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has nothing to do with the conceptions we are now examining, although the term 'subconscious' is sometimes confusingly applied thereto. In another of its forms, however, the hypothesis assumes that mental processes exist outside consciousness, which are radically different from those occurring within consciousness, but which are able to modify and affect the course of the latter. This notion is to be found in Kant and Schopenhauer, and is elaborately developed in Hartmann's Philosophy of the Unconscious. It is clearly to be regarded as the logical ancestor of the Freudian unconscious.'

Janet's conception of dissociation, however, developed along an entirely different line. It was not a conception which was designed, or could be applied, to explain mental processes in general, but was formulated to explain, or rather to describe, a limited class of phenomena, in particular those met with in hysteria and hypnosis. Janet observed in these conditions definite evidence that mental elements and processes could preserve an independent existence apart from the main stream of consciousness. He showed, for example, that the sensations arising from the anaesthetic limb of an hysterical patient had not been destroyed, but were merely cut off from the central consciousness. Their continued existence could not only be inferred from certain facts in the patient's behaviour, such as the remarkable freedom from accidental injury enjoyed by the anaesthetic limb, but directly demonstrated by procedures which enabled the dissociated stream of consciousness to be tapped, hypnosis and automatic writing for instance. A similar explanation could be applied to the amnesias of hysteria. Somnambulisms, again, were the result of a dissociation which cut across the stream of consciousness, and permitted the stage to be occupied by a new stream having no apparent link with that which had preceded it. Moreover, this new stream contained memories and themes of which the normal consciousness had no knowledge, but whose continued existence during periods when no somnambulism was in progress could be shown by hypnosis or automatic writing. Fugues and double personalities were clearly more complicated examples of the same mechanism, and finally Janet concluded that all the phenomena of hysteria were to be regarded as instances of dissociation, a dissociation in which he saw the essential feature of the disorder. As dissociation of the same type was evidently a character of hypnosis, Janet naturally followed Charcot's lead, and held that hypnosis was an artificial hysteria.

The value of Janet's conception as a weapon of understanding is beyond question, and it has cast a flood of light upon some of the problems

of hypnosis and hysteria. Nevertheless it presents certain defects and inconsistencies which, at any rate in the form in which Janet cast it, oppose considerable difficulties in the way of its complete acceptance. Janet is a descendant of the associationists, and he talks glibly of the sticking together and unsticking of bits of mind-stuff, in a manner which is repugnant to the psychology of to-day. Moreover, his conception of dissociation is constructed in that spatial metaphor which so often produces a superficial appearance of clarity at the expense of a gross distortion of the underlying facts. Dissociation is for Janet the separation en masse of a number of mental elements from that greater aggregation of elements which constitutes the totality of the mind, a splitting of the mind into two independent pieces. Now this picture cannot be satisfactorily reconciled with the observed facts. To begin with, the same material may form part of each of the dissociated portions. Each of two dissociated personalities, for example, may possess the same memories. The existence of such common elements does not seem to be compatible with the notion of dissociation as a separation of two masses of mental atoms. Again, Dr T. W. Mitchell1 has pointed out that the relationships of awareness and lack of awareness existing between the separate streams of consciousness do not show that simple character which the notion of a spatial dissocation would require. An hypnotic consciousness may be aware of the whole range of the patient's experience, including the content of the normal consciousness, while the normal consciousness has no knowledge whatever of the experience belonging to the hypnotic consciousness. The dissociation here, instead of producing a barrier equally untraversable in either direction, shows itself in one direction only, the content of the normal consciousness being perfectly accessible to the hypnotic, while an impassable gap is interposed whenever we endeavour to move in the reverse way. Dr Mitchell has further objected to Janet's notion of a dissociated idea existing in a wholly isolated state. "It cannot be too often repeated and insisted on that we have absolutely no knowledge of any such isolated material. If normally an experience that passes out of consciousness is conserved as a psychical disposition, it is as a psychical disposition which is part of some personality....Its dissociated status has reference to the supraliminal consciousness and to that alone. It is not cut off on all sides from the structure of the mind, but only deprived of those associative connexions which would permit its emergence above the threshold. It is dissociated from the supraliminal

1 T. W. Mitchell, The Psychology of Medicine, London, 1921, p. 33.

consciousness, but is still an integral part of the mind beneath the threshold1."

Similar difficulties arise when we endeavour to apply this conception of a splitting of mental elements from a larger aggregate, to the phenomena of trance personalities. Here nothing is apparently removed from the normal consciousness, and the content of the secondary consciousness seems to have a quite independent development. In Sidis' well-known Hanna case, again, the dissociated personality appeared to be at first without content, consisting in nothing but a bare consciousness, a blank form which only gradually became filled in. Here the conception of a segregated mass of mental elements is clearly inadequate. It fails also when applied to cases of coconscious double personality, the cases where there is not merely an alternation of personalities, but a contemporaneous co-existence of two personalities, one of which is aware of, but nevertheless entirely independent of, the mental activity of the other. Sally in the Beauchamp case, for example, not only occasionally occupied the stage as an alternating personality, but appeared to persist as a coconscious personality when other personalities were on the stage, aware of and therefore in some sense connected with these other personalities, but preserving her own individuality. Here there is a complex interrelationship of the dissociated systems, which cannot be clearly represented by any conception couched in a spatial metaphor. An analogous complex inter-relationship is well illustrated by certain phenomena observed in a case of double personality which was under my care some sixteen years ago2. I propose to interrupt the thread of my argument for a moment in order to describe the broad features of this case, because it serves to illustrate not only the points now under discussion, but also others which will be dealt with later.

The patient, whom we will call John Smith, was admitted to a mental hospital with a history of fugues occurring at intervals throughout some years. During each fugue he wandered about the country, behaving in a more or less irresponsible manner, and on the last occasion exhibiting abnormalities of conduct which led to his certification. At the termination of each fugue he returned suddenly to his normal condition, with a total amnesia for everything that had happened since the onset of the fugue. At the time of his admission to the hospital, therefore, the history which he was able to give of his recent life was marked by a series of blanks, the blanks extending over varying periods from a few days to several weeks. The lost memories were recovered by the use of hypnosis, and an attempt was then made to push the investigation further, and to discover the factors responsible for the fugues. It was during this process of further investigation that the second personality made its appearance. I was at the time questioning him about a remarkable dislike which he evinced towards one of his relatives. The patient's demeanour,

1 T. W. Mitchell, Medical Psychology and Psychical Research, London, 1922, p. 113. 2 Bernard Hart, “A case of double personality," Journal of Mental Science, 1912

which had hitherto always been very courteous, rapidly changed. He burst into a rage, and when I mentioned certain facts he had previously communicated to me, denied that he had ever said any such things. He asserted that he had only seen me once before, and laughed contemptuously when I pointed out that we had had at least twenty prolonged interviews. After a few minutes he suddenly sat down, complained of headache, and in a few seconds returned to his usual condition, with a complete amnesia for the whole period that the second personality had been on the stage.

After this episode the new personality frequently appeared, and I christened it the 'one-fifth man,' the name originating from a conversation with the patient in which I explained to him that sometimes four-fifths of him was on the stage, sometimes one-fifth.

The one-fifth man underwent a rapid development, and was subsequently a much more complicated person than on the occasion of his first appearance. He was always, however, suspicious and hostile, and with an unconcealed aversion to myself. He was, moreover, always blankly ignorant of all the material previously recovered in the investigation, and angrily incredulous whenever these subjects were touched upon. He had a perfect memory for his own former appearances, but none for the periods when the four-fifths personality held the field. The latter, by the way, was always courteous, friendly, grateful for the trouble I was taking over his case, and distressed when I showed him the abusive letters which the one-fifth man frequently sent to me. It should be noted that the secondary personality was in no way identical with the fugues which occurred before the patient's admission, and had no knowledge whatever of the events of the fugue periods.

Experience soon showed that the one-fifth man was always produced by any attempt to push the investigation in certain directions, and I was able to bring him on to the stage whenever I liked by deliberately employing this procedure. The one-fifth man could, indeed, be regarded as a kind of crystallized resistance.

The one-fifth man preserved his attributes as a resistance throughout his entire career, but the hostility to me did not permanently persist. Hostility to an individual remained a constant character, but it was occasionally transferred to some individual other than myself. It was transferred, for example, during one considerable period on to a certain official of the hospital. In this phase the one-fifth man bitterly reviled this official as a maligner and a spy, but he was then entirely friendly

to me.

An episode, which occurred on the first occasion when an attempt was made to control the activities of the one-fifth man, affords an excellent illustration of the impossibility of conceiving adequately the dissociations in this case in any kind of spatial terminology. When it appeared likely that the hostile character of the one-fifth man might lead to awkward complications, a suggestion was given during hypnosis to the effect that, if a certain small metal object were exhibited on any occasion when the one-fifth man happened to be present, then the ordinary personality would immediately return. Some time afterwards, in the course of a difficult interview with the one-fifth man, I decided to try the effectiveness of the suggestion which had been given. The patient at the moment had his back to me, and was gazing out of the window pursuing his customary occupation of reviling myself and all my works. I requested him to "turn round and look at this." To my astonishment he absolutely refused to do anything of the sort, resolutely kept his back

to me, and it was only by the exertion of some physical force that he was finally constrained to look at the metal object. Directly he did so the ordinary personality reappeared, with his usual complete amnesia for everything which had happened since the advent of the one-fifth man. On various later occasions the one-fifth man displayed incredible ingenuity in a systematic campaign to obtain possession of the metal object, even going so far as to attempt to bribe the servants to procure it for him. When I asked him what he would do if he succeeded, he replied that he would stand with his back to the drawer in which he believed it to be kept, drop it behind him, and stamp on it. In this way he thought he would be able to free himself from my interference in his affairs.

In order to appreciate the significance of these facts it is necessary to remember that neither the ordinary personality nor the one-fifth man were aware of the content of the hypnotic consciousness, or of the posthypnotic suggestion which had been given. Yet the reluctance of the one-fifth man to turn round can only have been due to some kind of knowledge on his part that the action would be lethal to him. For it is to be noted that the situation is not comparable to that present in an ordinary post-hypnotic suggestion, where the suggestion is carried out, possibly with the knowledge of, but without any interference from, the normal consciousness. The action of the one-fifth man must have been dictated by an appreciation and understanding of the significance of the post-hypnotic suggestion, and of the result which it would produce, this appreciation and understanding being entirely unconscious, and only manifesting themselves in consciousness as a blind resistance to carrying out the order. The resistance cannot be ascribed to a learning by previous experience of the lethal power of the metal object, because the resistance appeared on the first occasion on which the object was so employed. Now the spatial conception of dissociation permits us to attribute the action to the one-fifth personality, and the suggestion to the hypnotic consciousness, but there is no place for the appreciation and understanding which mediate between the two and yet belong to neither.

An analogous situation exists in the well-known 'Yes and No' test for hysterical anaesthesia, where the patient answers 'Yes' when touched on the sound limb and 'No' when touched on the anaesthetic limb. Here, again, the answering of 'No' indicates the mediation of an unconscious appreciation and understanding between the dissociated consciousness which is aware of the sensation, and the normal consciousness which ignores it. Both in this instance and in the episode of the one-fifth man we seem to require something beyond the two dissociated streams of

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