PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 49, 26 August 1922, Page 12

PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

THE FREUDIAN DOCTRINE WHAT IT REALLY SAYS OTS RELATION TO INSANITY! IAND CRIME. During the discußsin of the Ronald True case frequent allusions were made to the supposed influence of Freudian doctrine on the minds of the medical expert* who gave evidence during the trial and of those appointed by the Home Secretary to inquire into the state of. the prisoner's mind after his conviction (says a writei in the "Manchester Guardian"). In almost all of these allusions it has been implied that these experts could not h»»o come to the conclusion that True -7aa insane ualess they had been imbued with certain doubtful doctrines which they are supposed to have derived from the work of the psy-cho-analysts. Probably no one 'was more surprised than the-experts themselves that they should have been suspected of Freudian leanings. . Two main imputations have been made concerning Freudian teaching' in regard to this matter. In the first place, it has been (Suggested, that there is a peculiarity Freudian view of insanity according to which everyone, who shows the slightest signs of mental aberration or abnormality of conduct is regarded as insane. A contemporary says: "According to the Freudian schoolof psycho-analysis very few persons are, strictly speaking, sane. In the seoond place, it ie implied that psychoanalysts hold that a man who commiU a prime cannot help doing so, and that consequently there is no suchthing as moral responsibility or just punishment. There are, however, no ground* whatever for regarding these views as peculiar to or distinctive of psycho-analytical doctrine. Psycho-analysts have no ontoria of insanity different from those made use of by psychiatrists in general, and the problem of moral responsibility is not a questkm of psychology at all, and'consequently not one in which psycho-analysts are m.any way specially qualified to form an opinion. ■ " ' , "ALL A LITTLE INSANE." > Toe truth is that both of these viewi which have been wrongly attribuW to the psycho-analysts, are ways of looking at certain probteme of Me and mind that are by no mean* n»w. To say that we are all «, little insane i» merely to subscribe to the weil-known dictum that there are no hard-aod-faat licet i n nature. Moebiua said long, ago that we are all a little hyitenoeJ. and no one has ever attempted, to deny this statement. I» the same sense it jnay be eaid that we are all a little insane. It m really a g"*«t»<>» «f word* and the arbitrary draw- »«* «_ to»». which, for practical, purposed, mustb» dnm, somewhere. But there i» nothmff peculiar to Freudian teaching in' this recognition of the vagueness of the boundary between sanity and insanity, although it finds some support in the psy-cho-analyst V demonstration of the innumerable ways in whioh the normal man merges into the neurotio and tlie neurotic into the insane. . .

The imputation of the denial of moral w»pon, l bilitar by psyoho-anaTyfts resto on the fact that they have adopted the ordinary scientific postulate of causation in their investisration of the mind, and hold that all our thoughts and actions are psychically determined " But this is no new doctrine. In philosophy Jt is met with as far back as Spinoza at least, and in theology it formed the basis of St. Augustine'is epnvietion that only'by made1 can man be caved; •; .'-,',

The. true bearing? of Freudian doctrine on crime and, insanity oak- be fully »i>appreciated only, by thole wSb make a thoroußh; study of the psychtUoalyticai theory of the Unoonacioue, and k> learn something of the part played in the life of every one of us by this hidden region of ttte mind. Yet it is perhaps possible to give in a few words a general outline of the principles involved. PRIMITIVE TENDENCIES. ■ The theory of evolution has prepared us to acknowledge the preaence of something of 'the ape and tiger in us"—the residual, legacy of our. pre-human aaceitry; and psyoho-anslyaiß had been occupied #in tracing the evidences of these primitive tendencies' in ito human mind, and of discovering the way* in which civilised man has attempted, more or less successfully, to deal with them. These primitive impulses are part of the innate inheritance of each of ua, and psychoanalysts maintain that the energies pertaining to them, are indestructible. These tendencies o&nnot be destroyed or abolished, but they can be banished from consciousness and transformed or "sublimated" to that they find expression in ways that are socially acceptable and valuable. Some of these primitive tendencies are tenanted by civilised man as beinff morally reprehensible or aesthetically undesirable, and some of them as beingl definitely anti-social. It is these latter, more particularly. Which, when they come to fruition in adult conduct, •re held to be criminal. "■ ' '• The transition from the brute to the human in evolutionary history oannot be discussed here, but it must be believed that in th 6 course of ages of cultural development the more distinctively human traits, as well as the more primitive animal tendencies, came to be inherited; and in. each, individual life these inherited human traits, reinforced by training, in the moral tradition of civilisation, form a system of forces or tendencies in the mind which are opposed to the system of more primitive animal or brute tendencies. In the growing child these opposed systems oome into oonflict, and, as • result of this conflict, the mind becomes split—the unacceptable tendencies become 'repressed" and form the nucleus of that region of the mind which Freud calls the Unconscious. But although they are repressed and no longer oome into consciousness' they "are not destroyed, and some'outlet for their energies must be found. ' ' The normal, fate of these repressed tendenoies is their so-called lublimation into forms of activity which are acceptable to the indivdual and to the community. In this way their energies aret drained off and; flow into channels that lead to all that is beet in human life. But when such sublimation tis not successful, an unconscious conflict ensues between the repressing forces (derived from the moral, aesthetic, social self) and the repressed tendencies which are always trying to get back into oonaciouaneu. "' ' . When the repressing forms partially fail the repressed tendencies may find a disguised, substitute expression in neurotio symptoms. A similar disguise of the nature of the unconscious tendencies is found in dreams, for in sl**p the repressing forces are less active; and if, m waking life, the repressing forces are reduced to the level to which they normally fall during sleep, the result is "insanity." Insanity is a dream from which th* dreamer has not, wakened. ■;. t When the repression fails more completely., or when it has never attained sufficient powgr, the primitive tendencies enter undisguised into conscious life and conduct. In the case of impulses directly related Tto the sexual life.; this incursion of primitive tendencies is known as; sexual perversion; when the impules, are of a manifestly anti-social character the result is "crime." , ■ .■