human ways. It is not for the sake of utility they are done...not one man in a billion, when taking his dinner ever thinks of utility. The connection between the savory sensation and the act it awakens is for him absolute and selbverständlich, an 'a priori synthesis of the most perfect sort."" And thus it is with our deluded patients. From the moment when Mr J. had his first vision and his 'broken memories' began to emerge, he was never in doubt that the experiences so vividly portrayed were actually his own; they filled his whole past life with a new meaning and reality. In the same way when after a period of tension and anxiety the phantasy of being able to fly crystallised out, the patient became infused with a new sense of power and purpose as if he had made a great discovery. He made no attempt to justify his belief; it was "an a priori synthesis of the most perfect sort," and any suggestions casting doubt on his unique gift were to him mere flippancies. His attitude is much as we might imagine a hen to exhibit if it were told that it was silly to sit on eggs. These grotesque beliefs are real to their subjects because they are the expression of a real instinctive need. Such patients are quite aware of their past and very like ordinary people in regard to the daily affairs of life; they like courtesy, comfort and attention, and can guard their own daily interests. They are often quite aware, also, that their beliefs about themselves are regarded by society as insane beliefs; but nevertheless their opinions are more real to them than anything else because they represent an actual biological need— a physical impulsion or necessity which actually exists, and for which their whole organism craves.

IV.

Thus in paraphrenic and paranoic cases, we observe individuals who are impelled by elementary and instinctive forces to assume what is regarded as a delusional attitude. In these cases there is a defective evolution of the personality, and the delusions and hallucinations symbolise or openly reveal the nature of the elemental cravings which seek expression. The conscious personality has nothing to do with the development of these delusions and can do nothing to control them. Unfortunately, also, it is impossible to control, dissipate, or prevent the development of these trends by any known therapeutic means. This is much to be regretted because the primitive instincts which control the patient are often of a most painful and terrible character. A sadistic impulse may express itself by the formation of an hallucinatory personality which controls every action of the patient; or it may appear

in delusional form. Thus a mild and kindly man after a period of anxiety and fear will suddenly know himself to be the devil; he will feel himself dominated by some supernatural force and realise that he is the embodiment of all evil who is called upon to destroy humanity with inconceivable cruelty. Naturally his life is one of intense horror at the fate to which he feels himself condemned. Then there is the homosexual impulse so manifestly revealed in the paranoiac. As an instance, a man who has served the state and led a life of high endeavour, after a period in which he feels himself to be the victim of imaginary blackmail, becomes haunted by visual hallucinations of a grossly homo-sexual type; and then a formless black figure materialises and follows him wherever he goes. Examples might of course be multiplied.

In these cases then we observe the influence on the personality of a perverted or over-developed instinctive trend. It is not of merely academic interest to localise the morbid process in this way. It is true that it is impossible to control the primitive craving which exercises such a disastrous effect on its subject, and we do not know why the instincts should develop so unevenly and inharmoniously; but we can at least understand the behaviour of our patients, and recognise it as the logical outcome of their biological inferiorities. Thus when a patient expresses some grotesque delusion, we know that in a sense he is making an assertion which is perfectly true. The delusion is the symbol of an abnormality which actually exists, and it indicates what is really wrong with the patient. The paraphrenic is quite right in adhering to his beliefs; he knows and feels that they are true, and he has more reason on his side than the psychiatrist who would persuade him to the contrary. From the therapeutic standpoint it is often definitely helpful to the patient when he finds the psychiatrist is sympathetic to his point of view and takes it seriously. It is a relief to him to find there is at least someone who believes what he says--and who not merely asserts in a soothing but manifestly insincere manner his agreement with the patient, but who, in the sense described, actually does believe that he is expressing in his own way something that is a fact about himself. It is for this reason that the community life in an asylum sometimes adds to the happiness of a patient. For the first time in his life he finds himself in an atmosphere in which his eccentricities are not regarded as such, and his delusions are not the subject of criticism. He again becomes a member of a social group, and he finds friends, occupation, amusements and interests from which his affliction debarred him at home, where everyone was kept in a state of ill-concealed tension and he could not

fail to realise that his behaviour was disturbing to others. If a man believes that he is annoyed by spirits, it is good for him to be able to get up at night and bang his mattress to drive them away. His action is perfectly logical, and he finds it helpful that it is recognised to be so, and that no objections are made to his behaviour. He finds himself in an atmosphere where public opinion regards his abnormal beliefs and behaviour as normal, and where even his fellow patients make no attempt to criticise his conduct.

95

THE ONTOGENESIS OF INTROVERT AND
EXTROVERT TENDENCIES

BY ALICE G. IKIN.

From the Department of Psychology, University of Manchester.

If we consider the primal psychic force as an undifferentiated élan vital, it soon becomes apparent that a differentiation occurs into two main streams which Freud has called interest and libido respectively. Interest is the psychic force which motivates the ego-instincts, branching out and becoming differentiated as the mentality of the child develops. The emphasis lies on the cognitive and conative side, though as in all psychic forces, cognition, affect and conation are involved. The libido is the mainspring of the sexual and parental instincts; it, too, becomes differentiated and develops. Here the emphasis is on the affective, and conational side. Feeling urges to action and cognition is so little developed, that a transfer of libido from one object to another can occur without the subject being aware that the emotion felt is not due to the present object but has been transferred from a past object: this underlies the phenomena of transference in psychotherapy.

Jung has suggested that the biological forerunner of his distinction of extrovert and introvert types lies in the two fundamentally different ways of adjustment in nature. The one way is increased fertility accompanied by a relatively small power of fighting and duration of life in the single individual. The other is the equipment of the individual with many means of self-support and relatively small fertility. For Jung this biological antithesis is not merely the analogue but the general foundation of the two psychological modes of adjustment. In man the adaptation to life and the continuance of the species are tending towards the latter method of increasing individual powers of subsistence with relatively small fertility. That is, it is tending towards a predominance of the ego-instincts over the sex instincts, or in Jung's terminology, towards introversion rather than extroversion. Obviously if individual development is carried too far so that the sex instinct falls into disuse, the method of adaptation has overshot its goal and the race is sacrificed to the individual and therefore dies down. In order to avoid this it seems as if nature had endowed man with more libido, with a stronger sex

instinct, than is necessary for reproductive purposes when individual life is so prolonged; as if the development of the ego-instincts were superposed upon the primitive prolific fertility, rather than replacing it. There is thus in the individual a conflict between the two. The relative proportions vary in different individuals, but conflict there must be for all. Freud states that the conflict is between the ego-instincts and the sex instincts: Jung that it is between the introvert and extrovert modes of reaction, postulating that if introversion is the conscious mode of reaction, extroversion compensates for it in the unconscious and vice versa. Both make the conflict universal.

In both cases if one factor is relatively strong a one-sided development will occur with an easy victory for the strong factor and a repression of the value of the other. The balance of the two, with keener conflict, which leads to the psychoneuroses, is also the condition that leads to a well-developed personality if the outcome of the conflict is successful.

In connection with Freud's concept of libido it is necessary to keep in mind that this is not the physical side of the sex instinct, not the physical sexual energy, but that libido is essentially psychic force, mental energy. It can be aroused by inner physical stimulation, and it can induce the physical activity suitable to its needs, but it is not that physical force. It is not at first even focussed on the sex organs necessary to fulfil the reproductive instinct, but is more diffused, only later becoming attached to genital activity in a specially intimate way so that reciprocation between physical stimuli and mental desire is established. Thus being psychic energy ab initio, its sublimation into non-sexual channels after its diversion into physically sexual ones, becomes explicable. Similarly we have the normal sublimation from say five to twelve years old, when almost the whole force can be led beyond the physical and bring about mental development naturally, combining with the ego-interest to give rise to emotional and intellectual development.

Both Jung and Freud have worked out theories in their own terminology, which though differing in many fundamental respects, yet prove on closer examination to have more in common than the difference in terminology would lead one to expect.

Jung differs from Freud in considering the primary psychic force as sexual, only becoming desexualised secondarily, but he considers that desexualised primal libido can never be restored to its original function, though sexual libido may still be sublimated or may regress. Since Freud and Jung both agree to this distinction between a sexual force, capable of sublimation or desexualisation, and a force which is innately