Dynamic psychology : an introduction to modern psychological theory and practice

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Preface

THE present work is an attempt to present the essentials of a course in Psychology that will give the student:

(a) An insight into the modern trends of Psychology; (b) a foundation for a practical understanding of his own inner life that will be of assistance to him in the solution of the mental difficulties that continually arise in the course of an ordinary existence, and (c) an introduction to the clinical problems of Psychology that will open the way to an appreciation of borderline mental cases and a technique for handling them, should a medical training lead him further into this field.

While the aim of this work is to give a practical introduction to Psychology, the points of contact between Psychology and Philosophy have not been ignored.

The now broad field of mental tests has not been entered because this has become a special division of Psychology, and a practical treatment of the subject would demand a separate volume.

The work is based upon years of studying and teaching Psychology and the practical experience of handling patients as Director of the Clinic for Mental and Nervous Diseases at the Providence Hospital, Washington, D. C., and during the war as Captain and Major in the Medical Corps of the United States Army in this country and in France. Experimental Psychology and Human Pathology have been drawn upon to clear up certain theoretical points and to present the most important evidence on the theoretical problems discussed.

A glossary of technical terms has been added for the convenience of the general reader.

It is to be hoped that the work will be of real service, not only to those who study Psychology as a part of a liberal education, v mer vi PREFACE but also to spiritual advisors, professional psychologists, social workers, and physicians in their daily work.

Since the name Dynamic Psychology was previously used by Professor Woodworth, of Columbia, as the title of one of his publications, I wrote him before publishing this work, and he graciously welcomed another book bearing the same title as his earlier volume.

The chapter on the Psychotaxes and the Parataxes appeared in the Psychoanalytic Review in April, 1921, along with a discussion, omitted in the text, of the concept of the Parataxis as a specific medical diagnosis applicable to certain borderline cases. The Editor, Doctor White, has kindly given permission to make use of the material in this volume. The chapter on the Sensations Involved in Voluntary Movements and that on the Pathology of Voluntary Action were recently published in the International Clinics with the understanding that they were about to be published in this volume.

My thanks are due to Monsignor Pace and Doctor Kerby, of the Catholic University, for reading the manuscript, and to my assistants Mr. John W. Rauth, for attending to the illustrations for me during my absence from the country, and Mr. T. G. Foran for reading the proof. I am also indebted to Dom Aidan Baldwin for assistance in the proofreading.

Tomas VERNER Moore.

March 21, 1924.

Part I The Analysis Of Mind

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CONTENTS

PART VI VOLITIONAL CONTROL

VoLUNTARY ACTION AND THE AcT OF WILL...........ecceeee 311 VotuntTARY MoveMENT AND THE THEORY oF IpEoMOTOR ACTION 321 Votuntary MoveMENT AND THE THEORY OF CoNCEPTUAL ConTROL 331

Kinetic Units In THE Service oF VoLUNTARY ACTION....... 343 Tue SENSATIONS INVOLVED In VOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS....... 349 THe PatHoLtoGy oF VOLUNTARY ACTION.........cccccceccece 368 I Tae TUN PU 0a nk es «ciacmsourmiteeine! 4 nee 392 CONCLUSION pe re ene hee ey pre OR tee Ce 402 Guossamr Or TROMNICAL TORMB.... 0.6.6.0 ccascccccccevce 412 ar EER UD © dus yksccmnaye cavcavamest 429

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DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY

Chapter I

THERE is no definition of psychology at the present day that meets with the approval of all students of the science. This lack of unity in the modern concept of psychology is due to several factors.

1. The close relation of psychology to philosophy, from which it has budded off as an independent study.

Metaphysical concepts, one might even say prejudices, are more potent factors in the minds of all men, even scientists, than many would be willing to admit. Different metaphysical attitudes really influence the ideas of the psychologists as to the nature of psychology.

2. Modern psychology is a relatively young science and only in its maturity does a science really crystallize its definition.

3. Psychology is a rapidly growing science splitting up into various subforms, begetting a numerous progeny so that it is hard to decide among its various heirs which is the rightful successor to the name.

This being the ease, it is fairer to the student to let him know what psychology has been in the past and from the historical facts deduce the concept of what should be regarded as truly expressing the nature of psychology.

We are confronted with a difficulty at the outset. The name, psychology, is a comparatively recent invention. It is by no means as old as the science itself and was utterly unknown when psychological problems were first discussed in the days of the Greek Sophists. The name, therefore, does not necessarily define for us the science. Were we to take the roots of the word psychology which comes to us from the reformer Melanchthon,?

*Melanchthon, Philip, a German Reformer, 1497-1560, Murray’s New English Dictionary, p. 314, Vol. VI, 1904.

psychology would mean the science of the soul: déyos, a root taken, nowadays, to indicate science and ¢vy7, soul.

This, however, was not the original concept of psychology. If we go back to the first psychological treatise or group of psychological treatises, we find them in the De Anima and Parva Naturalia of Aristotle. If we look into Aristotle’s treatise, De Amma, we shall see that it really is an attempt to analyze the facts of our mental life. If, however, we wished to give a modern name to the various works grouped together as Aristotle’s psychology, this name would be biology rather than psychology, for the discipline that they treat of is said to be the science of life in all its manifestations. Life, according to him, is that which is capable of at least nutrition, growth and decay. Besides these fundamental essentials of life, which are found even in plant organisms, there is the fuller life of sensation manifested in animals and of the higher thought processes manifested in man. In the special treatise on ‘‘ The Soul ”’ Aristotle pays attention mainly to the analysis of sensation and the thought processes of human intellectual life. Bound up with his treatise on the soul were several minor treatises that were termed Parva Naturalia. The very titles alone indicate a body of knowledge which extends beyond the metaphysical discussion of the nature of the soul, its freedom, immortality, and other such problems that philosophy now claims as its own.

The titles of the Parva Naturalia were as follows: Concerning Sensation and That Which Is Sensed; Concerning Memory and Forgetting;

Concerning Sleep and Awakening;

Concerning Dreams ;

Concerning the Interpretation of Dreams; Concerning a Long Life and a Short Life; Concerning Youth and Old Age;

Concerning Life and Death;

Concerning Respiration.

When we read these titles we see that the first great psychologist made an attempt, very bold for the fourth century

B.C., to delve into what we now term physiological psychology and even into problems which the most modern of psychological disciplines, psychoanalysis, has claimed as its own.

Throughout the Middle Ages several treatises were written which adopted as their title the De Anima used first by Aristotle. These treatises, however, were written from the metaphysical point of view.

The name psychology, as we have seen, was used by Melanchthon in the sixteenth century. A hundred years later, Christian Wolff (1679-1754) employed the term rational and empirical psychology. This terminology of Wolff has continued down to the present day with, however, a modification in the meaning of the terms. According to Wolff, there are two methods of studying the soul—the method of reason and the method of experience. Rational psychology investigates the soul by reason; empirical psychology investigates it by experience. From this point of view rational and empirical psychology cover the same field but by a different method. It was soon seen that reason could investigate some problems and empirical research others. It is not possible to study all the problems of psychology by the same method. The distinction, therefore, between rational and empirical psychology became one both of field and of method, rational psychology undertaking to study the metaphysical problems, the nature and origin of the soul, and empirical psychology confining itself to the phenomena of the mind. There was but little progress made in this empirical investigation until physies and physiology had developed methods of study which could be applied to the sensory life of man. When this development was attained, physiologists began to investigate the relation between the stimulus and the sensation which it produces. This was in the first half of the nineteenth century. The original investigators were physiologists.

Empirical psychology, as a real scientific discipline, had its birth in physiology and not in the philosophy of Christian Wolff. A new science was begotten which was first termed psychophysics and later, physiological psychology, and then, experimental psychology, and, occasionally, empirical psychology.

The first work which we may look upon as a treatise in extenso of the new science was Gustav Theodor Fechner’s Elements of Psychophysics, the first volume of which appeared in 1859, the second in 1860. He thus defines psychophysics: ‘‘ An exact science of the functional relations of dependence between body and mind or, more generally, between the bodily and mental or the physical and psychical world.’’ (P. 8.)

The term ‘‘ soul ’’ Fechner understood in a very broad sense. In fact, it embraced everything apprehended by inner experience or that could be deduced from inner experience. By the term ‘‘ body ’’ he understood everything that could be perceived by outer experience, that is, by the senses, or could be inferred from these perceptions.

In 1874 two important works on psychology appeared—one was that of Brentano, Psychology from the Empirical Standpoint. He gave a definition of psychology, which became very popular and until recent days was the commonly accepted definition of psychology, namely, psychology is the science of psychic phenomena, that is, of conscious processes. He attempted to show that this definition meant neither more nor less than, psychology is the science of the soul. He adopted this definition because it implied no metaphysical theory whereas the old definition did.

The second great work on empirical psychology which appeared in 1874 was destined to go through six editions and to become the classic work on psychology and has been superseded by no other until the present day. This was Wundt’s Outlines of Physiological Psychology. In his first edition he thus contrasted physiology and psychology: ‘‘ Physiology supplies us with information concerning those vital phenomena which may be perceived by the outer sense. In psychology, however, man beholds himself from within and tries to explain the interrelation of those phenomena which introspection presents to his view.’’ ?

*Grundziige der physiologischen Psychologie, Leipzig, 1874, first edition, p. 1.

A number of psychologists adopted the definition of Brentano, so that psychology was usually defined as the science of conscious processes or the science of the facts of the phenomena of self or the science of consciousness.

In the meantime, experimentalists were attempting not only to investigate the mental life of man but also to throw some light upon the much discussed problem of animal intelligence. There is, however, this difficulty about the investigation of animal psychology. One can give the animal no verbal instructions; and when one is through with the experiment, one can ask the animal no questions. It is, therefore, necessary to make use of purely objective methods, that is to say, to put the animal in various situations and watch its behavior. One puts a dog in a box, for example, that can be opened by a latch and watches how it gets out and measures the time it takes to liberate itself in successive trials, and thus investigates the time curve in the animal’s process of learning.

This objective method of procedure threw a great deal of light on the problem of animal behavior and even gave some insight into the probable nature of animal intelligence as compared with human nature. Those who made use of the method were so thrilled with their success that they wished to apply the same method to the study of the human mind. This they proceeded to do, and this they had every right to do and might hope to obtain and did obtain a number of very interesting results.

Unfortunately, the human mind has a monistie tendency to extreme simplification, which manifests itself under various disguises. Ifa principle finds valuable application anywhere, some wish to extend it so as to explain everything, and so animal psychologists were not satisfied with applying objective methods to human psychology but commenced to maintain that no other methods whatever were applicable to the mind of man. One must treat a human being as one would an animal. One must ask the subject in the psychological laboratory no questions at all. One must never demand any introspection. One must confine oneself to the objective method. Thus, Watson defines psychology as ‘‘ a purely objective branch of natural science.’’ Its theoretieal goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of the data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness.®

After the denial of the value of an appeal to consciousness in the study of psychology, extremists went on to maintain that there is no such thing as consciousness. This extreme attitude seems even to have been adopted by James in his later days. ““ For twenty years past,’’ he says, ‘‘ I have mistrusted eonsciousness as an entity; for seven or eight years past I have suggested its non-existence to my students .. . It seems to me that the hour is ripe for it to be openly and universally discarded.’’ +

This school which would define psychology as the science of behavior is known as Behaviorism, and its adherents as Behaviorists.

It is difficult for one to understand this denial of consciousness without an insight into Behaviorism as an outgrowth from animal psychology. With this foundation, however, and keeping in mind the natural tendency of some personalities to all embracing monistic concepts and sweeping denials and affirmations, and not forgetting either the delight of the radicals to shock the sensibilities of the conservatives, and the craving of every man to bring forward something new and startling, we may understand the ‘‘ psychology ’’ of the Behaviorists though we may have serious misgivings as to the solidity of its logical foundations.

The Behaviorist certainly has every right to investigate behavior to the exclusion of consciousness, if he will. When, however, he maintains that psychology is solely the science of external behavior and not an analysis of inner experience, he has no historical foundation for thus limiting the term ‘‘ psychology.’’ It may be difficult to study our inner mental life, but it is undoubtedly a field of investigation and a field of investigation which has long been termed by the name of psychology. This inner mental life is of interest to many investigators, and they

Watson, New York, 1914, p. 1.

“Quoted by Frost, Psychological Review, 1914, XXI, p. 204.

have every right historically to term this science of our inner mental life psychology. It is impossible to investigate everything in our mental life by objective methods for this inner experience is far richer than its manifestations by actions or reactions that can be the objects of an external observer’s experience.

Nor has Behaviorism been able to attain its goal and predict and control human behavior. A pure Behaviorist would have little place in a psychological clinic or the schoolroom or the Juvenile Court, ete. Whenever one wishes to understand any of the real problems of mental conflict, or penetrate into the real causes of the difficulties of life, one has to obtain introspections from the patient in trouble. His reactions alone will not give the insight into his personality that is necessary in order to give him the help he needs. Psychology should enable us to solve the difficulties of the human race as well as to investigate the eurve of learning in white rats, dogs, cats or human organisms.

In recent times there has been a return to the older concept of psychology as the science of the soul. This tendency is found in Miss Calkins’ definition of psychology as the science of the self. To conceive of psychology as the science of individual beings has certain advantages over the conception of psychology as the science of conscious processes. When we study psychology we really seek an insight into the mind and mental life of the individual. We hope for a science which will enable us to interpret not human behavior in general, but the particular behavior of some individual whom we are trying to influence. We may be interested in psychological theory and in the nature of conscious processes as such, but psychological interest does not terminate with pulling the mind to pieces. No analysis is ever satisfactory as a final result. We wish to try to put things together—to synthesize. We study, therefore, in psychology not isolated states of consciousness alone but the mental mechanisms of behavior which are manifested by individual human beings. Psychology, therefore, in the sense of human psychology, may be defined as the science of the human personality. It is not necessary in a definition of this kind to assume any theory of | human personality but only that there are personalities, individual human beings who may be studied from the point of view of their mental life and the mechanisms of their behavior. To say that psychology is the science of the soul assumes at the outset a metaphysical theory. It is better to start on common ground. Psychology is not the science of the brain. It is not physiology, the science of the functions of the organs of the body. It is not biology, the science of life in general, as Aristotle defines it. Psychology is merely the science of human beings developed by an analysis of their mental life by experiments, by observations, by everything that will enable us to obtain insight into the minds of men—how they know, how they think, how they reason, how they feel, how they react in the difficulties of life.

RELATION OF PsycHoLoGy TO OTHER SCIENCES

The question is often raised, is psychology a natural science? Before answering this question we may ask ourselves, in the first place, is psychology a science at all? What, we may ask, is a science? A science is a branch of knowledge which seeks an explanation of a correlated group of phenomena or events. Does psychology seek an explanation of a definite field of factual experience? It most certainly does. The facts of experience which are studied in psychology are the facts of our mental life. The task of psychology is not merely to describe these phenomena but to explain them. In this sense, therefore, psychology is a science.

Now we may ask the further question, is psychology a natural science? A natural science may be looked upon as one whose explanations are in terms of nature, that is to say, physical motion. The explanations of a natural science must be given according to this concept in terms of matter and energy. We may say rather in terms of energy than of matter, for in most of the explanations of natural science matter does not enter into the question, but only the amount of energy before and after a given event. Natural sciences, so far as their ultimate explanations are concerned, have to do with the manifestations and transformations of energy. Energy is conceived of as the cause of motion, whether of atoms or of masses. Anything that sets in motion a part of matter, whether an atom or a planet, is energy. Can mental phenomena be conceived of in terms of the motion of atoms or of masses? If we limit ourselves to such explanations as this, we can hardly get beyond physics. We can measure stimuli, we can correlate stimuli with sensations, and when we have done all this we have scarcely trodden upon the field of psychology at all. Psychological explanations are really on a very different basis from physiological. One might learn all about the energy transformations going on in the human body, measure the quantity of food taken and the amount of work done by a human being, and yet one would not understand the true motives of his behavior. If a man appeared to be paralyzed and one understood that the paralysis was not due to any actual injury to the nervous system but to a state of mind, for example, to a desire to get compensation from a railroad company because of the fact that he was in an accident in which he was not really hurt—if one knew all this about a man one would understand his behavior far better than through any insight given by profound chemical studies which might be made of the balance between the energy taken in his food and the energy manifested in his work.

Physiological explanations do not help us to understand purely mental facts. It is not likely that they ever will, nor will the principles of physiology enable us, as a general rule, to modify the behavior of criminals or of a psychoneurotic or of an unruly child, ete. This does not mean that physiology may be dispensed with in the study of human behavior. It merely points out that human behavior is not completely explained or understood by an appeal to principles which are strictly those of natural science. Psychology, therefore, is not in the strict sense of the word a natural science. We shall see as we go on that this does not prevent it from being an experimental science or an empirical science. It has many points of contact with the natural sciences. It relies upon physics for information about the stimuli which are capable of producing sensation. Without a knowledge of physics we could not understand how we see, hear, touch, taste, smell, ete. Physics, however, carries us only so far. It leaves us at the threshold of the bodily organism in which we live. When a stimulus impinges upon one of our sense organs many things happen in that sense organ before we become conscious of something in the outside world. Physiology has investigated the sense organs, the nerves, the brain through which we receive information about the outside world. As psychologists therefore, we wish to learn as much as possible about the way in which we know. Physiology is a very important aid to psychology. One who would become a psychologist cannot get along without a good knowledge of the principles of physiology.

Chapter II Consciousness

PsycHOLoey, as we have defined it, is the science of the human personality. What characterizes the human personality most specifically is its mode of conscious behavior. It is perhaps on this account that some psychologists have chosen as their definition: Psychology is the science of conscious processes.

Though the mind cannot satisfy itself with the study of these isolated processes, nevertheless it is necessary for us to analyze consciousness before we can attempt to obtain that synthetic knowledge which gives us an insight into the workings of any individual mind. It is necessary, furthermore, to have names to designate the phenomena we observe. It is necessary to apply those names in a scientific manner, always univocally designating the same fact of observation. Hence, it is necessary, even in dynamic psychology, to know something about the elements of our mental life.

We shall prelude this analysis of our mental life by asking ourselves, first, what, after all, is consciousness itself? This is particularly useful inasmuch as some psychologists have denied the existence of consciousness. If, therefore, the fundamental fact of our mental life is apparently in doubt, it is necessary for us to point out clearly just what we mean by this fundamental fact.

James has likened consciousness to a flowing stream. The analogy is, after all, an apt one. It suggests the continuity of our waking experience. This waking experience is roughly what we understand by consciousness. Man is said to be conscious or uneonscious. What goes on in his mind when he is said to be conscious constitutes his consciousness. In other words, consciousness is a generic term that we use to designate the various forms of experience that we are aware of in our mental life. When, therefore, we say that the human mind is conscious or

. 13 possesses consciousness, we do not mean to maintain that there is any generic mental experience over and above the specific forms of which we are aware. To do so would be to lose sight of the meaning of generic terms. Trees exist but there is no tree which is not a special kind of tree, which is neither oak nor maple nor elm nor hickory nor walnut, but only a tree. So, also, consciousness exists, but there is no consciousness apart from the specific forms in which it manifests itself. Thus we are conscious when we think, we see, we hear, we are angry, we are annoyed, we are joyful, we are sad, ete. By consciousness, therefore, we merely mean to designate the manifold experiences of our waking life, and no one can deny that we do have experiences of some sort in our waking life.

James’ figure, which compares consciousness to a flowing stream, truly points out the continuity of our mental life. For certainly in our normal waking life the modes of experience vary, but there are no lapses such as occasionally take place when an epileptic has a petit mal attack, becomes dazed for a moment and knows nothing of what may transpire during his lapse of consciousness, The normal human being in his waking life knows no such lapses. He may be distracted, his thought may not follow any one direction for a very long time, but consciousness in some form is always present. And though sensations come suddenly, and disappear when they do come, they do not awaken us from a state of unconsciousness but suddenly break our flow of thought, as when the river in its downward course meets a rocky crag and breaks in bubbling streamers on either side. So our waking life is one continuous flow of experiences whose character is much more varied than the water in any stream.

Is consciousness ever interrupted? In sleep it seems that consciousness ceases, but no one can ever remember the exact moment of becoming unconscious even in sleep. Consciousness seems to fade into another type of experience of which we have fragments in our memory when we awaken and recall to mind the fragments of our dreams. It is not clear that dream-life itself is not a continuous, unbroken stream of conscious experi-