Causation and Treatment of Psychopathic Diseases

THE CAUSATION AND TREATMENT OF PSYCHOPATHIC DISEASES

Boris Sidis, Ph.D., M.D.
Boston: R. Badger, 1916

IN the reverse process, in the process of a moment’s rise from the subconscious to the conscious, intermediary stages are not always requisite. The moment, buried in the obscure regions of the subconscious, may be lightened up with intense focal light of consciousness without passing through any intermediary stages. The direct or fading process is the dying away of light, the reverse process is the blazing up of a torch or the explosion of gun-powder. When we come to discuss the physiological aspect of the two processes, we shall see that there is a good reason for this difference. Meanwhile we confine ourselves to the statement of this difference between the manifestations of the two processes from a purely psychological standpoint.

That intermediary stages of consciousness-intensity are not necessary and often dropped in the reverse process, or in the process of the moment's rising from the subconscious to the conscious, we may clearly see from such a commonplace example as the forgetting of a once familiar name. We look and search for the name, we try all manner of clues, we strain our attention in the search after the lost link, but of no avail. In fact, the more we try the more we feel barred from the place where that lost link is to be found; we feel lost and wandering, and finally give up the whole affair in great despair and turn to something else. In the middle of our work when we have fully forgotten all about the search of the forgotten word, the name shoots up. No intermediary stage is passed, the whole state flares up at once.

The solution of difficult and complicated problems, of discoveries and inventions are known to occur in this way. Similarly in the phenomena of the various forms of sensory and motor automatisms the sensory images or the motor reactions, expressive of the rising psychic state, gush up suddenly from the depth of the subconscious self. They come complete, like Minerva out of Jove’s head.

In hypnosis again, ideas and sensory motor reactions, induced by suggestion in hypnotic states to occur post-hypnotically or in the so-called hypnonergic state, may flash suddenly upon the mind of the subject. While in trance the subject may be told a word or a phrase and suggested that he should be unable to remember it on awakening, but that when he hears the word “now” coming from the experimenter, he should be able to remember. On emerging from the trance state the subject cannot voluntarily remember that word or phrase, although it may just be, as some say, on the tip of his tongue; he may be in a condition similar to the one when searching after a familiar word, but which somehow constantly eludes his mental grasp. Generally though, if the subject falls into deep hypnosis, his amnesia is complete and he cannot remember anything about the word, just as if it has been erased from his memory. No sooner, however, does the signal “now” reach him than the forgotten word or phrase immediately and instantly flashes upon his mind.

This sudden, “impulsive” rise of moments from the subconscious into the light of central consciousness can be even more clearly seen, more concretely realized, so to say, in the post hypnotic suggestion of the motor character. During hypnosis the subject is suggested to do a certain act on perceiving a certain signal, but that he should not have the least memory of what he is going to do before the signal is given. On coming out of the hypnotic trance, if this be deep, he remembers nothing and may engage in something else; no sooner does he perceive the signal than he jumps up and carries out the suggested act with great impetuosity and lightning-like rapidity. The suggested psychomotor reaction, hidden subconsciously, appears in the light of consciousness as instantly as the discharge of the gun at the release of the trigger, or as the ring of the electric bell at the touch of the button.

If we turn to psychopathic cases, we once more meet with evidence of the same truth, we find instances the very essence of which consists in the fact that intermediary stages of the moment's transition from the subconscious to the conscious are completely wanting. The sudden onset of uncontrollable impulses and imperative ideas is notorious. Patients who have been quiet and listless for many months and even years rise suddenly, fell their attendant with one powerful blow, and immediately after return to their previous, listless state. The outburst is instantaneous. Suicidal and homicidal impulses; accompanying various forms of mental alienations, may have a sudden onset, and vanish as abruptly as they come.

Imperative ideas may also have the same flash-like appearance. The idea enters the mind suddenly, torments the patient by its insistency and then somehow unaccountably vanishes. These impulses and ideas are like meteors, they appear lightning-like on the mind’s horizon, and then drop out of sight. Thus all the adduced facts now verge to one truth that reverse procession of a moment from the subconscious region to the light of consciousness need not be through intermediary stages.

It may also be pointed out that the same lack of intermediary stages holds true of the moment’s retrograde movement when falling back into the regions whence it has appeared into the focus of the upper consciousness. In fact, we may say that this fit-like process is often even more characteristic of the returning of the moment into the subconscious than of its coming. We all have experienced the fact how some ideas, whether familiar or not, often flash across the mind and the next moment disappear as mysteriously and as tracelessly as they come; they drop into the subconscious before the upper consciousness can seize on them, fixate them, and have them assimilated. Hypnoidal states are of such a nature; they are sudden upheavals from the depth of the subconscious, they often disappear from consciousness as suddenly as they appear. The same we find in the case of uncontrollable impulses, they invade consciousness, and get possession of it, like an attack, and then seemingly drop out of sight, sometimes not even as much as a trace or a vague memory is left.

In the states of hypnosis such coming and going of subconscious moments can be investigated more closely. During hypnosis a story may be told to the subject, and then a suggestion given that on awakening at the giving of a signal, at the hearing of a sound, the story should occur to the subject's mind, but not before, and that the subject should relate it, but that as soon as he finishes, the whole thing should immediately lapse from his consciousness. If the subject takes post-hypnotic suggestion, and is capable of that stage of hypnosis where amnesia can be induced, then the rise and fall of subconscious moments are almost instantaneous, palpably demonstrating the truth that the subconscious moment does not necessarily require to pass transitional stages in consciousness, whether forwards or backwards, whether it enters from the subconscious to the focus of consciousness or leaves the focus to be sunk into the subconscious.

This law of reversion with its want of intermediary stages in the history of the rise and fall of the subconscious moment is not uniform. The subconscious moment may rise slowly, pass in a general, rough form intermediary stages of intensity of consciousness, enter the focus, and may again in departing fade away slowly, by degrees, passing through all grades of consciousness-intensity in its backward course. This is especially frequent in cases when the given moment rises spontaneously from a great depth of the subconscious. The moment seems to struggle on its way with many obstacles, hence its oscillations, its many failures in its rise to full intensity.

The same thing occurs in the different forms of sensory and motor automatisms, also in states of hallucinations and in some hallucinations found in the dream consciousness. The reversion of the moment is accompanied by increased sensory intensity, assimilating on its way in the reverse direction from the subconscious to the focus of consciousness as many experiences as possible with their primary and secondary sensory elements.* The sensory intensity gains in proportion as the vividness and clearness of abstract associations diminish in activity. The moment, buried in the depth of the subconsciousness, does not stand out clear and distinct, but often struggles up in an aborted form as a series of failures, blunders, and errors.

This reversion of the moment from the subconscious, this rise of the hidden moment to the focus of consciousness, and the subsequent recession into the subconsciousness, with the increase of sensory intensity as the moment forces its way in the reverse direction from the subconscious to the conscious may be termed the law of moment reversion, while the two movements, the reversion and the recession, constitute the cyclical movement of the moment consciousness.