Psychopathology and Psychiatry

Ivan P. Pavlov

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781560007074
• eBook ISBN: 9781000678819
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Cognitive Neuroscience & Neuropsychology
• Index: Psychology

Pavlov's fundamental theory of higher nervous activity concerns the adaptation to changing external environments of organisms such as dogs, apes, and humans. In the 1920s, Pavlov and his disciples used laboratory experimentation to study the etiology and therapy of neuroses In human beings and other species. Later, In the 1930s, Pavlov devoted much time and effort to the systematic study of psychopathology In clinical settings. Psychopathology and Psychiatry is Pavlov's little-known series of descriptions of these experiments and findings.

Pavlov used two fundamental approaches In the study of neuroses and psychoses: the conditioned salivary reflex method, with dogs as subjects; and the observation of neurotic and psychotic behavior In humans. Pavlov was primarily Interested In how the cortex worked to facilitate the orgaftilsm's adaptation to the external environment. The conditioned reflex findings were explained In terms of hypothetical physiological processes. Pavlov was certain that dogs' Inability to adapt flexibly was the result of conflicts and traumatic experiences. Soon thereafter, he linked these discoveries to actual human cases of neuroses and psychoses. These are covered In this volume.

In a new introduction to this classic text, George Windholz traces Pavlov's scholarly and scientific life, highlighting his various studies and results under stressful political and pedagogical conditions. Psychopathology and Psychiatry continues to be a highly significant work of scientific study. Psychologists, psychiatrists, and behavioral researchers of all professional persuasions will find this work to be essential reading.

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY and PSYCHIATRY

EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY IN ANIMALS¹

Regarding the language of facts as most eloquent, I shall take the liberty of proceeding directly to the experimental material, which gives me the right to speak on the subject of my present communication.

To begin with, this is the history of the transition of the physiologist from research into purely physiological problems to the sphere of phenomena usually called psychical. Although this transition took place suddenly, it occurred in a perfectly natural way, and what seems to me most important in this respect, without changing the, so to speak, methodological front.

In studying over a period of years the normal working of the digestive glands, and analysing the constant conditions of this work, I came upon conditions of a psychical character, which, incidentally, had been observed by others before me. There were no grounds for neglecting these conditions, since they participated constantly and prominently in the normal physiological process. I was obliged to investigate them if I wanted to make a really thorough study of my subject. But how? All that follows in my exposition supplies the answer to this question.

From all our material I shall select only the experiments with the salivary glands—organs which apparently play a very insignificant physiological role; however, I am convinced that they will become classical objects for the hew type of research about which I shall have the honour of telling you today; part of this research has already been carried out and part is in the planning stage.

In observing the normal working of the salivary glands one cannot but be amazed by the high degree of their adaptability.

Give the animal dry, hard food substances and there will be an abundant salivary secretion—give it liquid food and the secretion will be much smaller.

It is obvious that for the chemical testing of the food, for mixing it and converting it into a lump to be swallowed, water is required—and the salivary glands supply it. From the mucous salivary glands there flows for every kind of food, saliva rich in mucin—a lubricating saliva, which facilitates the smooth passage of the food into the stomach. All highly irritant substances, such as acids, salts, etc., also produce a salivary secretion which varies in accordance with the strength of their stimulating action; clearly, as we know from everyday experience, the purpose of this secretion is to neutralise or dilute the substances and to cleanse the mouth. In this case the mucous glands secrete fluid saliva containing little mucin. For what would be the purpose of the mucin here? If pure insoluble quartz pebbles are placed in the mouth of a dog it will move them around, try to chew them, and finally, it will drop them. There is either no secretion of saliva at all, or at most two or three drops flow out. Again, what purpose would the saliva serve here? The pebbles are easily ejected by the animal and nothing remains in the mouth. But if sand is placed in the dog’s mouth, i.e., the same pebbles but in pulverised form, there will be an abundant flow of saliva. It is clear that without saliva, without fluid in the oral cavity; the sand could neither be ejected, nor forwarded to the stomach.

Here we have exact and constant facts—facts which seem to imply intelligence. But the entire mechanism of this intelligence is absolutely plain. On the one hand, physiology has long known about the centrifugal nerves of the salivary glands, which now chiefly cause water to enter into the saliva, and now accumulate in the saliva special organic substances. On the other hand, the internal lining of the oral cavity consists of separate areas which act as receptors of different special stimuli—mechanical, chemical, thermal. Moreover, these stimuli may be further subdivided, the chemical, for example, into salts, acids, etc. There are grounds for assuming that the same thing is true of the mechanical stimuli. It is in the areas acting as receptors of special stimuli that the specific centripetal nerves have their origin.

Thus, the reactions of adaptation are based on a simple reflex originated by definite external conditions acting only on certain kinds of centripetal nerve endings; from here the excitation passes along a definite nervous path to the centre, and thence, also along a definite path, to the salivary gland, evoking its specific function.

In other words, this is a specific external agent evoking a specific reaction in living matter. At the same time we have here a typical example of what we call “adaptation” or “fitness”. Let us dwell for a moment on these facts and terms, since they play, obviously, an important role in modern physiological thought. What, exactly, is the fact of adaptation? It is, as we have just seen, simply the exact co-ordination of the elements making up a complex system and of the entire complex with the surrounding world.

But the same thing can be observed in any inanimate object. Take, for example, a complex chemical object. This object exists thanks to equilibration between its separate atoms and groups, between the object as a whole and the surroundings.

In exactly the same way the immense complexity of the higher and lower organisms exists as a whole so long as all its constituents are delicately and strictly co-ordinated and equilibrated both with one another and with the external conditions.

The analysis of the equilibration of this system is the prime task and aim of physiological investigation as purely objective investigation. There can hardly be two opinions on this point. Unfortunately, so far we have no purely scientific term to denote this fundamental property of the organism, its external and internal equilibrium. Many people hold that the terms now in use—fitness and adaptation (despite their natural-scientific, Darwinist analysis)—bear the stamp of subjectivism, which leads to misunderstanding in two opposite directions. The rigid adherents of the physico-mechanical theory of life see in these words an anti-scientific tendency—a retreat from pure objectivism to speculation and teleology. On the other hand, philosophically inclined biologists see in every fact relating to adaptation and fitness proof of the existence of a special vital force, or, as it is now more and more often called, spiritual force (vitalism, apparently, gives way to animism), which defines its own goal, chooses its means, adapts itself, etc.

And so, in the afore-mentioned physiological experiments with the salivary glands we, in our investigation, remain strictly within the bounds of natural science. We shall now pass to another sphere of phenomena which, it would seem, belong to quite a different category.

All the foregoing objects, which, after being placed in the mouth, influenced the salivary glands in different and at the same time definite ways, exert on these glands exactly the same action, at least qualitatively, when placed at a certain distance from the dog. Dry food produces much saliva—moist food only a little. A thick, lubricating saliva flows from the mucous glands to the food substances. Various inedible irritants also produce secretion from all the glands, including the mucous glands. But it is fluid and contains but a small amount of mucin. Pebbles, when shown to the animal, have no effect on the glands, while sand evokes profuse salivation. These facts were partly obtained and partly systematised in my laboratory by Dr. S. G. Wolfson. The dog sees, hears, and smells all these substances, pays attention to them, rushes to them if edible or agreeable, but turns away from them and resists their introduction into the mouth when disagreeable. Everybody would say that this is a psychical reaction, psychical stimulation of the animal’s salivary glands.

How should the physiologist regard these facts? How can he establish them? How to analyse them? What are they compared with physiological facts? What are their common features and in what way are they distinguished from one another?

Must we, for the purpose of getting to know the new phenomena, penetrate into the inner state of the animal, visualise its feelings and desires in our own way?

It seems to me that for the naturalist there is only one answer to the last question—an emphatic “No”. Where is there even the slightest indisputable criterion that our conjectures are correct, that we can, for the sake of a better understanding of the matter, compare the inner state of even such a highly developed animal as the dog with our own? Further: Is not the eternal sorrow of life the fact that in most cases human beings do not understand each other and cannot enter into the inner state of the other? And then, where is the knowledge, where is the power of knowledge that might enable us correctly to comprehend the state of another human being? At first, in our psychical experiments with the salivary glands (for the time being we shall use the term “psychical”), we conscientiously endeavoured to explain our results by imagining the subjective state of the animal. But nothing came of this except sterile controversy and individual views that could not be reconciled. And so we could do nothing but conduct the research on a purely objective basis; our first and especially important task was completely to abandon the very natural tendency to transfer our own subjective state to the mechanism of the reaction of the animal undergoing the experiment and to concentrate instead on studying the correlation between the external phenomena and the reaction of the organism, i.e., the activity of the salivary glands. Reality had to decide whether elaboration of the new phenomena was possible in that direction. I make bold to say that the following account will convince you, as I am convinced, that a boundless field of fruitful research opens before us in the given case; it is another and immense part of the physiology of the nervous system, a system which mainly establishes the correlation not between the separate parts of the organism, our main subject so far, but between the organism and the surroundings. Unfortunately, to date the influence of the surrounding world on the nervous system has been studied mainly in relation to subjective reactions—the content of the modern physiology of the sense organs.

In our psychical experiments we have before us definite external objects, exciting the animal and evoking in it a definite reaction, in the given case—secretion of the salivary glands. As has been said, the effect of these objects is substantially the same as in the physiological experiments, when they come into contact with the oral cavity. Consequently, we have before us simply further adaptation—the object acts on the salivary glands the moment it is being brought close to the mouth.

What are the specific features of these new phenomena compared with the physiological ones? Above all, the difference seems to be that in the physiological form of the experiment the substance come into direct contact with the organism, while in the psychical form it acts from a distance. But this circumstance in itself, if we reflect on it, does not, obviously, signify any essential difference between these, in a way specific, experiments, and the purely physiological ones. The point is that in these cases the substances act on other special receiving surfaces of the body—nose, eye, ear—through the medium in which both the organism and the stimulating substances exist (air, ether). How many simple physiological reflexes are transmitted by the nose, eye and ear, that is, originate at a distance! Hence, the essential difference between the new phenomena and the purely physiological does not lie here.

It lies much deeper, and should be sought, in my view, in a comparison of the following facts. In the physiological case the activity of the salivary glands is connected with the properties of the substance on which the effect of the saliva is directed. The saliva moistens dry substances and any ingested material; it neutralises the chemical effect of the substances. These properties constitute the special stimuli of the specific mouth surface. Consequently, in the physiological experiments the animal is stimulated by the essential, unconditioned properties of the object in relation to the physiological role of the saliva.

In the psychical experiments the animal is excited by the properties of the external object, which are unessential for the activity of the salivary glands, or even entirely accidental. The visual, acoustic and even purely olfactory properties of our objects, when they are present in other objects, do not of themselves exert any influence on the salivary glands which, in their turn, so to speak, have no business relations with these properties. In the psychical experiments the salivary glands are stimulated not only by the properties of the objects unessential for the work of the glands, but absolutely by all the conditions surrounding these objects, or with which they are connected one way or another—for example, the dish in which they are contained, the article on which they are placed, the room, the people who usually bring the objects, even the noises produced by these people, though the latter may not be seen at the given moment—their voices, even the sound of their steps. Thus, in psychical experiments, the connection of the objects acting as stimuli on the salivary glands becomes more and more distant and delicate. Here, undoubtedly, we have a phenomenon of further adaptation. We can admit in this case that such a distant and delicate connection as that between the step of the person who usually feeds the animal and the working of the salivary glands has no specific physiological significance other than its delicacy. But we need only recall those animals whose saliva contains protective poison, to appreciate the great vital significance of this timely provision of a protective means against an approaching enemy. The significance of the distant signs of objects producing a motor reaction in the organism, is, of course, easily recognised. By means of distant and even accidental characteristics of objects the animal seeks its food, evades enemies, etc.

If that is so, then the following questions are of decisive significance for our subject: can this seeming chaos of relations be included in a definite scheme? Is it possible to make the phenomena constant, to disclose the laws governing their development and their mechanism? It seems to me that the examples which I shall now present entitle me to give an emphatically positive answer to these questions, to find at the basis of all psychical experiments one and the same special reflex as the chief and most general mechanism. True, in its physiological form, our experiment, excluding, of course, all extraordinary conditions, always yields one and the same result; it is the unconditioned reflex. But the main feature of the psychical experiment is its impermanence, its obvious capriciousness. However, the results of a psychical experiment undoubtedly recur too, otherwise we would not speak of them at all. Consequently, the point is in the greater number of factors which influence the results of a psychical experiment compared with a physi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSACTION EDITION
• Psychopathology and Psychiatry
• NOTES
• NAME INDEX
• SUBJECT INDEX