composite structure of personality is built up by experience, according to the theory I am presenting.

By experience new “dispositions” are deposited (i.e., acquired), and organized, systematized, not only amongst themselves but integrated with the inherited mechanisms. Thus, on the one hand, are formed new mechanisms which in their functioning manifest themselves as mental processes and behavior, and, on the other, the instinctive mechanisms are brought under control by experience and mental processes acquire a driving force, or an extra driving force, from the impulsive forces of the integrated instinctive mechanisms.

Accordingly we may say: _Personality_ is the sum total of all the biological innate dispositions, impulses, tendencies, appetites and instincts of the individual and of all the _acquired_ dispositions and tendencies—acquired by experience. And to these it is limited.

The former would embrace inherited, innate psychophysiological mechanisms or arrangements, such as those of the emotions, feelings, appetites and other tendencies manifested in instinctive reactions to the environment; the latter the memories, ideas, sentiments and other intellectual dispositions acquired and organized within the personality by the experiences of life.

The integration into one functioning organism, or whole, of all these innate and acquired dispositions with their mechanisms and inherent forces by which they come into play is personality.

As thus defined personality includes more than _character_. Character is the sum total of the predominating dispositions, or tendencies, popularly called traits. Thus in the domain of the innate dispositions every personality includes anger, fear, curiosity, and other instinctive reactions, but one personality might possess an angry temperament, while another an amiable temperament, meaning that in the one anger is aroused quickly and by a large variety of situations; in the other it is rarely aroused and by few situations; in the one anger is excited whenever the individual is thwarted, opposed, or wounded in his feelings; in the other the response is never or rarely anger in such situations but perhaps sorrow, or pity, or some other feeling. One is said to be quick to anger; the other slow to anger. Hence the character of the one is said to be “good tempered,” the other “bad tempered.” Yet every normal personality will manifest anger in some situation.

Likewise with fear: one person reacts with fear to all sorts of threatening situations; another rarely and to very few. One is said to have a timorous, or an apprehensive, the other a brave, or bold, “sandy,” character. Yet every one manifests fear in one of its phases (apprehension, anxiety, etc.) in some situation. There is no personality born without the fear instinct.

Likewise in the domain of acquired dispositions personality includes the ideals, “sentiments,” desires, points of view, attitudes, etc., of the individual in respect to himself, to life and the environment. These being acquired by educational, social and environmental experiences largely differ in every individual. Some become common, or substantially common to all or many. But those that are peculiar to, or acquire a dominating position and influence in the personality, play their part—and even a greater part than the primitive instinctive dispositions—in distinguishing the character of one personality from that of another. For in a large measure they determine the reaction to situations, the behavior and the modes of thought as intellectual processes. They stamp the _quality_ or character of the intelligence (its content) rather than the _degree or capacity_ of the same.[261] On this side, then, character is so much of personality as is represented by the dominating acquired dispositions of the individual. But as innate and acquired dispositions become inter-organized by experience, as traits, into complex functioning wholes, or complexes, acquired traits include the former.

Thus a personality may exhibit a character recognized as idealistic, altruistic, selfish, egotistic, social, anti-social, etc., according to what ideals, “sentiments,” morals, etc., have been acquired by experience. It is in these respects that he is largely the product of his education and environment, the influences of which have also organized his innate dispositions (instincts, etc.,) with his intellectual processes.

We have already seen (Lectures IX and XV) that the acquired dispositions are, by the very experiences by which they are acquired, organized into complexes and systems of complexes which are conserved as such in the storehouse of the unconscious to be drawn upon by memory or to be awakened again to activity as occasion may demand to serve the purposes of mental life. Now, large numbers of these complexes have not only an organized structure but a dynamic potentiality and in consequence of these two characteristics each tends to function as a dynamic psychic whole. For in such complexes are incorporated one or more emotional or other instinctive mechanisms from which their chief energy and aim are derived. (This theory postulates not only a structure of mental dispositions but a correlated structure of hypothetical physiological dispositions which I have termed the “neurogram.”)[262] In so far as dynamic complexes and systems of complexes have structure and tend to function as psychic wholes they take on the character of unitary mechanisms or systems. From this point of view the most fruitful conception of the structure of personality is that which views it as built up of dynamic units which may be classed as primary and secondary. The primary units are the innate psychophysiological arrangements or mechanisms which we have agreed to call the instincts, or innate tendencies or dispositions, in many of which are incorporated the emotions and other affects. These primary units become organized by experience into larger units or unitary systems. Whether they are also _innately_ organized amongst themselves and by themselves into larger systems as some maintain (Shand) may or may not be the case. It is not necessary for our present purposes to consider this problem. It is sufficient that those dispositions which are innate, such as those of anger, fear, joy, etc., do become organized by and with experiences into larger and larger dynamic unitary systems.

The secondary units are the acquired complexes and systems of complexes within which are incorporated one or more primary units. In these are found as already mentioned the ideals, “sentiments,” wishes, aspirations, forebodings, apprehensions, and all other organized systems of thought which, on the one hand have their roots in the deposited experiences of life and, on the other, their promptings and urges in the primitive innate instincts and other dispositions. Thus the innate and acquired dispositions are organized into unitary systems of greater and greater complexity but each having a tendency and, under certain conditions of dissociation, a greater or less freedom to function as a psychic whole. And the integration or potential integration of all these units and unitary complexes and systems into a functioning whole is personality. This does not mean that all the primary and secondary units take part in the functioning of the personality; on the contrary, as we have seen, many lie dormant, for one reason or the other, in the unconscious. But, as we have also seen, they are potentially capable of being awakened and determining mental and bodily behavior. Furthermore, evidence has been adduced to show that the various units of personality do not always coöperate and function harmoniously with one another, as no doubt they ought to do, but sometimes are incited to conflicts and then they play the deuce with the individual and he fails to be able to adapt himself to the realities of life.

Amongst these acquired unitary systems there are certain ones which are of preëminent importance for the personality in the determination of mental behavior. I refer to those complexes known as the _sentiments_. By this term, as we have seen, is understood the organization of an acquired disposition—the idea of an object—or complex of such dispositions (the psychic whole of idea plus its “meaning” derived from the setting of associated experiences) with one or more innate emotional dispositions. It must not be overlooked for one moment that a sentiment is something more than the organization of an emotion or other affect with an idea. There is nothing novel or fruitful in such a limited conception of the structure of a sentiment as this. A sentiment in its structure is the organization of an idea and meaning with an emotional instinct which has an aim and end which the instinct strives to attain and which alone satisfies the urge of the instinct. Such a structure has great significance and the conception is a most fruitful one. For because of this structure the excitation of the idea necessarily involves the excitation of the instinct and the impulse of the latter determines behavior in reference to the object of the idea and carries the instinct to fruition. Thus if the sentiment be one of love the excitation of the instincts organized with the object determines through their urge the behavior to cherish or possess the object of the sentiment. And the attainment of this aim alone satisfies it. If the sentiment be one of apprehension of an object the instinct of fear incites behavior to escape from the danger contained in the meaning of the object. A sentiment in the hierarchy of units is a unitary system built up by the organization (through experience) of primary units with a secondary unitary complex (idea, meaning, etc.).

The importance of the sentiments in the dynamics of personality and therefore in the determination of mental and bodily behavior I have already dwelt upon (Lecture XV). But there is one sentiment which plays such an important rôle both in these respects and in that unitary system which we know as the empirical self, or consciousness of self that something more needs to be said about it. This sentiment is that which McDougall has termed the “self-regarding sentiment” which is intimately bound up with the idea or conception of the empirical self, and both should be considered together. It is only by regarding, as it seems to me, the conception or idea of the empirical self as a secondary unitary complex organized by experience that we can approach the solution of the problem of the self and understand the phenomenon of two selves in one personality, as so often occurs in multiple personality.

The self-regarding sentiment, according to McDougall’s theoretical analysis—and I may say his analysis has been confirmed by my own practical analyses of concrete cases—has structurally organized within it by experience the two opposing instincts, self-abasement and self-assertion, but either may be the dominating one. The idea or conception of self, proper, is, according to the theory, a complex and integrated whole organized by experience like the self-regarding sentiment. “McDougall has argued,” to quote what I have written in a study of multiple personality,[263] “and I think soundly ‘that the idea of self and the self-regarding sentiment are essentially social products; that their development is effected by constant interplay between personalities, between the self and society; that, for this reason, the complex conception of self thus attained implies constant reference to others and to society in general, and is, in fact, not merely a conception of self, but always one’s self in relation to other selves.’ But, as I would argue, this formulation must be considerably broadened. Every sentiment (and therefore the self-regarding sentiment) has roots in and is consequently related to what has gone before. And the experiences of what has gone before of the self, i.e., what has been previously experienced (ideally or realistically) by the individual in reference to the object of the sentiment, determines the attitude of mind and point of view towards that object, and is responsible for the organization of the object and instinct into a sentiment. The sentiment is the resultant and the expression of those antecedent experiences. They form its setting and give it meaning beyond the mere emotional tone. You cannot separate sentiment, conceived as a linked object and emotional instinct, from such a setting. They form a psychic whole. This is not only theoretically true, but actual dealings with pathological sentiments (in which the principle can be most clearly studied), called phobias and other emotional obsessions, bring out this intimate relation between the sentiment and the conserved setting of antecedent experiences. Such practical dealings also show not only that the sentiment is the outgrowth of and the expression of this setting, but that by changing the setting the sentiment can be correspondingly altered.... I want to emphasize that in the dynamic functioning of a sentiment the setting coöperates in maintaining and carrying it to the fruition and satisfaction of its aim.”

So far as concerns the incorporation of the two instincts, self-abasement and self-assertion, “McDougall with keen insight and analysis, has argued that the self-regarding sentiment is organized with these two innate dispositions, but in different degrees in different individuals, and with the growth of the mind one may replace the other in the adaptation of the individual to the changing environment. Taking two extreme types, he draws a picture of the proud, arrogant, self-assertive, domineering person, with the feeling of masterful superiority, and angry resentment of criticism and control, and who knows no shame and is indifferent to moral approval and disapproval. In this personality the instincts of self-assertion and anger are the dominating innate dispositions of the self-regarding sentiment. On the other hand we have the type of the submissive, dependent character, with a feeling of inferiority, when the contrary disposition is the dominating one. McDougall’s analysis was beautifully illustrated in the case of Miss Beauchamp by two personalities, BI and BIV, fragments of the original self, which were actual specimens from real life of his theoretic types. Again McDougall’s theoretic analysis of the conception of self, showing the idea to be one ‘always of one’s self in relation to other selves,’ is concretely illustrated and substantiated by the dissection of this mind effected by trauma.”

The study of another case, that of “Maria” furnished the same results as respects the two personalities that were manifested, as did that of “B. C. A.”

As to the conception of the empirical self and as “an important addition to this theory both from a structural and dynamic point of view, I would insist again that the complex conception of self includes a setting of mental experiences of much wider range, in which the idea of self is incorporated and which gives the idea meaning. The range of this setting extends beyond ‘other selves’ and ‘society in general’ and may include almost any of life’s experiences.” By way of illustration let us take the two selves known as the “Saint” (BI) and the “Realist” (BIV) in the case of Miss Beauchamp. "Concretely and more correctly the psychological interpretation of the ‘reference to others and society in general,’ of the relation of one’s self to other selves, would in this particular instance be as follows: the Saint’s conception of self (with the self-regarding sentiment) was related to an ideal world and ideal selves contained in religious conceptions; and hence it became organized in a larger setting which gave it a meaning of divine perfection such as is obtained, or aspired to by saints, and in which were incorporated the emotional dispositions of awe, reverence, love, self-abasement, etc. This conception was not a product of, or related to the social environment. Rather it was the product of an ideal world. She, as has been said, lived in a world of idealism, oblivious of the realities round about her, which she saw not ‘clearly and truly’ but as they were colored by her imagination. Her idea of self thus became the ‘saintly sentiment’ of self-perfection.

“On the other hand the conception of self in BIV, the Realist, was related to and set in the realities of this social world as they clearly are, the world of her objective environment. And in this conception of self the instinctive dispositions of self-assertion and anger contributed the promptings and motive force to dominate these realities and bend them to her will.”

It must be an obvious conclusion from the numerous and multiform subconscious phenomena which were cited in previous lectures that all the unitary and complexes and systems which enter into the composite structure of personality do not necessarily emerge into awareness. Some function subconsciously and in this way determine conscious mental processes and behavior. Many remain conserved in the unconscious and have only a potential reality in that they remain latent but susceptible of being awakened into activity. It is also true that in the course of the growth of the personality many become modified by experience and metamorphosed into new sentiments, new ideals, new desires, new apprehensions, new meanings, etc.

The necessity for adaptation of the personality to the realities of life necessarily gives rise to conflicts, for the urges of some unitary complexes cannot be satisfied, and some are incompatible with the situations which reality presents, or with one another. A practical solution of the problem is compulsory. Compensation is sought. Sometimes compensation or compromise is successfully attained; sometimes it is not. Or the solution may be accepted and the urge of a rebellious system incompatible with the demands of reality is suppressed by voluntary or automatic repression. When neither compensation nor compromise is attained, or when the situation is not accepted and the rebellious urge continues, then disruption or disarrangement of the personality may follow with such resulting phenomena as have been already described. Integrated systems may become disintegrated or dissociated, permitting of independent autonomous functioning of conflicting systems. And of the unitary systems taking part in such conflicts one or more may, as we have seen, function subconsciously. Furthermore, as observation shows, dissociated complexes may take on growth independently of the integrated systems of the personal consciousness and thus create large subconscious systems. On the other hand both one or more primary units (innate dispositions) and secondary unitary complexes and systems (acquired dispositions) may by the force of conflicts be completely repressed and cease to function within the personality. Thus, for example, certain instincts may be suppressed and systematic amnesia and other defects be produced. And so on.

Without pursuing further this exposition of the empirical personality or going into details, it would seem that some such conception of the structure of personality as that of which I have given a mere outline will alone satisfy the phenomena actually observed under normal and abnormal conditions. Indeed the theory would seem to be a compelling induction from the phenomena derived from clinical observation and experiment.

Against this preliminary sketch of the structure and dynamic mechanisms of the normal personality as a background I will in the next lecture present a study of a case of dissociated and multiple personality, as the alterations of structure and the dynamic manifestations observed in cases of this kind, on the one hand, concretely illustrate the principles involved, and, on the other, present some of the most important data on which the theory is founded.

-----

Footnote 261:

“Intelligence tests” therefore do not afford tests of character which
is the most important element of personality from a sociological point
of view. (See “Character vs. Intelligence in Personality Studies” by
Dr. Guy Fernald, _Jour. Abnormal Psychology_, Vol. XV, No. 1.)

Footnote 262:

Indeed I cannot see that mental “disposition” has any reality
excepting so far as it is derived from its correlated physiological
disposition. (See p. 266.)

Footnote 263:

Miss Beauchamp: “The Theory of the Psychogenesis of Multiple
Personality”; _Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, Vol. XV, Nos. 2-3; pp.
108, 120-121.

LECTURE XVIII
THE PSYCHOGENESIS OF MULTIPLE PERSONALITY[264]
THE CASE OF B. C. A.

I

As an introduction let me say that in a previous lecture (The Unconscious, Lecture VIII) I pointed out that in a general way alteration of personality is effected through the primary organization by experience and later coming into dominating activity of particular unitary systems of ideas with their affects, on the one hand, and the displacement by dissociation or inhibition of other conflicting systems on the other. In slighter degrees and when transient this alteration may be regarded as a mood. When the alteration is more enduring, and so marked by contrast with the preceding and normal condition as to obtrusively alter the character and behavior of the individual and his capacity for adjustment to his environment, we have a pathological condition. When the alteration is slight and affects few systems it may be easily overlooked; or when it is accompanied, as it often is, by physiological disturbances, it may be so masked by them as to be mistaken for so-called neurasthenia. It is when the dissociation is so comprehensive as to deprive the individual of memory of his previous phase of personality, or of certain acquired knowledge or other particular experiences that the personality is easily recognized as a dissociated one. When the inhibiting or repressing force that induces dissociation ceases to be effective, that is when the dissociated systems come again into activity and repress the temporarily dominant systems, then the individual returns to his normal condition (in which he may or may not remember the dissociated state), just as a person returns to his habitual character after the passing of a mood. We may speak of the two phases—the normal and the altered one—as constituting together _multiple personality_. As these two phases may continue to alternate with one another they are also alternating personalities. The second or altered state is also sometimes called a _secondary personality_. There may be several such secondary personalities which may alternate with each other or the normal personality.

It should be noted that the formation of a secondary personality is primarily the result of two processes, _dissociation_ and _synthesis_ though it is subject to _secondary growth_ through various processes. As a result of the first process, dissociation, systems of thought, ideas, memories, emotions and dispositions previously habitual in the individual may cease to take part in the affected person’s mental processes. The influence of these systems with their conative tendencies is therefore no longer for the time being in play.

When we pass in review a large number of cases, we find that the systems of ideas, which (through the dissociating process) cease to take part in personality, may be quite various. One or more “sides” to one’s character, for instance, may vanish, and the individual may exhibit always a single side on all occasions; or the ethical systems built up and conserved by early pedagogical, social, and environmental training may cease to take part in the mental processes and regulate conduct; or, again, the ideas which pertain to the lighter side of life and its social enjoyments may be lost and only the more serious attributes of mind retained. There may even be amnesia in consequence of dissociation for chronological epochs of the individual’s life, or for certain particular episodes, or for certain specific knowledge, such as educational acquirements (mathematics, Greek, Latin, music, literature, etc., or knowledge of a trade or profession, and even of language). Amnesia alone, however, does not constitute alteration of personality strictly speaking; for a person may have complete loss of memory for certain specific experiences without true alteration of character. It is of important significance, as we shall see, that the dissociated or inhibited[265] systems may include emotions, instincts and innate dispositions.

Examination of recorded cases shows too that besides mental memories, physiological functions may be involved in the dissociation. Thus there may be loss of sensation in its various forms, and of the special senses, or of the power of movement (paralysis), or of visceral functions (gastric, sexual, etc.). Dissociation may, then, involve quite large parts of the personality including very precise and definite physiological and psychological functions. We see examples of these different dissociations in numerous cases.

As to the mechanism by which pathological dissociation is effected, it may be well to point out here that there is no reason to suppose that it is anything more than an exaggeration of the normal mechanism by which, on the one hand, mental processes are temporarily inhibited from entering the field of consciousness, and, on the other, physiological functions are normally suppressed and prevented from taking part in the psychophysiological economy. (For instance, the suppression of the gastro-intestinal functions by an emotional discharge.) Every mental process involves the repression of some conflicting process; otherwise all would be chaos in the mind. And every physiological process involves some repression of another process. The movements of walking involve the inhibition alternatively of the flexor and extensor muscles according as which is active in the movement.

This principle is conspicuous in absent mindedness and voluntary attention when every antagonistic or irrelevant thought and even consciousness of the environment is prevented by a conflicting force from entering the field of consciousness. In other words, every mental process involves a conflict and inhibition: in physiological terms a raising of the threshold of the antagonistic mental process in consequence of which it cannot function unless the stimulus be increased. This is a normal mechanism and process. The conditions which determine absolute and continuous dissociation or inhibition become the object of study.

By the second process, synthesis, particular unitary systems of ideas with the conative tendencies of their feeling tones rise to the surface out of the unconscious and become synthesized with the perceptions, and such memories and other mental systems and faculties of the individual as are retained. Thus it may be that unitary dispositions, sentiments and systems belonging to a particular “side” of the character—the amiable or the brutal, the unselfish or the selfish, the ungenerous or the generous, the practical or the idealistic, the literary or the business, the religious or worldly, the youthful and gay, or the mature and serious, etc., to any side may become uppermost and be the dominant trait of the secondary personality. Or it may be that the systems of ideas, disposition, etc., belonging to childhood and long outgrown, but conserved nevertheless in the unconscious, may be resurrected and becoming synthesized with other systems form a personality childish in character. Or, again, sentiments, thoughts, dispositions, tendencies, instincts which, though intimately belonging to the individual, have been restrained, repressed, concealed from the world for one reason or another, may, being set free through dissociation from the repressing thoughts, rise to the surface and take part in the synthesis of the new personality.

In other words there is a rearrangement and readjustment of the innate dispositions and those deposited by the experiences of life which go to form personality. Some by the process of dissociation are expelled from the personal synthesis; some which had been previously expelled (repressed) by education, maturity of character, direct volition, and other processes of mental development are brought back into it.

It is obvious that when such rearrangements and readjustments have occurred the mental reactions of the individual will vary largely from what they were before. The reaction to the environment will become altered. When systems which give rise to the habitual modes of thought are dissociated, naturally the reactions of the individual will not be influenced by them but by those of the new synthesis, and the character will be correspondingly changed. Inasmuch as out of the great storehouse of the unconscious any number of combinations of systems may be arranged, it is obvious that any number of secondary personalities may be formed in the same person. As many as ten or twelve have been observed.

A study of cases which have come under my personal observation, and the reports to be found in the literature of those cases of multiple personality which have been studied with sufficient intensity and exhaustiveness, allow these general and preliminary statements, which are little more than descriptive of the facts, to be verified.[266] One of the best examples is the case of B. C. A. which I had an opportunity of studying over a long period of time, and to which reference has been frequently made. I shall take this as the object of our study in psychogenesis.[267]

This subject has herself written at my request two introspective analyses of her own case, one by the normal personality and the other by the secondary personality. These analyses are of great value.[268] They give different versions of the same facts in accordance with the differing memories, knowledge and points of view of the differing personalities. The second also gives an account of the claimed co-conscious life as experienced by herself and unknown to the normal personality. We cannot do better than take them as a basis for a genetic study of the case and reproduce portions of them here. In this study I have made use, in addition to this material, of a large number of personal observations extending over five years, of numerous letters and analyses written by the subject at different times in her various phases of personality, of the memories in hypnosis, in which state many subconscious and dissociated perceptions and thoughts not otherwise remembered are brought to light, and of numerous analyses of her memories made on many occasions, at the expense of many hours of labor. Other sources of information have also been made use of. This investigation has resulted in a voluminous collection of records filling several large portfolios. In making the analyses and in many of the letters the subject, with extreme frankness and in the interests of psychology has gone in great detail into and has laid bare the most intimate facts of her mental life. This is true of each of the phases of personality, so that the point of view from which the same facts were seen in different moods has been obtained. This is a matter of no small consequence as the same fact often acquires a different aspect or meaning according to the view point of the mood in which it is experienced. A large amount of data pertaining to the inner life of the subject has thus become accessible. It is obvious that data of this sort are necessary if the psychological status of any given period of an individual’s life is to be related to antecedent mental experiences as etiological factors. But this sort of data is that which usually is most difficult to obtain. Our inner lives we keep hidden as in a sealed book from the world. In all published reports of multiple personality these data are lacking, the studies dealing almost entirely with such facts only as were open to the observation of the investigator. It necessarily results from such a study of the inner life of a person living in the circle to which this subject belongs that many of the data are too intimate and personal for publication. However much one may be interested in science there is a point beyond which one shrinks from exposing one’s self in print. I am, therefore, at many points very properly limited to the use of general phrases and summarizing expressions instead of explicit statements of particular facts which, I am aware, would be more satisfactory to the critic. This limitation cannot be helped, but is probably compensated for by the fact that, if it did not exist, the subject would be one whose introspective observations would be of much less value.

I will only add to this statement that the data were not collected in support of a preconceived theory or even of a working hypothesis, but only after they were gathered—in fact, after much of this material was forgotten—were they brought together and studied. It was then found that when the different pieces of evidence were pieced together they allowed of only one conclusion, namely, that which the subject herself in the main reached independently as the facts were laid bare and brought into the field of her consciousness by the means I have described.

By way of preface to the subject’s introspective analyses I reproduce here the following remarks, which I wrote as an introduction to the “Life,” but slightly expanded and with a few verbal changes to make the matter clearer.

An account of the various phases of dissociated personality written by the patient after recovery and restoration of memory for all the different phases cannot fail to be of interest. If the writer is endowed with the capacity for accurate introspection and statement such an account ought to give an insight into the condition of the mind during these dissociated states that is difficult to obtain from objective observation, or, if elicited from a clinical narration of the patient, to accurately transcribe. In that remarkable book, “A Mind that Found Itself,” the author, writing after recovery from insanity, has given us a unique insight into the insane mind. Similarly the writer of the following account allows us to see the beginnings of the differentiation of her mind into complexes, the final development of a dissociated or multiple personality, and to understand the moods, points of view, motives, and dominating ideas which characterized each phase. Such an account could only be given by a person who has had the experience, and who has the introspective and literary capacity to describe it.

The writer in publishing, though with some reluctance and at my request, her experiences as a multiple personality, is actuated only, as I can testify, by a desire to contribute to our knowledge of such conditions. The experiences of her illness—now happily recovered from—have led her to take an active interest in abnormal psychology and to inform herself, so far as is possible by the study of the literature, on many of the problems involved. The training thus acquired has plainly added to the accuracy and value of her introspective observations.

A brief preliminary statement will be necessary in order that the account as told by the patient may be fully intelligible.

The subject was under my observation for about four years. When first seen the case presented the ordinary picture of so-called neurasthenia, characterized by persistent fatigue and the usual somatic symptoms, and by moral doubts and scruples. This condition, at first unsuspected, was later found to be a phase of multiple personality and was then termed and is described in the following account as state or personality A. Later another state, spoken of as personality B, suddenly developed. A had no memory of B, but the latter had full knowledge of A. Besides differences in memory A and B manifested distinct and markedly different characteristics and traits which included moods, tastes, health, emotions, feelings, instincts, sentiments, points of view, habits of thought, and controlling ideas. In place, for instance, of the depression, fatigue, and moral doubts and scruples of A, B manifested rather a condition of exaltation, and complete freedom from neurasthenia and its accompanying obsessional ideas. A and B alternated during a long period of time with one another. After A, for example, had existed as a personality for a number of hours or days she changed to B, and vice versa. After the first appearance of B it was soon recognized that both states were only fragments, so to speak, or phases of a dissociated personality, and neither represented the normal complete personality. After prolonged study this latter normal state was obtained in hypnosis (c´), and on being waked up a personality was found which possessed the combined memories of A and B, and was free from the pathological stigmata which respectively characterized each. This normal person is spoken of as C. Normal C had, therefore, been split and resynthesized into two systems of complexes or personalities, A and B. Leaving out for the sake of simplicity certain intermediate hypnotic states, A and B could be hypnotized into a single hypnotic state which was a synthesis that could be recognized as a complete normal personality in hypnosis. All that remained to do was to wake up this state and we had the normal C. This process could be reversed and repeated as often as desired: that is, C could be split again into A and B, then resynthesized in c´ who when awakened became C again. This relationship may be diagramatically expressed as follows:[269]

The various traits which characterized and differentiated the different personalities will appear in the course of this genetic study. With this introduction we will proceed to the latter.

II
THE DISRUPTION OF PERSONALITY

The first of the accounts above mentioned by the _normal_ personality, C, written after recovery, is in the form of a letter. She had complete memory for both her phases A and B. It will be noticed in passing that this normal self speaks of the phases A and B as herself, transformed to be sure, but still herself in different “states.” “As A, _I_ felt” so and so, “as B, _I_ felt” thus, etc. On the other hand, the secondary personality, B, in her account, always refers to the other personalities as distinct personages, and uses the third person “she” in speaking of them. In this matter of differentiation of personalities B was very insistent, maintaining, as has been frequently noted in other cases, that she had no sense of identity of her own self-consciousness with that of the others. “I am, at any rate, a distinct personality,” she remarks. In her consciousness there was no feeling that the self-consciousness of C and A was identical with her own, but the contrary. This frequent phenomenon presents a standpoint from which the problem of the “I” may be studied. What is it that determines the self-consciousness of an ego? We are not concerned with this old question at present, but it is worth noting that cases of dissociated personality offer favorable material for the solution of the problem.

The following extracts from the accounts by “C” and “B” have been taken as a basis for our analysis which will further attempt to coordinate the two accounts and to clarify the psychological development of the case.

FROM ACCOUNT GIVEN BY THE NORMAL PERSONALITY C AFTER RECOVERY

MY DEAR DR. PRINCE,

You have asked me to give you an account of my illness as it seems to
me now that I am myself and well; describing myself in those changes
of personality which we have called “A” and “B.”

It is always difficult for one to analyze one’s self accurately and
the conditions have been very complex. I think, however, that I have a
clear conception and appreciation of my case. I remember myself
perfectly as “A” and as “B.” I remember my thoughts, my feelings, and
my points of view in each personality, and can see where they are the
same and where they depart from my normal self. These points of view
will appear as we go on and I feel sure that my memory can be trusted.
I recall clearly how in each state I regarded the other state and how
in each I regarded myself.

As I have said, I have now, as “C,” all the memories of both states
(though none of the co-conscious life which, as B, I claimed and
believed I had). _These memories are clearly differentiated in my
mind._[270] It would be impossible to confuse the two as the moods
which governed each were so absolutely different, but it is quite
another thing to make them distinct on paper. I have, however, been so
constantly under your observation that you can, no doubt, correct any
statement I may make which is not borne out by your own knowledge.

I am, perhaps, of a somewhat emotional nature, and have never been
very strong physically though nothing of an invalid. I have always
been self-controlled and not at all hysterical, as I would use the
word. On the contrary, I was, I am sure, considered a very sensible
woman by those who know me well, though I am not so sure what they may
think of me now. I am, however, very sensitive and responsive to
impressions in the sense that I am easily affected by my environment.
For instance, at the theatre I lose myself in the play and feel keenly
all the emotions portrayed by the actors. _These emotions are
reflected vividly in my face and manner sometimes to the amusement of
those with me and, if the scene is a painful one, it often takes me a
long time to recover from the effect of it. The same is true of scenes
from actual life._[271]

Before this disintegration took place I had borne great responsibility
and great sorrow with what I think I am justified in calling
fortitude, and I do not think the facts of my previous life would
warrant the assumption that I was naturally nervously unstable. It
does not carry great weight, I know, for one to say of one’s self,—I
am sensible, I am stable, I am not hysterical,—but I believe the
statement can be corroborated by the testimony of those who have known
me through my years of trial. The point I wish to make is that my case
shows that such an illness as I have had is possible to a
constitutionally stable person and is not confined to those of an
hysterical tendency.

A year previous to this division of personality a long nervous strain,
covering a period of four years, had culminated in the death of one
very dear to me—my husband. I was, at the end of that period, in good
physical health, though nervously worn, but this death occurred in
such a way as to cause me a great shock, and within the six days
following I lost twenty pounds in weight. For nearly three months I
went almost entirely without food, seemingly not eating enough to
sustain life. I did not average more than three or four hours’ sleep
out of the twenty-four, but I felt neither hungry nor faint, and was
extremely busy and active, being absorbed both by home
responsibilities and business affairs. The end of the year (5 years
after the beginning of my husband’s illness), however, found me in
very poor health physically and I was nervously and mentally
exhausted. I was depressed, sad, felt that I had lost all that made
life worth living and, indeed, I wished to die. I was very nervous,
unable to eat or sleep, easily fatigued, suffered constantly from
headache, to which I had always been subject, and was not able to take
much exercise. The physician under whose care I was at this time told
me, when I asked him to give my condition a name, that I was suffering
from “nervous and cerebral exhaustion.”

_It was at this time that the shock which caused the division of
personality occurred_ [_resulting_ in period III].

Although this last statement is true so far as concerns the complete dissociation of personality which resulted in the birth of an independent alternating personality, the first beginning of the genesis of that personality can be traced back to a far earlier period when she was about twenty years of age, that is to say _nineteen years before the final cleavage. These beginnings were an embryonic cluster or unitary complex of rebellious ideas, “floating thoughts, impulses, desires, inclinations” and intense feelings which came into being at this early period in consequence of an emotional trauma._

I propose to trace in the course of this study, first, the gradual growth by successive syntheses of this rebellious cluster with other idea-clusters during a period of _fourteen_ years.

Second, its incubation, organization and segregation from the main personality during a second period of _five_ years as a fairly well defined unitary complex known as the _B complex_.

Third, the culmination of the incubating process and, as the result of an emotional shock, final bursting into flower of the B complex as the _B personality_ (i.e., nineteen years from the time of the beginning of disaggregation through rebellious thoughts).

Fourth, the reversion to the original personality, but now one so disintegrated, shorn and shattered by the segregation of the autonomous B complex and of certain instincts as to be a so-called secondary disintegrated _personality_, _A_.

Fifth, the alternation of these two strongly contrasted abnormal personalities.

Finally, the reintegration of the two abnormal personalities into one normal original personality, C.

In following the evolution of the personalities my main purpose will be to bring to light the psychological forces which brought about the disaggregation, on the one hand, and the synthetic construction of the new personal systems, on the other. The following arrangement of these changes in the personality by periods will be convenient for reference.[272]

Period I. From wedding to beginning of husband’s illness
(14 years) characterized by a group of
rebellious ideas.

Period II. During husband’s illness (4 years) and one year
thereafter (5 years), characterized by B
_complex_ and terminating with shock.

Period III. Beginning with shock, characterized by B
_personality_ and terminating one month later
by another shock in

Period IV. _Personality_ A, plus B complex, lasting one
week, followed by

Period V. Characterized by alternations of A and B
personalities and lasting several years until
reintegrated in original normal personality,
C.

All these changes from period I to IV inclusive were caused by emotional shocks awakened by a common factor in closely associated situations. In period IV the A personality had no amnesia for personality B. This amnesia developed in period V.

THE REBELLION

PERIOD I

The writer C in her account passes over the early first period, but she remembers clearly the historical facts and has given a very precise description of them in the many analyses which have been made and recorded. Moreover in the second account,[273] written in the secondary B phase of personality, she recognizes the embryonic emotional complex of this first period, and its genetic relation to the later B _complex_, and to her own still later developed B _personality_. “This complex” she (B) wrote, “it seems to me is the same, though only slightly developed, as that which appeared later and is described as complex B. In trying to explain this condition, which it seems to me was the first start of what ultimately resulted in a division of personality, I will divide the time into periods, and I will call this period I.” (This same division into periods I have thought it well to follow.) She also identified the ideas of this early complex with ideas and feelings which she still entertained and which formed a marked characteristic of her own dissociated (B) personality.

For the sake of clearness and simplicity of phraseology it will be well from now on to speak of the subject when in the dissociated B state simply as B, and when united in the normal state as C. In this way, as C points out, we shall avoid constant repetition and circumlocution in such phrases as, “when the subject was in the B state,” etc. You must not, however, be misled by the connotation of terms and read into this nomenclature more than the psychological facts warrant, or make distinctions of personality which transcend in any way psychological laws. Dissociated and multiple personality are not novel freak phenomena, but are only exaggerations of the normal and due to exaggerations of normal processes, and it is for this reason that they are of interest and importance. For, being exaggerations, they accentuate and bring out into high relief certain tendencies and functional mechanisms which belong to normal conditions, and they differentiate mental processes, one from another, which normally are not so easily recognized.

They are caricatures, so to speak, of the normal. In one respect they may be likened to the staining of an anatomical specimen prepared for the microscope by which the various anatomical structures are brought out into strong contrast with one another and easily differentiated, like the boundaries of countries on a colored map. Without the staining all would have a homogeneous appearance and differentiation would be difficult. So, though a secondary personality is in one sense but a phase of the whole personality, it is characterized largely by an accentuation or domination of particular constituents to be found in the given normal everyday personality, and by the subordination or suppression of others, both being effected by the exaggeration of the normal processes of dissociation and synthesis. In such a secondary personality these constituents and processes are easily recognized though they may be hidden under normal conditions. In saying that a secondary personality is a phase of the whole personality the latter term—whole personality—must be taken in the sense of including all the past experiences of life which have been organized, deposited and conserved in the unconscious, and all the instincts and innate dispositions of the individual. These past experiences form, as we have seen,[274] a storehouse of formative material which, for the most part, under ordinary conditions, may lie dormant though potential; but any elements of this material may, under special influences, be awakened to activity and, uniting with particular constituents of the normal everyday personality, take part under the urge of their own instinctive impulses and dispositions in the formation of a new personality. The remainder of the normal personality then becomes submerged and dormant in the unconscious.

To return to the evolution of the B personality. If this final phase be correctly traced back 19 years to the early antecedent rebellious complex above referred to, we shall see that the evolution of multiple personality in this case passed through several successive stages and was of slow growth. Speaking generally, it may, indeed, be ascribed, primarily, on the one hand, to the disruptive or dissociating effect of continuous _conflicts_ between the opposing impulses of innate dispositions and instincts (emotions), and, on the other, to the gradual synthesization of the components of personality repressed by these conflicts into the subconscious. The secondary incubation of these repressed and other deposited experiences of life followed, with the final setting free of all this formative material, when fully matured, by the force, awakened by a trauma, of the conative emotional impulses belonging to it. The analogues of these phenomena and mechanisms are observed in sudden religious conversion which in principle is an alteration of personality.[275]

All the historical evidence at hand, derived from searching investigation, goes to show that at the early period to which I have referred (period I) the subject received an emotional shock, “which,” B wrote, “it seems to me, as I look at it now, resulted in the first cleavage of personality. This emotion was one of fright and led to rebellion [in the form of rebellious thoughts] against a certain condition of her life, and formed a small vague complex [of thoughts and emotions] which persisted in the sense that it recurred from time to time, though it was always immediately suppressed.”[276] And this vague complex of rebellious thoughts necessarily soon gave rise to and included other “floating thoughts, impulses, desires, inclinations,” all of which the subject suppressed or endeavored to suppress during a long period of years. “This complex,” she adds, as quoted above, “it seems to me, was the same, though only slightly developed, as that which appeared later, and is described as complex B.”