The Neurotic Personality

R G Gordon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780415209267
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136297069
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

This is Volume VIII of nineteen in a collection of Abnormal and Clinical Psychology. Originally published in 1927, this book discusses the idea that to treat the neurotic, we must understand him, and try to discover why his personality differs from the normal and that we must answer the questions why a patient breaks down at all, why one person breaks down in one way, and another shows a different group of symptoms, and when he has broken down, what is likely to happen to him.

The Neurotic Personality

Chapter I

The Construction of a Personality

IF we are to try to gain some idea of the neurotic personality, we must first of all be clear as to what we mean by personality. Many meanings are attached to this term, and at the present moment a good deal is being written on the subject of character and personality, but it is still difficult to find any absolute agreement on the definition. As used here, the term personality includes what is meant by both ego and character. It involves all the heredity of the individual, that is, all the bodily and mental dispositions, both actual and potential, with which he is equipped at birth. It comprises the influence which race and ancestry contribute to the make-up of the individual and in this connexion it must be recognized that, although the dispositions which constitute the equipment with which each individual starts out in life may be qualitatively common to all humanity, they are not so quantitatively, and abnormalities in their relative proportion are of great importance in determining behaviour. Personality also involves all the modifications which have been impressed upon the individual from his environment. Some of these are prenatal, though relatively these are unimportant, and it is improbable that many such modifications are potent after the sixth week of intra-uterine life. The post-natal influences depend on the race, the social position of the individual, on his relations to the rest of his family, on his educational ménage, on the career he chooses or which is chosen for him, on marriage, on children, and on the whole gamut of his social relationship. Still, we must remember that the most striking and lasting modifications will occur in childhood and adolescence. At this time he is malleable both in body and mind, an illness may permanently affect his growth, an alarming experience may permanently modify his attitude towards a whole series of his reactions, and if he is the object of too persistent love, indifference or cruelty, his emotional attitudes may be so warped that he can never free himself from these early influences. The older he grows the more violent must be the external stimuli if they are to make a lasting impression, and as life progresses and habits of thought and action become more fixed, the more difficult is it to influence the personality for good or ill. Personality also involves all the subtle relationships between the individual and the environment in so far as his actions modify the latter. That is to say, we are concerned not only with the incoming impressions but also with the outgoing impulses of the individual, which depend not only on the organization of the personality, but also on the situation in the environment which he requires to meet. From all this is established that unity, which we recognize as personality.

In order to explain this conception of personality, we must have a clear idea as to which particular theory of the relationship of body and mind we make use of, and we must never leave out of account the unity and wholeness of personality, however much we may try to describe its structure and the manner of its building. So far as body and mind are concerned, the most useful conception would seem to be that of Spinoza, who postulated that body and mind were really identical, but presented two aspects for examination and description. One of these we study from the physical point of view and we describe its activations in terms of physiology, while the other we study from the mental point of view and describe in terms of psychology. This involves the conception of correlation, as first annunciated by Huxley¹ and modified by Lloyd Morgan.² As Huxley puts it, there is no psychosis without a neurosis, that is to say that every process which we describe as mental involves the activation of a certain pattern within the body. The most essential constituents of such a pattern will be the neurones of the central nervous system, but the secretions of endocrine glands and probably activations of all bodily organs will play their part. The converse will also hold good, that any activity of a pattern of structure within the body will have a mental correlate. This however is not always open to our description, since we can only describe that of which we are aware at some time or another. This means that only physical processes which have involved the highest levels of the cortex are open to the study of their psychological aspect, for although the findings of hypnosis and of psychoanalysis do throw light on mental processes which are not organized on the conscious level at the time of investigation, they must have been organized on this level at some time or another, or must be potentially capable of organization on that level, in order to be of value for investigation. However, as Lloyd Morgan has pointed out, there seems to be no reason to confine the word ‘mental’ to activities at this high level and, although we cannot investigate or describe them, it is rational to suppose that some sort of mental correlate would be available for our observation at much lower levels, if we only had the means of investigating it. This is not without importance, especially in relation to the neuroses, for recent work in neurology has shown us how low-level activities in the nervous system contribute to the complex pattern of behaviour, although their independent activity can only be observed in grossly pathological conditions, for, if structures at such low levels are damaged, behaviour is altered, although the high levels of structure are unimpaired. It is reasonable to suppose therefore, that, when we are considering a personality from the psychological aspect, some of the obscurities which have been met with in our attempts at deeper analysis depend on abnormalities in mental activity below the level at which we can hope for accurate observation. For example, the psychological influence of disease may depend not only on the consciously perceived patterns of pain and discomfort, but also on modifications at lower levels. It is probable that these low-level mental experiences have much to do with that which is called ‘cœnæsthesia.’ This is generally described as the sense of well-being or ill-being depending on bodily functions, but still psychologists experience great difficulty in describing its exact nature. Again, the affective states of pleasure and unpleasure admittedly depend upon functions of bodily structures under the control of the vegetative nervous system, and we can have a vague idea of what we mean by pleasure and unpleasure, but when we come to try to describe exactly what these states are, we are forced to admit that this is impossible, and that any attempt to analyse them or express them in terms of any known mental experience is beyond our powers.

If we are to understand this correlation we must investigate the formations of patterns of mental activity or of behaviour as they correspond to patterns or engrams, as Semon has called them, of structural arrangement. The engraphic patterns which represent the hereditary dispositions of bodily and mental structure present at birth are more or less definite and are recognized as the instinctive dispositions. Semon³ has pointed out the importance of the permanent modification of such structural patterns by any stimulus impinging upon them, and these definite hereditary patterns are influenced in this way from birth onwards by the stimuli proceeding from the environment. Moreover, as life proceeds, the patterns may be combined and dispersed in various ways, so that new groupings occur of a more or less permanent nature. Original patterns may be very much modified in this way, although it is generally possible from the mental aspect to distinguish the influence of the definite instinctive hereditary dispositions in any given behaviour, however complicated, and as McDougall and Freud have shown, it is these hereditary instinctive dispositions which give force and direction to all our activities.

We may picture the growth of personality on the basis of increasing complexities of engrams, which become integrated and associated, in the way which Sherrington⁴ has shown to be typical of the nervous system. This applies both to the individual and to the species. In the individual, to begin with, the arrangement of neurones is simple, chiefly on the basis of the reflex response. Soon, with the continual conditioning of these responses, more complicated engrams are successively formed, which have, for the mental aspect of their response, the more complicated phenomena of ideation and emotion, sentiments and beliefs, and so on, which we shall have occasion to examine at a later stage, and for their bodily aspect, various complicated muscular and glandular responses. So with the species, in the lower animal the arrangements of neurones are simple in the extreme, but with the rise in evolutionary complexity, they group themselves into more and more complex engrams, till in man, with a great increase of nervous tissue, they become extremely complicated.

As has been said already, however complex or however simple an engram may be, two manifestations present themselves for description as a result of its activation. A subjective mental activity will be experienced, and if at the conscious level, can be detected and described by introspection; and even if below this level, it may be investigated by special methods such as hypnosis. An objective physical behaviour can also be detected by an observer, as the second aspect of the process. This difference of aspect in recording the activation of an engram is the difference between body and mind, so that, while for descriptive purposes they are different, they are manifestations of essentially the same functional process. We therefore accept the metaphysical standpoint, which makes no distinction between Body and Mind except in respect of the causal laws, by which we explain the phenomena observed, in each sphere respectively. We take as a basis of both, the activation of groups of neurones, and describe the mental phenomena which ensue, according to psychological laws, and the bodily phenomena, which may be observed, according to physiological laws.

It is not sufficient to describe the gradual increase of complexity which takes place in the evolution of the higher forms of life which eventually lead to human personality. We must enquire as to how the necessary variations take place. We believe that evolution does consist in such progressive variations, but neither the original theories of Darwin nor the modification of these by the so-called Neo-Darwinian school are quite satisfactory. Bergson’s conception of creative evolution, in which the underlying spirit of progress strives towards some definite end, but regresses from time to time to deposit matter in its course, does certainly not fit in with the conceptions which we have advanced as to the interrelations of body and mind. On the other hand the theory of emergent evolution, which was initiated by Alexander,⁵ and developed by Lloyd Morgan, offers us a theory which seems to work in accordance with our general conceptions. That any theory of evolution represents ultimate truth is unlikely, for our knowledge is still comparatively rudimentary, and hence our theories must be largely speculative and can only aim at pragmatic sanction. The doctrine of emergent evolution lays it down, that when simpler substances combine under certain relationships with the environment, the resultant substance is something unique, which enjoys a quality of its own. This proposition may be applied in both the organic and inorganic realms to matter, life and mind. As Lloyd Morgan says: “The orderly sequence of evolution historically reviewed appears to present from time to time something genuinely new. Salient examples are afforded in the advent of life, in the advent of mind and in the advent of reflective thought.”⁶ Modern physics has shown that all atoms consist of protons and electrons in various relationships, so that the difference between lead and gold is rather a matter of form and arrangement than of substance. Again the arrangement of atoms in the molecule makes all the difference in the emergent structure. Examples of this can be observed in the various forms exhibited by the carbon molecule, as has been shown so lucidly by Sir William Bragg. Again the various combinations of hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon and oxygen in the organic compounds show the enormous importance of form and relationship in determining variations in substances.

Before the advent of life, we can to a large extent discover and describe the exact relatedness of components and environment which is necessary to bring about the emergence of new substances. With the intervention of life, we are out of our depths and cannot discover or describe exactly the conditions under which non-living proteins can be converted into living protoplasm. Our present lack of knowledge, however, does not necessarily preclude the discovery of how this transformation takes place. On the other hand, it may be that conditions are such, that this relatedness was only possible at that period of the world’s history when life emerged, and that such conditions can never again be repeated. When we come to consider living organisms we can trace the emergence of multicellular forms of life from unicellular forms, and, with greater or less accuracy, trace the emergence of the various species in the invertebrate and vertebrate classes.

In our present study the chief interest is centred on the growth and development of the nervous system, both in its structure and function. As has been said above, in the lower forms of life, we can recognize physiological processes, but have difficulty in describing mental processes, and in as much as we cannot determine the exact point at which mind intervenes in the course of evolution, there seems no reason to insist that something new has been introduced from without, as the dualists would have us believe.

As we now turn our attention to mental development it is not difficult to trace higher and higher integrations, but again we come to something definitely new, when we find reflective thought established in mankind. Then with the development of language and the freedom of the upper limbs from the function of locomotion and their conversion to the function of manipulation, we have potentialities of progress of which we are only just becoming aware. Nor can we foretell with any certainty to what all this is leading. Alexander⁷ suggests a quality of deity, the harmony of the universe, in which all conflict, whether physical, mental or moral, shall have ceased, and the qualities of beauty, goodness and truth shall be known in their entirety. With such speculations, however, we have nothing to do at present, and our business in this volume will be to examine how certain individuals of the human race fall by the way, during their individual recapitulation of evolutionary progress.

According to Lloyd Morgan, evolution proceeds according to perfectly definite laws and according to a perfectly adapted scheme. These he describes as intervenient deity in accordance with which the evolutionary process gets itself evolved.

In the scheme of emergence we must note that the higher planes always involve the lower; the atom cannot exist without its electrical charges nor the molecule without the atom nor the living protoplasm without its proteins. The complicated patterns of the nervous system cannot be constituted without the simple reflex arcs, and recent psychological developments have shown how the most complicated mental processes depend on primary instincts and emotional dispositions. Under certain circumstances we can trace the devolution of these syntheses. For instance, under the influence of an anæsthetic or certain drugs, the personality may disintegrate almost before our eyes, and we shall later have to study the phenomenon of regression in relation to the neuroses and shall see how under these processes the function sinks to lower levels of behaviour, representing previous stages in individual or racial evolution.

We must regard every personality as an emergent, and in virtue of its emergence, something new and distinct. Every personality is an emergent from a variety of components. These components group themselves into certain categories which present themselves for study:

1. The various organs and systems of the body, and their respective functions. In view of its integrative and controlling function, the nervous system is by far the most important of these. The other organs and systems are chiefly of significance in the study of personality, in respect of their relation to this system, and in so far as they are modified by it and, in turn, modify its structure and function.

2. The component parts of the nervous system itself, especially the engraphic grouping of the neurones, and the response of these engrams to stimuli.

3. The mental correlates of these activations of engrams.

4. The relatedness of these mental and physical correlates with the environment, both in so far as the environment modifies them, and in so far as they modify the environment.

Further be it noted, that however similar these components may be in different personalities, their relatedness always varies, and therefore every personality is individual and is quite distinct from every other personality, just as every chemical compound is distinct from every other chemical compound. As we ascend in the evolutionary scale, the more complex is the pattern of unities in relation to each other, and the more subtle are the differences of the resultant product, even though these unities themselves are similar. Indeed, in dealing with human individuals, we might well reverse the adage and say, “Plus c’est la même chose plus ça change.”

In discussing the bodily functions which go to m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter I. The Construction of a Personality
• Chapter II. Neurosis: A Failure of Adaptation within the Personality
• Chapter III. Sex and the Freudian Theory of the Neuroses
• Chapter IV. Other Conceptions of Neurosis
• Chapter V. Psychological Types in Neurosis
• Chapter VI. The Anxiety States
• Chapter VII. Obsessions
• Chapter VIII. Hysteria
• Chapter IX. Hysterical Symptoms
• Chapter X. The Dissociation Syndromes
• Chapter XI. Exhaustion Neurosis
• Chapter XII. The Physician and the Patient
• Chapter XIII. Body and Mind in the Treatment of Neurosis
• Chapter XIV. The Scope and Limitations of Psychoanalysis
• Chapter XV. The Scope and Limitations of Suggestion in Treatment
• Chapter XVI. The Scope and Limitations of Persuasion
• Chapter XVII. The Patient and the Public
• Index