The autonomic functions and the personality

Front matter

(jfass.

Book

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Part I 3

Designation of the autonomic apparatus — the origin and necessity of the projicient apparatus — designation of the projicient apparatus — the organs constituting the autonomic apparatus — the priority of the " autonomic component " of the organism — postural changes in the projicient apparatus to suit the autonomic component.

Part II 17

The significance of the continuous activity of the proprioceptive circuit for postural tonus and the kinesthetic content's of the stream of consciousness — the dual nature of the striped muscle and the dependence of its postural tonus upon the proprioceptor circuit and the sympathetic motor neurone in the spinal cord — influence of autonomic-affective tensions upon the postural tonus of skeletal muscles — postural muscle tonus (kinesthesis, apperception, reflex imitation, and "understanding") — the postural tonus of the unstriped muscle — peripheral origin of the emotions in the autonomic apparatus — autonomic-affective tensions — postural traits and traits of character — pain and pleasure giving stimuli of distance receptors — similarity of physiological reactions to painful distance and contact receptors — metabolic reactions to fear of potential failure (increase of sugar and adrenin in blood, unfatigueability of muscle cells, decrease of coagulation time, increase of blood pressure and heart rate, changes in visceral volumes with shifting of blood supply for defense and attack and dilation of the bronchioles — fear and debilitated physiological states — "conditioning" of the autonomic-affective apparatus.

Part III 68

Continuity and complexity of the autonomic-affective stream — influence of the affective stream upon behavior — characteristic affective states and their influence upon behavior — (fear, anger, shame, disgust, sorrow, joy, anguish, love, jealousy, envy) — affective repression and fixation in the persistent postural tensions of the autonomic segment — influence of the repressed affect upon motor incoordinations

VI TABLE OF CONTENTS

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(accident's, errors, oversights, mistakes in speech, writing, dreams), the integration of the compensatory autonomic strivings for social esteem into a unity which constitutes the ego — the will and the wish — affective fixation and progressive divergence of character and social interests — affective summation and reinforcement, and reciprocal inhibition of affective cravings — affective conflict and dissociation of the personality — the essential difference between extroversion and introversion — affective progression and regression — affective readjustment, assimilation, sublimation, and coordination — acquisitive and avertive capacities of the personality — the use of the image of reality — memory — the nature of and the content of consciousness — the wishfulfilling mechanism of hallucinations, delusions, obsessions, misinterpretations, misrepresentations, and practical approximation of interpretation to reality.

Part IV 139

General Recapitulation — Speculation as to Man's place in Nature.

Preface

It has always seemed to me that the inability of earnest, intelligent students of medicine and psychology to grasp Freud's and Jung's libido concepts indicates that there must be something not quite satisfactory with the idea of libido. Although it attempts to give a more intimate portrayal of the energic constitution of man and his love of life, it loses clearness because the mind is unable to clearly conceive of a process without some thing to proceed. From another source — an old aversion for the clerical-academic, vague soul hypothesis and its unintelligible psychophysical parallelism — I have for some time felt that the only psychological conceptions that can be expected to endure must be founded entirely upon the functions of the reflex circuit and the autonomic apparatus.

The recent laboratory demonstrations of the peripheral autonomic origin of the craving for food (acquisitive-assimilative) and the craving to urinate (avertive-emissive), and the capacity of the dominant autonomic apparatus to become conditioned to react to indifferent stimuli, that have been coinci dentally associated with its primary stimuli, have permitted the completion of a conception of the personality on the basis of the conditioned autonomic reflex. Hence a dynamic mechanism, that can be visualized by the student, may be substituted for the libido concept.

I am particularly indebted, in order, to the works of Darwin, Sherrington, James, Freud, Cannon, von Bechterew and Watson, and and the teachings and personal influence of my teacher in psychology, Prof. Ernest Lindley ; in physiology, Profs. W. Moenkhaus and J. Macleod ; and in psychiatry, Prof. Adolf Meyer and Dr. W. A. White. From the thoughts and works of these men, scientific data, suggestions and theories finally became associated together for me in the following conception of the dynamic nature of the personality and its place in the great cosmic system.

I wish especially to express my thanks to Dr. White for his suggestions in the preparation of the book, and, to Dr. Stanley Cobb, Miss Clara Willard and Mrs. Kempf for suggestions in correcting the manuscript.

Edward J. Kempf

Introduction

In order to make a brief presentation of an autonomic principle that has extensive manifestations in all forms of the biocosmos it must be presumed that the reader has an elementary knowledge of biology and psychology, otherwise some of the discussion will seem barren of supporting facts.

This book has been written to show how the autonomic apparatus dominates the organism, and that the affections have their origin in the peripheral functions of this apparatus. Therefore the affections should be recognized as the dominating dynamic force of the personality and determine the nature of its normal and abnormal traits and behavior. A theory of the nentzalization mechanism of the autonomic or affective functions is proposed in the text and the psychological nature of its variations is presented so that the reader may use the theory and data in his work with biological and psychological problems. By developing a thoroughly dynamic conception of the personality the biologist and physiologist, the psychologist and psychiatrist, the clinician, the criminologist, and the social worker can acquire a far more intelligent insight into their problems. At present there is an unusually strong tendency among behaviorists and biologists to urge psychobiological conceptions that include the personality as a whole, following the suggestions of Hughlings Jackson, on the three integrative levels — structural, physiological and psychological. This is particularly valuable in that it discourages the adoption of the old, sinister soul-body, parallelistic notions of the personality which have so long diverted enthusiasm and obscured the vision of psychobiological researchers.

On the other hand the movement encourages the substitution of a practical monistic conception of the personality and promises marked practical results. The adoption of merely a monistic viewpoint, is, however, wholly insufficient. The history of philosophy shows that, as soon as a generation of researchers and students become familiar with monistic or parallelistic forms of thinking, the natural, irrepressible question arises, " Well, how does the mechanism as a unity actually work ? " Then follows an epidemic of speculative explanations which finally wears itself out and the preponderance of aggressive thought swings to the opposite side.

This monograph will probably arouse the charge of precocious

INTRODUCTION theorizing and I feel that the suppressive influence of this attitude, so widely characteristic of the multitude of American university professors, is so serious in its sterilizing influence upon original thinking that I wish to quote Charles Darwin, from his autobiography. Herein he reveals the attitude that enabled him to break away from the suppressive educational system of England and readjust, for a time it seems, the thinking methods of modern science. He says : " From my early youth I have had the strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed, that is, to group all facts under some general laws. These causes (pure love of natural science and the desire to be esteemed by his fellow naturalists) combined have given me the patience to reflect or ponder for any number of years over any unexplained problem." " I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it." " Science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them."

My theory of the dynamic nature of the personality is submitted to those whom it may interest with most decidedly the attitude, that no matter how enthusiastically I may ever regard it, it is only worth its working value. No theory or conception of life is worth being upheld as a creed except by those who need it to comfortably maintain affective repressions. A theory should only be submitted with the purpose that it shall be, if necessary, unreservedly modified so as to be inclusive of all facts. This was the method of Darwin and why should it not be the method of Science?

Until students of animal and human behavior learn to present behavioristic and psychopathological experiments and observations, affective mechanisms and basic principles, so that they are clearly translatable into the fundamental mechanisms of the integrative functions of the nervous system, they are in danger of working with fine psychobiological blanket phrases that merely cover up parallelistic forms of thinking. Since even two such thinkers seem unable to clearly understand one another it is highly imperative that students of human and animal behavior shall learn to think from a common, simple, yet comprehensive, practical attitude.

In order to develop a method of making and presenting clinical and behavioristic observations that will avoid the tangles of bodysoul or mind-matter parallelism, a new reeducational epoch of neurologizing and psychologizing is developing.

Evidence of this is already to be seen in the physiological works

INTRODUCTION XI

of Sherrington, Cannon, Crile, and others. Holt's adoption of the "wish" in his book on "The Freudian Wish" as the "first key which psychology has ever had which fitted and, moreover, the only one that psychology will ever need " (29, p. vii), indicates the nature of the physiological trend in academic psychology. As to the nature or source of the energy of the wish Holt says : " One will best, I think, not hypothecate to this end any such thing as ' psychic energy/ but look rather, for the energy so expended in the nervous system " (29, p. 4). This brings the student abruptly to the physiology of the emotions and the nature of the autonomic functions of the personality.

Watson, in his physiological work on " Behavior," in order to avoid the dilemma that always arises with the adoption of the parallelistic soul-body hypothesis, wholly ignored the function of consciousness, which rather weakened the monistic position, the phenomena attending consciousness being the last stronghold of the parallelist.

Consciousness of self is too omnipresent a fact to be disregarded. There is a distinct functional difference between the integrative functions of the unconscious and the fully conscious individual which lies in the persistent fact that in the latter consciousness of self exists, and in the former it does not. The assumption that in the unconscious animal some coordinating cerebral area or center is out of order is unsatisfactory, if it is held that in this center or centers consciousness of the functions of the rest of the body exists when the center is in proper working order, because cerebral pathology cannot demonstrate it even by elimination of each cerebral area. If it is, however, assumed that the afunctional brain area prevents the organism from reacting as an integrative unity to the special or sensational activity of some one or several of its parts and the result of this function of reacting as a unity is consciousness, that is awareness by the body as a whole of the hyper-activities of some division of itself, then the behaviorist and psycho-pathologist may deal with consciousness as a physiological phenomenon without being embarrassed by the mind-matter riddle.

The phenomenon of consciousness, as a result of the synthetic activity of the constituent parts of the organism, is as much of an entity or fact as a nerve cell is a synthetic structure; duration of existence not being a fundamental difference. There has been a sleight-of-hand movement in psychology to drop the term "consciousness " and adopt the term " awareness " in order to escape the Sphinx. If the above physiological conception of the mechanism of consciousness of self is true then the psycho-physiologist has an en-

Xll INTRODUCTION

tirely different problem to work out than that which the old cerebralizing notions created for him.

The psychological laboratory method of studying human behavior is peculiarly unsuited for the study of the spontaneous behavior of an adolescent or adult subject because the tendency to be conscious of himself continually interferes with the spontaneity and determination of his reactions. The individual who has learned to analyze the spontaneous adjustments and inspiraitons that occur in his daily life becomes aware of processes that the controlled-introspective method of analysis never permits him to recognize. Because of this the importance of the wish was not recognized until a patient's behavior demonstrated it to the founder of modern psychopathology — Sigmund Freud.

In the following study of the autonomic functions of the personality physiological and psychological, experimental data, psychopathological data, and observations of spontaneous behavior have been used to demonstrate the nature of the autonomic influence upon the structure and behavior of the individual.

The theory of the autonomic functions is presented before the discussion of the data, upon which it is formulated, in order that, if the reader will familiarize himself with it before reading the discussion, it may greatly facilitate considering the facts in the light of the theory.

The discussion of the autonomic functions and their fundamental law is naturally divided into its three manifestations — structural, physiological and psychological.

In Part I, the plan of the structure or anatomy of the higher organisms is discussed to show that since the process of atrophy of disuse tends to eliminate the useless material and movements on the one hand, and the growth of the useful tends to make permanent necessary material and movements on the other, the architecture of an animal should reveal in a general but reliable manner the fundamental law or process that determined the peculiar form of its existence. To be sure there are anatomical features that seem inexplicable on this hypothesis, probably because we are as yet not able to imagine an explanation, having insufficient data.

Part II is devoted to a consideration of such physiological data as are suited to demonstrate the dominant nature of the autonomic apparatus. The interpretation of (i) the continuity of postural tonus of the striped muscles as the source of a continuous kinesthetic stream, and of (2) the unstriped muscles as the source of a continuous affective stream, is based principally on the physiological re-

INTRODUCTION Xlll

searches of Sherrington and Langelaan and on introspective observations of spontaneous reactions. Researches of Cannon and Sherrington on the nature and origin of hunger and fear, and the laboratory demonstration of the peripheral origin of the desire to urinate are advanced to demonstrate the peripheral origin of the affective cravings in the autonomic functions.

It is but proper to acknowledge here that Cannon and Sherrington were inclined, from their researches, to believe in the cerebral (central) origin of the emotions in the sense that the autonomic changes resulted from cerebral-emotional disturbances. The same research material, plus other data, is used in order to show that emotions are not experienced upon the cerebral changes that precede the autonomic changes, but that an emotion only comes into existence as the peripheral autonomic reactions become active.

Liberal use is made of Cannon's work on the bodily effects of pain to show that a painful stimulus, whether contact, visual or auditory, so disturbs the autonomic apparatus that its peculiar state of tension or unrest compels the adjustment of suitable receptors so as to acquire such stimuli as have the capacity to produce the return of a comfortable autonomic state. The dynamic value of increases in the quantity of adrenin and blood sugar for this purpose is also emphasized.

Laboratory, clinical and psychopathological data are used to show that variations in the affective stream are due to peripheral variations in the autonomic functions, which is contrary to the general belief that since visceral reactions appear to be similar for different emotional states, the variation in function probably occurs in the central nervous system.

The law that autonomic functions, or affective cravings, become conditioned to react to ordinarily indifferent stimuli, because the latter have been coincidentally associated with the inherent primary stimuli of a particular autonomic function, is elaborated as the mechanism of the development of the personality and its individual characteristics, whether normal or abnormal.

The more popular conceptions of emotions and instincts show that there is an illy defined tendency among psychologists to differentiate them according to the physiological functions involved. In Part III, this material is advanced to stabilize the primary effort of the monograph, namely, to obtain recognition for the fact that in the higher organisms an affective sensori-motor system (autonomic) exists which created and uses the cerebrospinal or pro jicient sensorimotor system as a means to keep in contact with the environment in order that the autonomic apparatus may fulfill its biological career.

XIV INTRODUCTION

The recent tremendous advances in psychopathology are forcing a delayed but appreciable recognition from the academic psychologist. Hence, the mechanisms of affective conflict, repression, fixation, dissociation, regression, readjustment, coordination and reinforcement, reciprocal inhibition of the negative or antagonistic wish, and affective compensation with sublimation or refinement, are discussed in Part III, with the object of showing that the affective mechanisms probably originate and persist in the heightened postural tensions of particular divisions of the autonomic apparatus. The physiologist and psychologist will probably, in the near future, cooperate in working out the relations of definite affective traits to particular autonomic postures, on the hypothesis of hypertension and hypotension of various autonomic segments determining the content of consciousness.

This particular physio-psychological phenomenon of hyper- or hypotension of different divisions of the autonomic apparatus, and the mechanism of its creation and continuation, has not yet received the specific attention and discussion it deserves. It seems to be the most important psychobiological phenomenon in the determination of the character of the personality that confronts psychopathology and psychology at present.

A brief discussion of functional anesthesia, which was suggested by a case of so-called hysteria, as a possible explanation of the physiology of recall of sensory impressions (memory) and attention, and a discussion of the manner in which the entire integrating mechanism produces consciousness of itself closes the third part.

Part IV is devoted to a brief restatement of the functional principles of the personality with some consideration of man's place in nature.

The references are listed at the end of the book and each reference is numbered. The reader will find the number of the reference and its page number inserted in the text as the references are used. The first number refers to the reference.

THE THEORY OF THE DYNAMIC— AUTONOMIC FUNCTIONS AND THE PERSONALITY

In the higher animals and man an autonomic or affect-producing sensori-motor system exists which uses a projicient sensori-motor system as a means to project and keep itself in contact with the environment. The affective sensori-motor system has specialized physiological functions and a definite anatomical structure, consisting of the entire autonomic apparatus and the sympathetic or unstriped part of the striped muscle cells. The latter make a reenforceing affective contribution to the personality through the postural tonus of the striped muscles, particularly the facial muscles and extensor and flexor muscles of the skeleton. (The nervous division of this cellular system has often been referred to as an involuntary, or vegetative, or sympathetic nervous system.)

The projicient sensori-motor apparatus has also specialized functions and a distinct anatomical structure in the entire cerebro-spinal apparatus (so-called voluntary) which does not include those autonomic centers and their nerve fibers which are embedded in it. (The projicient sensori-motor apparatus, it appears from the nature of postural tonus and kinesthetic imagery, is, in a sense, the thinking apparatus of the organism.)

The theory advanced is that whenever the autonomic or affective sensori-motor apparatus is disturbed or forced into a state of unrest, either through the necessities of metabolism, or endogenous, or exogenous stimuli, it compels the projicient sensori-motor apparatus to so adjust the receptors in the environment as to acquire stimuli having the capacity to produce adequate postural readjustments in the autonomic apparatus. In this manner, only, the disturbance of function may%e neutralized. The constant tendency of the autonomic apparatus is to so organize the projicient apparatus into a means as to acquire a maximum of affective gratification with a minimum expenditure of energy or effort.

This continuous dynamic pressure determines the tendency towards perfection through practice, eliminates the useless and stabilizes the useful It determines the evolution of organic structure, of personality, behavior and achievement. The healthy individual is a dynamic entity that has an elastic although limited quotient of energy, hence the tendency to attain a maximum influence upon the environ-

-b ment with a minimum expenditure of his resources conserves the unusued resources for further extension of power and influence. In commerce men are constantly striving to find methods of reducing the waste of power and of extending the influence of power. Each invention that improves a method in either direction causes the old method to be discarded. This principle is also to be seen in the individual's refinement of his personality, as speech and movements, until he attains a comfortable maximum of skill.

In discussing the above conception of the dynamic nature of the personality the entire organism is conceived as a unity and the central nervous system is reduced to a means, or instrument, for, first, the integration of the various physiological divisions into a functional unity, and, second, the reenforcement of their powers.

Franz (46, p. 161) has concluded from his experiments on the variations in distribution of motor centers that " the same forms of behavior are not always due to the activities of the same cerebral cells." When such data and conclusions are associated with the recent work on the influence of the proprioceptive arc and postural tonus the old, unfounded notions about the supremacy of the cerebral cortex and localized origin in the cortex of the controlling forces of behavior must be considered to have been thoroughly undermined by the more recent contributions to the knowledge of the nervous system.

PART I Structural Indications of the Principle of the Autonomic

Functions

In order to build up or attain a dynamic conception of the personality, the body must be seen as a biological machine that assimilates, conserves and expends energy. Since nature constantly tends to conserve the useful through trophic processes and discard the useless through atrophic processes the present structure of the human body as a unity of anatomical parts should reveal the dynamic principle upon which it has been developed.

The physiological divisions of the body that have the essential functions of assimilation, conservation, distribution and regulation of the expenditure of energies and the elimination of waste products, work as one autonomic apparatus. Because of the vital importance of the autonomic apparatus in the higher animals and the nature of its evolution attention is called to the nature of the primordial autonomic apparatus and its relations to its environment.

All organisms are immersed in a continuous bath of environmental stimuli. This bath, in so far as an organism is concerned, is composed of two general types of stimuli, the harmful and the beneficial (because of destructive or constructive mechanical and chemical effects), for which all organisms have some avertive and acquisitive capacities. '/Because the living organism itself is a continuous, complicated stream of metabolism, literally flowing through the stages of infancy, adolescence, maturity and senility, its avertive and acquisitive needs are constantly changing and this fluctuates the value of a relatively small proportion of the environment back and forth, as harmful or beneficial.

The avertive and acquisitive needs and motor tendencies, as will be shown later, depend upon the disposition of the autonomic apparatus. The primordial autonomic apparatus may be seen in the unicellular organism where it has highly developed capacities for the assimilation, conservation and expenditure of energy, but relatively poorly developed capacities for avoiding harmful or acquiring beneficial stimuli. In the ameba and the phagocyte, as free, perfect cells, one finds a complete autonomic apparatus but only a temporary projicient apparatus in the pseudopodia.

As some forms of the primordial autonomic apparatus became more powerful they probably became able to conserve enough energy to sustain a permanent projicient apparatus. When the ameba reaches a certain stage of nourishment it undergoes mitosis. The manner of growth of the embryo of higher organic forms suggests that during the gastrulation period all the cells retain independent metabolic functions until the layers begin to thicken and some of the intermediary cells have insufficient access to the food supply. Then food-distributing cells and a circulation apparatus begin to appear in that group of cells (mesoderm) which has the least access to a food supply. Not until after considerable progress has been made in the physiological division of labor, and the specialization of function and structure in the autonomic apparatus, do some of the cell groups take on the attributes of the permanent projicient apparatus.

As the autonomic apparatus becomes more powerful and its divisions highly specialized it is also able to sustain a more intricate projicient apparatus which in turn enables the autonomic apparatus to extend its capacities for the assimilation and conservation of energy. The structural plan of the two systems in the higher animals shows how the two systems have grown apace and moulded one another, as for example the shape of the lungs and the thorax, but the initiative always comes from the autonomic apparatus. Higier emphasizes the fact that the ' 'myelin sheaths (47, p. 79) develop first in the ganglion system, then in the metameric system, then in the mid-brain system, and finally in the cerebral and cortico-associative systems."

On the basis of this dynamic initiative the evolution of the needs of the autonomic apparatus may be considered as the determining factor of the structure of the projicient apparatus, hence the structure of the body and the nature of its practical adaptations to the environment. But the successfidness of the career of the organism depends upon the capacity of its receptors to react to stimuli in order that the autonomic apparatus may differentiate harmful from beneficial types. These qualities in stimuli are usually not differentiated by the exteroceptor but by the autonomic apparatus through the reactions the stimuli produce there. That is, the eye does not differentiate the grewsome from the pleasant painting; this is determined, as will be shown later, by the peripheral autonomic reactions, or feelings, that are aroused by what the eye sees.

Since the only contact the autonomic apparatus has with the environment is through the extero-ceptors, its career and integrity must depend upon its capacity to keep these receptors exposed to appropriate stimuli. So long as the moose can keep its nostrils free from the odors of man its margin of safety is greatly increased, but when the food supply is in the area of the man odors a compromise of the avertive and acquisitive tendencies must be made. This compromise of avertive and acquisitive tendencies is also characteristic of plants and insects. If a white mustard seedling is suspended on a cork C_ float in a water culture and illuminated equally from all sides the stem grows practically straight upward and the root straight downward. Then if all the light is closed off except from only one point the stem will bend toward the light and the root will turn away from it. (From Macfarland.)

Numerous illustrations are not needed to show that the avertive and acquisitive tendencies opposing one another, as the organism makes its complex reactions to the environmental stream, determine the organism's position and course in the environment and its organic structure. An organism's behavior in the environment, at any mo- jgf> ment, is the resultant of its avertive and acquisitive cravings as they control the final common motor paths of adaptation in order to properly expose its receptors. The importance of the receptors to the older cellular forms probably necessitated the evolution of the sense cells into sense organs and then the integrating nervous system (Higier). "All nervous functions have had their phylogenetic origin in the activity of the oldest sense cells and the direct descendants of these cells. Among these must be included the little known paraganglion cells, the chromaffin cells and above all the cells of the sympathetic and autonomic ganglion, i. e., the ganglionic system" (Higier, 47, p. 79).

Relatively little of the brain is necessary to the vegetative functions. It is, however, essential for procuring materials that are necessary for the existence of the vegetative functions.

In the case of the mustard seedling it is important to recognize that when the stem grows toward the light it also grows away from the darkened areas and that the root grows toward the darkened area and away from the light. The ambivalent avertive-acquisitive nature of growth and structural determinism becomes of the utmost importance when the psychic functions of organisms are studied.

The successful struggle for existence obviously has always depended upon the organism's capacity to develop efficient means for meeting its emergencies, and upon the method of associating the projicient apparatus with the receptors has depended the whole biological career of all organisms that try to master the environment.

We may therefore conclude that in the higher forms a system of skeletal levers has been developed which are manipulated by systems of muscles that work in opposition to one another so that the position of the lever in space is always the resultant of the parallelograms of opposing muscular forces. By this elaborate system of third-degree levers the organism or its parts can be shifted about in the environment or manipulate the environment so that stimuli which are adequate for the autonomic needs of the organism can be acquired and the other stimuli can be avoided. This seems to have always been the underlying principle of organic evolution.