HUMAN COMPLEXES

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 130, 4 June 1938, Page 14

HUMAN COMPLEXES

EFFECT ON LIFE

METHODS OF CONTROL

The Lower Hutt W.E.A. Class "In psychology met on Wednesday night, when Dr. A. G. Butchers gave a lecture on "Complexes." ,

Human complexes, he said, are not pre-natally inherited as, for instance, are the nest-building complexes of the birds, but are acquired habit systems. They are distinguisned from purely muscular habit systems by being charged, more or less deeply, with i emotion. They may be built in (1) by circumstances without our realisation of what is taking place; (2) by organised conditioning by parents, teachers, church, and State; (3) by intelligent and deliberate self-control. The increasing breakdown of the sanctions of religion which for generations past sufficed to condition and ensure the moral behaviour of mankind has led modern democratic States to concentrate on the development of strong and self-reliant individuality in its citizens. The totalitarian Governments on the other hatjd, are concentrating all their energies upon a thoroughly behavjoristic effort to "collectivise" their citizens into "mass men and women." MENTAL DISHARMONY.

Just as our first experiences tend to associate together and to form complexes, so, as life proceeds, the various complexes develop in normal folk lines to inter-communication, by which is made possible their integration into one harmonious whole, the personality itself. Where, by reason of conflicting complexes, as commonly happens, such harmonious integration is impracticable, men and women are forced to have recourse to various devices in their efforts to secure peace of mind and respite from the unceasing and nerve-racking discord. .The human individual has limited stores of available energy which may easily be dissipated in passionate but futile outbursts of hate, rage, or grief, leaving the mechanism jangled and exhausted and incapable of even moderate mental effort. In harmonious lives, whether consciously, or not, this energy is satisfactorily distributed so as to enable all the complexes to be adequately supplied and adequately exercised. But where the complexes are at variance there is always the possibility that some one of them, generally that of self or sex, may monopolise all the available energy and, in consequence, bring the personality to disaster. SUBDUING THE COMPLEX.-

There are several well-known modes of seeking to obviate such a possibility. These are (1) repression, which is .a drastic and dangerous form of active forgetting; (2) segregation or compartmenting, as when a business man has two separate systems of morality—the one for his private social intercourse, the other for his business or commercial intercourse, with his fellow men; (3) rationalisation, or self-justification, which is a species of casuistry such as is embodied in the well-known excuse of the bad workman who proverbially finds fault with his tools; or that of the martinet whether in army, workshop, or school, who justifies the petty tyranny which he exercises over his subordinates on the ground that discipline must be maintained, when it can really be better-maintained without such tyranny; (4) organised neglect, or slow starvation; which is better than repression in so far as' it provides a safety-valve for the escape of accumulating emotional energy, a t classic example being De Quincey's victory over his opium-eating complex; (5) diversion or sublimation, the former being a simple transference of energy from the discarded complex to a new one, as when a man gives up tennis for golf; "or changes from one vocation to another; the latter being the substitution of a higher for a lower interest, as where mischievous habits in child or adult are overcome by the provision of new and sufficiently-interest-ing occupations of a healthier and worthier type.

SAFE AND UNSAFE WAYS. Of all these modes of dealing with complexes that are not in harmony with the personality as a whole, two, segregation and rationalisation, are cowardly and unworthy in that they seek to retain within the personality the offending complex, at the same time deceitfully endeavouring to conceal its presence from the major part of the personality. The result is a divided personality, which is a source of unending and severe psychic strain, the classic example being that of Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Of the remainder, which are honest attempts to deal with admittedly-difficult problems, repression is the most dangerous. Often successful in matters of comparatively light emotional intensity such as giving up smoking, or even alcohol, it generally fails when applied to complexes highly charged with emotional tone, and especially in problems of sex. Gradual starvation, if less heroic, is fraught with less risk of mental breakdown. By far the most effective as v/ell as the highest course is that of diversion or sublimation, reinforced by gradual starvation, or, if necessary, such measure of repression as can safely be maintained, of the complex which it is desired to bring into subjection.

THE IDEAL CHARACTER. Integration is the organisation of' all the complexes into a harmonious whole, the personality itself. It enables the whole of the available energy of the individual to be distributed to the best advantage amongst the constituent interests of the personality. It enables the whole weight of the personality to be, brought to bear upon any discordant'elements that may arise to threaten its internal harmony. Religion, love, and vocation all operate as powerful integrating factors in different individuals. The ideal character, however, is he whose integrating mechanism is the personality itself, within and under the control of which religion, love, calling, and all the other component complexes are welded into a self-reliant whole, "four square to all the winds that blow"—a happytempered bringer of the best out of the worst, who realises that for him, at least "there is no cutting the Gordian knots of life, each must be smilingly unravelled." An interesting discussion followed the lecture. The subject of next week's lecture will be "Society and Convention."

Burnside, New South Wales, 25 children; total 137, Upon reaching 16 years of age, the boys will be placed in farming employment and the girls in household work. The institutions responsible for their nomination Will attend to their after care. TOTAL NOMINATIONS. The total nominations under the scheme up to May were:—Group nominations, 820; personal nominations, 144; State requisitions, 42; child migration schemes, 137; total, 1143. The present migration scheme differs from the joint Commonwealth and State scheme of 1921 only to the extent that no provision is made for land settlement and that the Commonwealth will accept nominations submitted direct by nominators in addition to those endorsed by State Governments. Assisted passages will be provided by the United Kingdom and Commonwealth Governments on a 50-50 basis.