Chapter L: E. W., forty-nine years of age, farmer and lawyer by occupation, a (10)

Now, when I came as a personality, I felt much younger than C; my
ideas of what constituted pleasure were more like those of a girl of
twenty—as C was when she received the first shock (_period I_). But in
character, points of view, tastes, emotions, in everything that goes
to make up personality I was quite different from anything C had ever
been; also in health. I was strong and vigorous, taking long walks and
feeling no fatigue. I was also very happy. Life seemed so good to me;
everything was so beautiful; the outdoor world looked to me as it does
to one who has been for months shut in through illness. I loved the
trees, the sky, and the wind; but _I did not love people_. I felt no
care or responsibility—that is why I was so happy. I remained the only
personality for about _one month_, when there came the fourth
emotional shock producing _period IV_.

These accounts need further explanation. C remarks: “It seems very curious to me that the effect of this shock was to change me not to the despondent, despairing mood of A, which came later, but to the happy mood of B.” A consideration of the facts in more detail renders the reason obvious. It must be kept in mind that the dominant feature of the B mood or personality was the B complex, and the nucleus of this system of ideas was the “rebellion” I have described. This rebellion again had its first beginnings 19 years before (period I). We have traced it through the succeeding years, with its later accretions, growing and expanding in intensity and extent, like a political insurrection, until it had taken into itself a large field of ideas and became the B complex. Bear in mind here that the primitive germinal first rebellion was the reaction to an emotional shock in which fright and disgust as elements occurred plus the X affect to which they were a defense reaction. Now the second shock which was experienced at the third period was fundamentally the same in nature as that of the first period. It gave rise to the same _affect_, X, and mental awakening, to the same kind of realization of her situation, and the reaction, particularly to the affect, was the same rebellion. _But the rebellion had meantime, in the years that had passed, grown into the B complex, and so it was this B constellation of ideas which erupted into consciousness and dominated the whole field of personality._ Though the second shock awoke the same affect as did the original shock, it was consciously mild and probably for the most part subconscious, being repressed and submerged by the reacting emotions of fear and anger, which latter blazed forth. And in the reaction there were, also, the emotions of disgust and self-assertion and the vengeful emotion.

With such emotions, particularly anger and disgust, this affect was in conflict as was also fear. When two primary emotions are in conflict both cannot live; one will be suppressed. Fear will be suppressed by an outburst of blazing anger, and anger cannot exist when an overwhelming fear is excited. One will replace the other. So the mild X affect and fear were immediately repressed by anger, disgust and the compound vengeful emotion, the three not in any way conflicting with one another but as allies reinforcing each other in the attack.

Consequently from the B personality, which sprang to life as the reaction to the X affect, this affect itself, was completely repressed and dissociated, so that this personality _is entirely without this_ and other traits of the C personality. Likewise, although this is not so easy to determine, owing to the impossibility of reproducing all conditions under which a given individual would react normally to any given emotion, _fear_ and _tender feeling_ (love) seem to have been dissociated from the B personality. It is certainly true that B experienced no fear and other emotions with which C habitually reacted to certain situations. This question of the involvement of the emotions in dissociation will be discussed in another place.

As to the X affect, it is of some significance that later, after the development of the third personality, A, which alternated with B, this personality retained this affect (as well as fear and others lost to B) and the awakening of this affect in A would regularly change this personality to B; that is, repress the A personality and awaken B. Many times other emotions, particularly anxiety (fear), would have the same effect, but the affect in question would always induce the change, apparently as a defense reaction.

From one point of view it may be maintained that all this emotional reaction, called “shock,” (that primarily called into being the B personality) was a defense reaction. It certainly was, as any outburst of anger may be a defense reaction, as it is in the bull in the ring of a Spanish bull-fight. Under other conditions anger as an element in the pugnacity instinct may, like other emotional impulses, be an attacking reaction.

But labelling with names does not give us any insight into the mechanism of a reaction any more than labelling a machine an automobile gives us any idea of its mechanism. It gives only a teleological meaning to the machine.

What is a fruitful question, however, is whether the “shock” was a defense to an external aggression or to the urge of an unacceptable subconscious _wish_ containing the repressed affect X. Some will _wish_ to make this latter interpretation. It is entirely incompatible, however, with the fact that the same conflict and “shock” had previously occurred under conditions when, even if there had been such a wish, it could not have been unacceptable, as there was no reason therefor, but on the contrary it would have been her duty to have fulfilled it. It is useless in this case to work that trumpery affect business in this way.

Furthermore, as a matter of experience, we find from a study of cases of multiple personality that after two independent systems of ideas have been formed, almost any emotional shock is liable to cause the displacement of one system and the substitution of the other system. This was observed over and over again in the case of Miss Beauchamp,[286] as it was in this case. Why it should be so is not always obvious at the time of any given occurrence. That there is a specific psychological reason and dynamic mechanism we cannot doubt. Undoubtedly if we could probe sufficiently extensively into the unconscious in each instance we should find that subtile associations in the substituted systems had been struck and that the change was thereby determined. When the associated element is organized with strong emotions the discharge of the emotion more easily represses and dissociates the rival conflicting systems. This gives the appearance that it was the emotion alone, as an isolated factor, which induced the alternation of personality.

What happened then when the change of personality took place was this: The acquired B complex, which had been developing in content and conative intensity, surged up as a reaction from the unconscious (where it had been conserved during the normal mood in a dormant condition), came into conflict with the systems of the normal self and repressed and replaced this previously dominating side of her nature. By this dissociation this side was put out of commission so to speak. In turn it remained dormant, of course, conserved as unconscious neurograms, ready to be _resurrected_ under favoring conditions by appropriate stimuli.

But in the formation of the B personality there was more than this; otherwise there would not have been generated a personality; the alteration would have been limited to the incursion into the field of consciousness only of the B complex as had so often happened before. On the one hand a larger synthesis took place. The B complex dragged out of the storehouse of the unconscious the acquired and conserved ideas and other experiences of childhood and girlhood that had an associative relation to the system which formed the B complex. In this respect it was a _reversion_ to the earlier period of life.

On the other hand, there was, as we shall see, a dissociation and suppression of certain _innate_ dispositions, instincts and sentiments belonging to normal personality that were in conflict with the B phase. Specifically the most important of these were, the instinct of self-abasement and its corresponding self-regarding sentiment, the “tender emotion” (affection) and its parental instinct (McDougall), the X affect and its instinct, fear (instinct of flight) and vengeful emotion.

The emotions and their instincts and the innate dispositions, appetites and tendencies, being psycho-physiological arrangements inborn in the organism and not acquired, are the very foundations of human personality. Without a recognition of them and without assigning to them their proper parts and due weight in determining mental traits and behavior alterations of personality cannot be explained or understood.[287]

The justification for the interpretation I have given of the genesis of the B personality is found in an analysis of its manifested characteristics. In the first place this B phase by common consent, even in the opinion of those who were in entire ignorance of what had psychologically occurred—i.e., the alteration of personality,—was much younger in character than the mature C. She appeared to be a young girl of 18 or 19 years of age. Her friends spoke of her, when remarking on her improved health, as “being as she used to be.” She looked younger.[288] As I myself observed her on, I might almost say, hundreds of occasions, the contrast between the actual age of the subject and the apparent age of B as indicated by expressions of face, the vivacious mannerisms, the girlish attitude of mind, points of view, tastes, etc., was remarkable.

All this together with the lack of appreciation of many of the responsibilities of life and of the duties and conditions which pertain to motherhood, social relations and conventions, the loss of sentiments acquired after marriage, etc., made up a picture of youth that was unmistakable. The contrast between the mature C and the girlish B became almost dramatic when the change of personality took place suddenly as it later frequently did in my presence.

When we come to analyze the traits which gave this impression of youth we see that it was justified. One side of C’s character, as we have seen, was a love of happiness and the pleasures which induce the joy of life. This side was dominant in B; but the _kind_ of pleasure which appealed to B was not only that which appeals to youth but that which had particularly appealed to the subject when a young girl. It was “tramping through the woods in the hottest days of summer,” canoeing and rowing in boats, walking, riding in electric cars—in fact, the out-door life that appealed to her most strongly and was her greatest enjoyment. “Oh, wouldn’t I just love to tramp through the woods or sail off over the waves, or anything exciting,” she wrote. Such of these things as she had been able when a little girl to indulge in she then enjoyed. As a child and during girlhood she liked camping out and sailing, but as she grew older, say about sixteen or eighteen, she became afraid of the water and row boats. Canoeing she had never done before her marriage and then was afraid of it.

We have seen that childhood’s experiences are largely conserved, when not modified by the growth of personality, in the unconscious (neurographic residua) although they may never come to the surface of consciousness unless resurrected by some device or accident; and repression tends to conserve them as unitary complexes maintaining their own urges. Accordingly in the case of B everything points to the conclusion that the repressed, conserved sentiments with their organized emotions and feelings, of the pleasure of childhood and adolescent life, sentiments by which the young girl was governed, _erupted into consciousness_. The play-instinct, or innate disposition, long repressed, particularly was revived and played a large part in determining behavior. The B personality was thus a _reversion_ to an early period of life. The rearrangement of the play-instinct and other innate dispositions will be more conveniently discussed later in connection and contrast with the A personality.

Of course there is no sharp line of division between different periods of life, one running into the other, and the ideas, sentiments, desires, habits, etc., of one period may continue more or less unchanged well into another and beyond. Or, as usually happens, they may be modified by the successive experiences of life. So obviously we cannot ascribe with precision to a past definite age traits of character of the kind we are considering. Such traits belong to the evolutional development of the individual; they tend to become modified by the clash with new experiences, or, when incompatible with the knowledge and habits acquired by new experiences, to become repressed—when not incompatible they may persist late into adult life. So some of these traits have persisted as a side to, or as elements in the character of B. C. A. into her present life; some, however, have been modified or repressed into the unconscious. As age advances, as the child passes into adolescence and then into maturity, there comes wider knowledge of the facts of the environment, of its dangers and other relations, a more true and complete conception of the meaning of life, a more extensive world view, and a recognition and assumption of duties, cares, and responsibilities. And all these acquisitions tend to form a conscious organism with new sentiments which give new acquired reactions to stimuli in place of the old reactions (traits and other conative tendencies). Activities, for example, which once received their impulses from play dispositions are later inhibited by sentiments invested with the instinct of fear (flight). So B. C. A. acquired a fear of the water (boats, canoeing) and a dislike of bugs and mosquitoes and electric cars. Why these changes in her mental reactions took place we cannot say without making a more extensive search into the experiences of her past life, and the information when acquired would hardly repay the time and labor of the inquiry. We cannot say, for example, why she has disliked electric cars without resurrecting the memories of past experiences pertaining to them and other associated ideas. Perhaps the dislike arose simply out of the noise and resulting discomfort and headaches; or it may have had a more subtile cause in associated ideas of danger which would not appeal to a girl, or possibly such objects may more subtilely still be the symbolic expression of some unconscious process. It does not bear upon our present problem. (The dislike of mosquitoes and bugs very probably arose from having been bitten and poisoned badly by them when a child.)

There were certain other youthful traits and tastes in B which are worth mentioning. This personality was extravagant in money matters. “She,” the personality A wrote, “spends money as I used to, and will not acknowledge the necessity of economizing.” That is to say, the regulation of the household and personal expenses, according to the requirements of business sense, and proper appreciation of the financial management was scarcely recognized by B who desired to spend money as B. C. A. had done as a girl, before being initiated into the responsibilities of domestic management. Like such a girl, to the discomforture of the other personality, she spent money as if all were pin money, without appreciation of making ends meet in the management of the household.

Another and what will seem a strange peculiarity of B was the feeling that she was not the mother of her child. “I am not his mother,” she would say. “He is not my son”—“_I_ never was married.” “I know all her experiences,” she wrote me in a letter, “but they are _her_ experiences not _mine_. Why! _I_ was never married, Dr. Prince, and I am not Willie’s mother. All those experiences belong to A. I know she _had_ them, but then, so do you. The only difference is that I know exactly what she thought about them.” Indeed she carried this so far as to entirely neglect the responsibility of looking after his life. This was true also of the time when B. C. A. was ruled by the B complex before the change to the B personality. On one such occasion for example, she allowed this young boy to take a long journey of many hundred miles through the west, roughing it in the woods and canoes, without a care or anxious thought on her part during the whole time he was gone. All the arrangements were made by others while she herself did not even go to the station to see him off. Previously she had always felt the greatest motherly solicitude for the boy, even foolishly devoted to him, and could not bear to be parted from him even to accompany her husband on a journey.

This peculiar trait is easily understood on the theory that rebellious B was largely a systematized resurrection of pre-marital complexes but with a dissociation of the tender emotion (parental instinct). I have already pointed out that B regarded the “rebellious” complexes as herself, but not the other ideas of B. C. A. In referring to the former, as I have said, she used the word I, saying, I thought so and so, but she did not use such expressions regarding the other systems of B. C. A.’s thought after the genesis of these rebellious complexes. Likewise she regarded as her own the earlier youthful experiences before dissociation occurred. In the constellation of her complexes none of the experiences of maternity (which occurred after the development of the rebellious complex) were synthesized, any more than the sentiments and other conflicting thoughts of the A phase. Even in the embryonic contrary impulses of the B complex, it will be remembered, there were dislikes to “fuss” over the baby conflicting with the maternal instinct. She never, therefore, felt that motherhood was a part of her own experience. And so her _conception of self_ in its content differed materially from that of C and A, in that it contained references to entirely different experiences, and, therefore, included entirely different images and feelings. And it was organized with a self-regarding sentiment in which the instinct of self-assertion predominated instead of that of self-abasement.

I said that the parental instinct with the emotion of tender feeling was dissociated. This absence of tender emotion (affection) was also manifested in her attitude towards the different members of her family and her friends. As a girl she was markedly affectionate just as A and later C was, but as B she had lost this trait. She neglected her family most shockingly, in a way that showed complete absence of the impulses that come from tender feeling, and without the slightest compunction or recognition of the fact that she was wanting in affection. I might give numerous specific instances of this but refrain from doing so for obvious reasons.[289] B liked people but for other reasons than those which depend on personal affection. This absence, then, of the tender emotion with its impulses was the second factor in determining the feeling that B had of not being the mother of her child. It also, of course, prevented the building up a new sentiment of maternal affection through experience. All this is in conformity with our interpretation.

The way other instincts and innate dispositions were affected will be better described in connection with the A personality for contrast.

Another peculiarity of B was the change in literary taste. The lighter reading in which B found pleasure contrasted strongly with the literature dealing with the deeper problems of life that appealed to A. This difference has been touched upon by C in her account. It would take us too far afield to enter into the psychological reasons for it.

It remains to point out that the reactions of the personality in accordance with the new synthesis were intensified and became the sole reactions by the fact of the dissociation of those systems of ideas which represented the wider world view and which were organized with instincts and innate dispositions now inhibited. Those systems were the outcome of the cares, anxieties, responsibilities, and sorrows of later life. All these, which were acquired and had their origin at a comparatively late period, had subsided into the unconscious and ceased to influence the conscious life and give rise to their corresponding reactions. The emotions and sentiments of anxiety, remorse, self-reproach and despair, so conspicuous in the A phase, were completely dissociated from the B phase and formed no part of it. Though there was no amnesia for them as past experiences they were dissociated in the sense that they did not take part as psycho-physiological dispositions in the personality. They could be voluntarily recalled in an intellectual way as memories, but like many memories they had lost their emotional tones and were not awakened by any contemplated or actual line of conduct. Not entering the new B synthesis there was no clash by which the reactions might be modified. The sole reactions were, therefore, those of the B synthesis and were mostly those of pleasure and joy. You must not overlook the fact, however, that the dissociated elements of personality were still conserved and, as we shall see, capable of being resurrected and thereby taking part in the reproduction of the original personality, or of forming by themselves another dissociated one.

The _temperament_ of the B personality is in accord with the conception of a modified reversion to the conserved unconscious personality of early life. B. C. A. “was naturally very light-hearted, happy, buoyant.” Later when going through the stress and strain of her husband’s illness, and later still after becoming neurasthenic, she became apprehensive and given to self-reproaches, worry, and depression. She was racked by emotions of an anxious depressing kind. All this was enormously accentuated in the secondary personality A, (to be presently described) whom in banter I used to call “Mrs. Gummidge.” Now B reverted in temperament to the earlier period; she was free from depression; “had more courage, was light-hearted, merry; conditions did not seem so dreadful as they did to A,” and she “took things as they were”; “this was the way she used to be.”

If I may anticipate a little the development of the A personality, a passage or two from letters will show this difference in temperament as manifested by the emotions. B wrote, “A is nearly crazy about those papers. She simply ‘tears her hair’ and groans, and then, presto! change! and I am here.” Again in a note to her other self (A) she writes: “I suppose you have a ‘deep-horror-then-my-vitals-froze’ expression on your face now. Really, you suffer more to the square inch than any one I ever knew.” Although it is hardly fair to ascribe these emotional traits of A—a disintegrated personality—to the normal C, still they were and are at times noticeable in C as moods, or when under stress and strain. (C of course has pleasant affects and joyous moods as well.) B on the other hand was a perfect stranger to such feelings; she did not know the meaning of them; they were completely dissociated from her ideas. B’s sole emotions were those of pleasure and exaltation; C’s emotions included unpleasant and depressing ones as well, while A’s stock was made up almost entirely of the latter. This dissociation of unpleasant and depressing emotions from B is well manifested by her memories. When C (or A) recalled (and it is still true) an unpleasant experience the memory was accompanied by the original emotion in its full intensity. She lived over again the original experience and manifested all the feeling in the expression of her face and in gesture. But when B recalled this same experience of C (or A) she simple remembered it intellectually as a fact, without the feeling tone. In fact she would recite a painful fact of C’s experience with a gaiety of tone that betokened enjoyment at the other self’s expense. The same phenomenon was still more striking in B as a co-conscious personality.[290] As a co-consciousness she always insisted that while she knew C’s (and A’s) thoughts she did not feel her emotions. “You see I know all that A thinks but I do not _feel_ her emotions; she is all emotion,” she wrote. This she insisted upon again and again. She only knew what the other personalities felt by the way they acted. Similarly the affect which was the cause of the “rebellion” was dissociated from B. This same phenomenon was observed in the case of Miss Beauchamp. Sally as a co-consciousness knew the thoughts of the personal consciousness (B I or B IV) but she was not aware of the feelings that accompanied the thoughts; the feelings she could only guess from the actions of the principal personality, and as an alternating personality Sally likewise was entirely devoid of certain emotions which were strongly accentuated in the other personalities.[291] This dissociation of affects from B helps us to understand the difference in the reactions of B, C, and A to the same stimuli.

-----

Footnote 284:

The same as when dominated by the B complex but in a more extreme way.
(M. P.)

Footnote 285:

That is, the remainder of the C complex subsided into the
“unconscious,” where, of course, its experiences were conserved.
They could be recalled as a memory by B. As a system of ideas the B
complex had been “flowering” for five years. (M. P.)

Footnote 286:

See _Journal Abnormal Psychology_, 1920, Nos. 2 and 3.

Footnote 287:

The science of human personality is becoming a special branch of
psychology and is based upon the recognition and study of the innate
psycho-physiological systems of which a few are mentioned here. Of the
most recent works on this subject, those of Alexander F. Shand (The
Foundations of Character) and William McDougall (Social Psychology)
are the most important contributions. They are based on the study of
normal behavior. Abnormal alterations, such as are met with in the
psychoses and multiple personality, will prove to be a more fruitful
field for study and will provide more valuable contributions to our
knowledge of normal mechanisms, just as the pathology of the nervous
system has done for our knowledge of its anatomy and physiology.
Disease dissects the mind far better than can introspection or
observation.

Footnote 288:

In a letter written in the phase A to me she writes: “B seems to
revert to the time before all the sorrow and trouble. She writes in
the diary [kept at my direction by the different personalities] as I
used to feel. She ‘won’t be unhappy;’ she ‘will have a good time,’
etc. She seems younger than I, someway. I find that my friends often
think me more ‘like myself,’ when B is here; she also spends money as
I used to and will not acknowledge the necessity of economizing....”
In another letter she writes: “Then came the time when I was wholly B.
Everything but my own pleasure was cast to the wind. I felt and acted
like a girl of 18, and I know that I _looked_ years younger than I do
now.”

Footnote 289:

C writes: “To me this point of the affections is one of the most
interesting and curious. As a child and young girl I was affectionate,
shy, proud, and reserved—everything that B was not. I positively never
had in me any of these traits that B exhibited during those weeks ...
except gaiety.”

This statement, when analyzed, is in entire agreement with the results
of our study. The absence of affection is what would be expected from
the loss of the primary emotion “tender feeling,” the affective
element in the parental instinct. Shyness is determined by the
instinct of self-abasement which was dissociated from B. Likewise with
the self-regarding sentiment of pride in one of its varieties,
self-respect. According to McDougall this comprises two instincts:
that of self-assertion with its emotion of elation, and that of
self-abasement with its emotion of subjection. The latter instinct we
have seen reason to conclude was inhibited in B. Hence, on this theory
of pride, this sentiment was lost.

Footnote 290:

B later became co-conscious with the other personalities as well as
alternating.

Footnote 291:

“Miss Beauchamp,” etc.; _Jour. Abn. Psychol._, Vol. XV, p. 80.

LECTURE XX
(THE SAME CONTINUED)—THE A PERSONALITY

PERIOD IV

I

We may now return to C’s account of her dissociated life—to the point where she was about to describe the development of another personality, A, and at which I digressed.

Bear in mind that it is the B personality that now received the shock and that the revelation of the deception, therefore, was to a personality whose point of view was not that of duty or affection but of mere joy and pleasure.

After a period of a few weeks I received a second[292] shock, which
was caused by the discovery of deception in matters[293] which my
“obsession” had taken in charge. The revelation came in a flash, _a
strong emotion_ swept over me, and the state B, _with all its traits,
physical characteristics, and points of view disappeared, and I
changed to another state which we have since called A_. In this state
my physical condition was much as it was before the first shock,[294]
that is, I was neurasthenic. From a state of vigorous health I
instantly changed to one of illness and languor; I could hardly sit
up, had constant headache, insomnia, loss of appetite, etc. My mental
characteristics were also different. As before, however, there was no
amnesia either for the state when I was B or for my life before the
first shock.

Now, though as A I was filled with most disproportionate horror at
what had occurred during the weeks of my life as B, I was ruled by the
same obsession, but with this difference: what I, as B, had done with
a sense of _pleasure_, I, as A, did with a sense of almost horror at
my own actions, feeling that I was compelled to do so by what seemed
at the time a sense of _duty_. I felt that I must carry out certain
obligations, and I doubt now, as I afterward expressed myself to you,
if I could have resisted had I tried. [I. e., she was again governed
as formerly by the B complex.] I would not refuse the demand for help
which was made upon me because, as B, I had promised my aid, but in
complying I was obliged to do things which seemed to me, as A,
shocking and unheard of. I felt that my conduct was open to severe
criticism but I had promised and must fulfil though the skies fell. It
seems to me now, in the light of our present knowledge of B, that I,
while in this A phase, was in a sort of somnambulistic stage governed
by what I have learned were co-conscious ideas belonging to B; and
that the impulses of the B complex were too strong to be resisted; but
in my memory my ideas as B were at this time so curiously intermingled
with my ideas as A that it is useless to try to analyze my mind more
accurately. In mood, points of view and ideals I was A, but I _did_
the things B would have done, though from a different incentive.

To fully appreciate the situation and in that light the meaning of A’s point of view in the preceding passage and in that which follows, we must remember that, when the original personality B. C. A., as the neurasthenic and a disintegrated self that we may call the _A mood_, was suddenly changed by the preceding “shock” to the B personality, for a few minutes the subject was angry, frightened and felt insulted. There can be no doubt that if the change had not occurred she would have resented any further continuance of friendly or philanthropic relations with the object of her resentment. When she came under my observation later, as A, she was overwhelmed with (unjustified) humiliation and blazed with wrath at the mere thought of the episode. Her governing feeling was vengeful emotion. Even later as the normal C she could not forgive or forget.

Now imagine the scene: a person dominated by such feeling suddenly, without apparent rhyme or reason, completely changing in her feelings and point of view, regarding the episode as a lark, enjoying it and smiling and happy. And then in this frolicsome mood continuing to play for a month with the object of her previous wrath. Such a scene on the stage would be a most dramatic one. Imagine what must have been the bewilderment of the victim.

Then, after some weeks of this play, the B personality changes back to the disintegrated self, A. As A she remembers what she has done as B in complete contradiction to her previous feelings and views of the episode, herself and the object. She is overcome with horror on remembering her behavior (as B) and yet she finds herself ruled by a fixed idea of the B complex and going on doing, but from a different motive, the very things which had horrified her.[295]

Keeping this situation in mind we can understand A’s feelings and viewpoint bearing in mind that all was morbidly exaggerated.

For a few days I remained A and then owing, I think, to a lessening of
nervous tension, I changed again to B [personality] and remained in
that state for two or three weeks during which time I was physically
well and happy again. At the end of this time, as a result of another
realization of the actual situation, A reappeared and was the only
personality for some weeks. These changes were due to successive
emotional shocks.

The following passage which continues A’s viewpoint accurately describes her state of mind when she came under my observation.

When you first saw me I was A at my worst. I had no amnesia for the
events of the preceding months when, as B, I had been filled with the
joy of living. There was no thought on my part of any “change of
personality”—I had never heard of such a thing—but I was like one
slowly awakening from a dream. I was equally aghast at what I (B) had
done for _pleasure_, and at what I (A), had done from a sense of duty;
one seemed as unbelievable as the other.[296]

One of the most shocking things to me, as A, was the fact that I had
_enjoyed myself_ as B. Had I committed the most dreadful crimes I
could not have felt greater anguish, regret, and remorse. I had been
dominated by the fixed ideas and obsessions of B; I had felt that I
must respond to any call for help made by this person [the
drug-addict] even though it was against my inclination and judgment to
do so; there seemed no choice for me in the matter—I _had_ to;[297] I
could see no point of view but my own. To do what seemed my plain duty
I was willing to sacrifice myself in every way, but could not see that
I (A) was now causing as much anxiety to my family as I had previously
done as B; that I was sacrificing them also, and that my idea of duty
was entirely mistaken. A, it would seem, was the emotional and
idealistic part of my nature magnified a thousand times. My emotions
and ideals as A were not different in kind from those of my normal
self, but were so exaggerated as to be morbid.

As A I was full of metaphysical doubts and fears, full of scruples. I
did not attend church because I felt that I could no longer honestly
say the Creed and the prayers. The service had lost all meaning to me
and so it seemed hypocritical to take part in it. I felt that I had
utterly failed in the performance of every duty, and tortured myself
with the remembrance of every act of omission and commission. I
accused myself of selfishness, neglect, in fact, of nearly all the
crimes in the calendar including, in an indirect way, that of
murder.[298] My conversation was always of the most serious
character,—religion (I believed in nothing), life after death (of
which I found no hope), and I dwelt much upon the fact that no one
should be judged by their deeds alone, that no one could tell what
hidden motive had prompted any given act. This was because I had (as
B) done so many things which (as A) I wholly disapproved of and felt
might be misunderstood. I did not understand them myself but knew that
my motive had been good. I was frightened, bewildered, shocked,
agonized—concentrated anguish and remorse. During these weeks I
suffered more than it ought to be possible for any one ever to suffer
for anything, and always, over and over in my mind went the same old
thoughts,—“_Why_ did I do as I did? _How_ could I have done it? Why
did it seem right? What would my friends think if they knew? I was
mad! _I was not myself._” Finally I decided to end it all—I could not
live under such a weight of humiliation and self-reproach. I am sure,
Dr. Prince, that you must remember how impossible it was to reason
with me as A, for it was at this time and in this state that I was
sent to you and you first saw me.

Summing up this statement a new personality had come to the fore—a personality that was the antithesis of B. The traits which characterized A had been left entirely out of B while those which had characterized B were left entirely out of A. Both sets of traits were to be found in C though less accentuated and less freely manifested. The gaiety, love and pleasure and joy of life, the absence of all thought of responsibility and care belonging to B had given place to seriousness, a sense of responsibility and duty, a feeling of apprehension, to doubts and fears and self-reproaches. Depression and sorrow had taken the place of exaltation and joy. The neurasthenic state had replaced buoyant health.

Now it should be noted that these latter were the traits of the subject C during the preceding four-year period of stress and strain, and the succeeding neurasthenic period, and represented a side of her character which was developed, systematized and intensified by the circumstances of her life. In accordance with these traits, habits of thought had been established and by constant repetition complexes had been built. It is of importance to note that it was against these very A traits that the “B complex” at that time had rebelled—that very complex which was to become the chief component of the “B personality,” and which was the other side of the original self. It was during the neurasthenic state that the A traits had become abnormally developed and belonged to the neurasthenic condition. When the personality changed to B these A traits became dissociated but still remained conserved as unconscious systematized neurograms; now the A traits were awakened once more, there was a conflict and the B traits, the lighter side of her character, were repressed, dissociated and subsided into the unconscious. A was, therefore, a dissociated personality. She was the original C, if you please, but now so shattered and shorn as to be but an abstract and wreck of her former self. The normal C possessing both sets of traits had been, and now, resynthesized to health, is able to compare, to weigh, to modify, to balance the judgments obtained from the point of view of the B system with those of the A system and thus keep a fairly equitable poise of mind. The one counteracted the other fairly well. The A and B phases being respectively deprived of the characteristics of the other, each exhibited its own traits in a highly intensified degree, and manifested excessive reactions to the environment. The dissociated state A was plainly a reversion to the stress-and-strain and neurasthenic period. The awakening of A was the awakening of a system of thoughts which had lain dormant during the B state. Now the repressed B state was dormant.

It is of great significance for an understanding of neurasthenic disturbances that the awakening of the A system brought back all the neurasthenic symptoms that had as physical reactions accompanied this system at the time when it was dominant in C. The A system of thoughts, emotions, instincts, innate dispositions, etc., and the physical symptoms necessarily went together, for the latter are the expression or reaction of a dissociated personality that is deprived of its sthenic and exalting emotions. The moment the sthenic emotions were brought back (in C or A) the physical symptoms disappeared. The disappearance of the neurasthenia even in A when certain emotions were temporarily restored by suggestion was remarkable.

II

What caused the awakening of the A system? We have seen that the awakening of the rebellious B personality was an emotional trauma which was the same in kind as that which originally gave rise to the primitive “rebellion” as a reaction to the emotion. A similar trauma later awakened the same rebellion but one grown to the large proportions of the “B complex.” So in like fashion the new trauma to B awakened the A system as a reaction and associative phenomenon. What was the new trauma?

C in her written statement does not give the nature of the “strong emotion which swept over” her when the “revelation came in a flash.” It was very different in character from the other. It was _apprehension_—the apprehension of moral disaster to the person whom she was trying to save. There was no resentment at the discovered deception, no thought of wounded self, no feeling of injury as might be inferred from the language of the writer, but only the thought of her own _responsibility_ in the circumstances, and of _duty_ undertaken, and the feeling of _anxiety_ for the future of this other person; and there was a sense of _disappointment and failure_. These erupted from the submerged A system.

It was this same system of ideas, but organized about her husband as their object, which had been dominant in C during the four years period of stress-and-strain and “neurasthenia.” They had lain dormant in the unconscious during the B period. Now they are struck and excited to activity. There is a conflict. The impulses from the conflicting A emotions, being the stronger, repress the B impulses and the A system is awakened as a personality.

The question at once comes to mind whether the object of B. C. A.’s solicitude was not a surrogate for her deceased husband, a sort of symbol, and had not become the object of the transference (to use the language of the psycho-analysts) of the solicitude which had previously been bestowed upon her husband’s health and future well-being; whether this new person had not been substituted for the ill husband in that A system of ideas which during four years had been characterized by responsibility, duty, anxiety, disappointment, failure, etc.; whether, indeed, it might not be held that the solicitude for the salvation of this drug addict was not a defense reaction against self-reproach for an imaginary responsibility for the illness of her husband. Such self-reproaches she describes.

If this were true, the awakening of the A system by the discovery of the deception (which was only the banal one of money matters) and realization of failure, disappointment, etc., would be all the more comprehensible in view of the very strong and close associations which the new object would have in the system. But if true I cannot see that it would have any further or deeper significance. There was no need for disguisement. Certainly solicitude for a husband, disguised in another person, needs no disguisement and could not be unacceptable. But painful _self-reproaches_ for former failure could not be faced, and satisfaction could be found in the performance of a new duty as a sort of atonement.

Again was there any subconscious sex wish or urge that could not be admitted to herself and to which the change to A was a defense reaction? I have been unable to discover any. And if there were I am unable to see how the revelation of deception in money matters required a defense reaction against the fulfillment of this wish. That sounds like Alice in Wonderland.

But why did the revelation shock B, who with her traits would not have cared? I can answer this from my intimate and fuller knowledge of C’s and A’s ideas. It was a revelation of the truth. The true character of the object of their solicitude, “whom everyone else had given up as hopeless,” was revealed in a flash, and this “revelation” had struck, not B, but the submerged A (or C) system, which immediately emerged in an uprush from the unconscious. The shock was not to B but to subconscious A. And the reaction was “disappointment,” “failure,” “apprehension,” etc. Similar phenomena have been observed over and over again in psychological studies as I have frequently witnessed them in this case.

III

In a previous lecture[299] I called attention to the fact that emotions (instincts) innate dispositions and tendencies are fundamental to personality and I pointed out that in abnormal alterations the dissociation may involve one or more of these. Certain of these innate psycho-physiological systems were cited as having been repressed or dissociated in this case. It remains to study this phenomenon a little more closely.

Psychologists are generally agreed that of the emotions some are primary, or elementary, and others are complex, that is compounded of two or more emotions. Fear and anger, for example, are primary and the conscious elements, like all primary emotions, in biological instincts. These instincts serve a purpose in the preservation of the species. Of the complex emotions scorn and loathing may be taken as examples, the former, it is believed, being compounded of anger and disgust and the latter of fear and disgust. There is not a general agreement in regard to all the emotions that should be regarded as primary. Joy and sorrow, for example, are classed by some as primary and by some as complex. I made an effort to note and classify in a tentative way the emotions that were present and absent in the two personalities A and B and have arranged them in the following table. In this table the classification of the primary and complex emotions of McDougall has been followed in the main.

Of course it is very difficult to determine with certainty if any given emotion is absolutely absent, as it depends upon suitable conditions being present for its excitation. An emotion that is repressed might still be excited if the stimulus were sufficiently strong. Still, it is significant that emotions which would ordinarily excite a given emotion, say, tender feeling, or sorrow or fear, in the ordinary normal person, or did do so in this subject in the A personality, did not do so in the B personality, or would awaken in the latter only an emotion of joy or mirth. Under these circumstances, when the A and B personalities respectively came into being, these differences were easily observed, and it is noteworthy that then certain emotions were never in evidence in each respectively, whether potentially present or not.

It is interesting to note that when a primary emotion was absent, for instance in personality B, that a compound emotion which included this primary emotion was also absent. It is obvious that dissociation of personalities in which certain emotions are repressed offer valuable data for studying the problem of the classification of emotions, more reliable than do the usual methods of introspective analysis.

PRIMARY EMOTIONS, INSTINCTS, FEELINGS AND INNATE DISPOSITIONS

Personality A Personality B Anger Present (marked) Never observed, although sometimes she felt “provoked” Fear Present (marked) Never observed Disgust Present (marked) Never observed Hunger Slight _Absent (?)_ Sexual Present _Absent_ Curiosity Present Present Joy _Absent_ (present only Present (marked) when excited by suggestion) Sorrow Present (marked) _Absent_ Parental, Tender- Present _Absent_ feeling Affection, etc. Self-assertion—Elation Present (in pride) Present Self-abasement—Subjection Present (marked) _Absent_ Play _Absent_ Present (marked) Pleasure-feeling tones _Rare_ Constant (marked) Pain-feeling tones Present (marked) _Absent_

COMPOUND EMOTIONS

Personality A Personality B Admiration Present ? Reverence ? ? Gratitude Present (marked) ? Scorn { Anger Present (marked) _Absent_ Disgust { Loathing { Fear Present (marked) _Absent_ { Disgust Envy ? ? { Anger Reproach { Tender- Present _Absent_ { emotion Jealousy Present _Absent (?)_ Vengeful emotion Present _Absent_ Shame Present _Absent_ Bashfulness Present _Absent_ Pity ? _Absent_ Happiness _Absent_ Constant

As there were differences in emotions and pleasure-pain feelings manifested by the two personalities, so also the emotions and feelings organized with the same objects differed. That is to say, one and the same object often awakened different emotions or feelings. For example, the moon excited in A pain, in B pleasure; woods excited in A apprehension, in B pleasure; a lake, in A fear; in B joy; relatives, in A affection, in B indifference. Situations, too, that gave A sorrow, gave B joy, or, it might be, pleased A and bored B. Likewise with persons: Y—aroused intense hatred, scorn, etc., in A; in B pleasant feelings.

IV

To return to the behavior of the B and A personalities; the B system, from the fact that it had become for a month, during the third period, segregated as an independent and autonomous system, had become crystallized and easily dissociated as _a whole_ from the remainder of the personalities. The same happened with the A system after it had become emancipated as a result of the fourth shock. The two systems readily changed with one another and I had innumerable opportunities of observing the changes taking place before my eyes and of studying them. C makes the following statement of these alternations:

Shortly after I came to you I began to alternate more frequently
between those two states, and it is well to emphasize that one marked
change in the state of A developed. In this state I now had _complete
amnesia_ for my whole life as B; for everything I thought and
did.[300] In other respects, however, these states were identical with
what they had been. The presence of amnesia made no difference in the
fact of change of personality. As I see it I was just as much an
altered personality before the amnesia developed as afterward. As B, I
had no amnesia.

The amnesia made life very difficult; indeed, except for the help you
gave me I think it would have been impossible and that I should have
gone truly mad. How can I describe or give any clear idea of what it
is to wake suddenly, as it were, and not to know the day of the week,
the time of the day, or why one is in any given position? I would come
to myself as A, perhaps on the street, with no idea of where I had
been or where I was going; fortunate if I found myself alone, for if I
was carrying on a conversation I knew nothing of what it had been;
fortunate indeed, in that case, if I did not contradict something I
had said for, as B, my attitude toward all things was quite the
opposite of that taken by A. Often it happened that I came to myself
at some social gathering—a dinner, perhaps—to find I had been taking
wine (a thing I, as A, felt bound not to do)[301] and what was to me
most shocking and horrifying, smoking a cigarette; never in my life
had I done such a thing and my humiliation was deep and keen.

The bearing of amnesia on the principle of multiple personality, perhaps, needs a few words. From the facts as they developed in this case it must be obvious that the presence or absence of amnesia in no way affects the reality of altered or secondary personality. B was quite as much a personality before the development of amnesia as afterwards. Before this appeared the patient as A in no way differed in characteristics (other than amnesia) from what she was afterwards, and the same is true of B. The amnesia simply made the contrast between the phases more obtrusive; that was all. If, therefore, following the amnesia each phase can be rightly interpreted—and of this there can be no doubt—as a dissociated personality, the same must be true of it antecedent to loss of memory. Each phase had lost and gained certain traits and peculiarities, and what one had lost the other, to a large extent, had retained.