Psycho-analysis and its place in life online

[BRARY



THE UNIVERSITY



OF CAL IFORNIA



LOS ANGELES





PSYCHO-ANALYSIS
AND ITS PLACE IN LIFE



A*



PUBLISHED BY THE JOINT COMMITTEE OF

HENRY FROWDE AND HODDER & STOUGHTON,

17, WARWICK SQUARE, LONDON, E.G. 4.



PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

AND ITS PLACE IN LIFE



BY

M. K. BRADBY



" Look within. Within is the fountain ot good, and it will ever
bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig."

MARCUS AURELIUS, VII. 59. Trans. G. LONG.

For out of the heart come evil designs, murder,, adultery, sexual
vice, stealing, false witness, and slander."

St. Matthew xv. 19. Trans. MOFFAT.



LONDON
HENRY FROWDE HODDER & STOUGHTON

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 20, WARWICK SQUARE, E.G. 4

1919



PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY ,
RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED,
BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E- 1,
AND BUNOAY, SUFFOLK.



Library



PREFACE

SINCE the publication of Freud's " Studien iiber
Hysteric " (with Breuer) in 1895 and of his " Die
Traumdeutung " in 1900 (English translation 1918),
the subject of Psycho-analysis has been claiming
an ever increasing amount of attention, both from
the medical profession and also from the thoughtful
public. There is a certain danger, on the one side,
of its being treated from the somewhat narrow point
of view inseparable from any particular branch of
knowledge, and, on the other, of its being taken out of
the realm of serious and scientific thought by amateurs
who, " rushing in where angels fear to tread," think
themselves competent to discuss a highly technical
subject without the essential training in its technique,
viz., a thorough course of psycho-analysis under the
guidance of an expert analyst.

A study such as the one presented here is, therefore,
greatly to be welcomed. It introduces the subject
from the point of view of a layman, who is at the same
time a serious student of psychology, of psycho-analysis,
and of human life in general as viewed intimately in
more than one social stratum, for since taking the
Mental and Moral Science Tripos at Cambridge Miss
Bradby has been engaged in educational and social
work.

The psycho-analyst proper, whether he agrees or
not with the opinions expressed, can only be grateful

V

860362



vi PREFACE

for such a book, raising as it does interesting and
important questions which have not yet engaged his
attention. The author's very individual outlook on
life seems to me to enhance the stimulating qualities of
the work.

I share with her the belief that in this new branch of
mental science we have another means of approaching
both the individual and the social problem. Psycho-
analysis presents but one aspect of the work to be done.
We aim at a reconstruction of life which can only be
conceived as a psycho-synthesis. But we must not fall
into the error of superficial minds who would step over
the analytical side and arrive, as it were, by magic at
the synthetic.

CONSTANCE E. LONG.

2, HABLBY PLACE,

N.W.I.

April 2. 1919.



CONTENTS



PAGl
PREFACE ......... ^ V

INTRODUCTION . ... . . . . JX

I. THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND

CHAPTER I

THE UNCONSCIOUS (REPRESSED) AS SEEN IN THE NEUROTIC,

THE MEDIUM, THE ARTIST AND THE NORMAL PERSON . 3

CHAPTER II

THE UNCONSCIOUS (UNDEVELOPED) AS THE SOURCE OF

ANACHRONISM AND INCONSISTENCY . . . .17

CHAPTER III

THE UNCONSCIOUS IN ITS RELATION TO THE CONSCIOUS, ITS

EDUCATION . . . . i 28

II. SOME PSYCHO-ANALYTIC THEORIES

CHAPTER IV

FREUD'S SBXUAL THEORY. JUNG'S LIBIDO THEORY. SEXUAL

FIXATION. . .* .*- . . , . . 45

CHAPTER V

COMPLEXES. FATHER-COMPLEX. MOTHER-COMPLEX. IN-
FANTILE SEXUALITY ... . . . .57

CHAPTER VI

REPRESSION . . -. . . . . .66

III. DREAMS
CHAPTER VII

FREUDIAN INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS .... 81

CHAPTER VIII

DREAMS OF TWO PHARAOHS AND OF ANSELM . . 97

Til



viii CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER IX

DREAM OF ST. PERPETUA. UNIVERSAL THEMES. FANTASIES 110

CHAPTER X

VARIOUS POINTS CONNECTED WITH DREAM INTERPRETATION 122

CHAPTER XI

TWO PRESENT-DAY DREAMS ANALYSED . . . , > .. 189

IV. UNCONSCIOUS PRIMITIVE TRAITS IN
PRESENT-DAY THOUGHT

CHAPTER XII

TENDENCY TO SUBJECTIVE SYMBOLISM . . . .155

CHAPTER XIII

SYMBOLISM IN ART AND LITERATURE . , . '. . 166

CHAPTER XIV

TENDENCY TO CONFUSE CATEGORIES. SYMPATHETIC MAGIC 180

V. PLACE OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS IN LIFE
CHAPTER XV

PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND EVOLUTION . . . . .197

CHAPTER XVI

PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND MORALITY AND RELIGION . . 207

VI. LIGHT ON BIOGRAPHY FROM PSYCHO-
ANALYSIS

CHAPTER XVII

NELSON. ST. ROMUALD. M. ANGELO . . . 223

CHAPTER XVIII

BROWNING. HAMLET. THE BUFFOON, THE FOOL AND

THE MODEST MAIDEN ...... 238

CHAPTER XIX

CONCLUSION ......... 251

INDEX . 261



INTRODUCTION

THIS book aims at four things. It attempts an
answer to the increasing number of people who want to
know something about psycho-analysis and who find
the existing literature some of it too brief and some of
it too difficult. It discusses certain questions raised
in the mind of the ordinary educated man or woman
who has begun to study psycho-anaJysis and is puzzled ;
such questions for instance as "where does it lead,"
"how does it fit in with the desire to be a moral
human being, and with the ideas entertained by modern
scientists." It supplies the reader with some notion of
how to arrive at the meaning of his own dreams, and
lastly, it hopes to induce psycho-analysts and psycholo-
gists to study each other's works.

The unconscious mind is viewed in its character of
normal but undeveloped mind, as well as in its better-
known character of abnormal and neurotic, and an
attempt is made to expound some of the teachings of
modern anthropology and to link them up with those
of psycho-analysis.

I have nothing new to say, but I am impressed with
the profound importance to thought, and consequently
to life in general, of the discoveries of Freud, their develop-
ment by Jung and the Zurich school, and of that theory
of human progress reached by modern psychologists
through the study of mind as it develops in the race, as



x INTRODUCTION

well as the individual : a theory which has been lucidly
set out by Professor L. T. Hobhouse. It is from the
books of these three writers and of Miss Jane Harrison
that I have gathered most of the notions here advanced,
and above all from the conversation and papers of
Dr. Constance Long. Where I venture to disagree
with any of them it may be from a failure to under-
stand them ; but, after all, truth is best served by each
sincere student of human life describing the truths he
sees. Thought is advanced by the exposure of our own
and the correction of each other's errors. The views
here set out make no claim to any sort of completeness ;
they aim at stimulating thought and challenging dis-
cussion. Where they appear dogmatic it is from an
effort to be concise, and the reader's indulgence is
asked on this account.

The future influence of psycho-analysis on psychology
proper I imagine as bearing a resemblance to that on
Chemistry of Pasteur's discovery of the connection be-
tween chemical structure and the polarisation of light.
As Pasteur himself said, he "opened one of the weightiest,
most astonishing chapters in science, one which offers
to physiology (and, it may be added, to chemistry) a
horizon, new, far distant, yet quite distinct." Modern
psychologists see every act of mind as possessing three
fundamental aspects, those of knowing, feeling, and will
(or conation). So far, they have concentrated research
upon the first knowing or cognition. The great body
of knowledge they ha ye built up of the psychology oi
cognition remains untouched by psycho-analytic theories,
but when we turn to feeling and conation the matter is
different. Here they have done no more than make a
timid start, lacking the clue to direction which psycho-
analysis will henceforth supply. Already the psychology
of the emotions, even of so brilliant and original a
thinker as William James, is almost as out of date as
a medieval book on natural history.

One may look forward hopefully to a day in the near



INTRODUCTION xi

future when psychologists, who are on the whole amongst
the least prejudiced of people, will give the views of
psycho-analysts of the schools of both Freud and Jung the
serious consideration they deserve, and when psycho-
analysts on their side will turn their attention to those
important factors in the unconscious which they over-
look. They are too much inclined to interpret the higher
in terms of the lower, to explain the advanced by a
reference to the rudimentary. They have found man's
repressed appetites and the conflict between conven-
tional morality and sexual desire, but they have not
yet devoted equal attention to his higher interests
which are also to be found in the unconscious mind
interests which man does not share with the animals
to the longing after knowledge and beauty and power
for their own sakes and the desire for moral goodness
apart from any particular system of morality. Since
man became aware of his own aims these things have
been recognised as amongst the ruling passions of
humanity, and they are not sexuality, important though
sexuality may be.

All genuine men of science have much to learn from
each other, and the generality of mankind has much
to learn from psychologists, while nowadays even
philosophy has dismounted from her pedestal and be-
come the friend and fellow student of the man in the
street, admitting that her subject-matter in homely
guise has always formed one of the great interests of
the multitude. This conviction has emboldened me to
write, and this book- is an attempt to put forward
certain views and discuss certain questions on the
meeting ground of the man of science and the man in
the street.



I
THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND



THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND

CHAPTER I

THE REPRESSED UNCONSCIOUS MIND AS SEEN IN THE
NEUROTIC, THE MEDIUM, THE ARTIST AND THE
NORMAL PERSON

" What do I see now, suppose you, there where you see rock around
MS?" (St. John log.) R. BROWNING.

WHAT is meant by " the unconscious mind " ?

Our present state of knowledge does not allow us to
attempt a definition, but some idea of the meaning of
the term may be gained by passing in review typical
cases in which it is employed. Accordingly it is pro-
posed in this and the following chapter to bring before
the reader's notice examples of the kind of thing
psycho-analysts have in view when they speak of " the
unconscious." These examples will be chosen from
three fields : " the unconscious " of psycho-analysis,
" the subliminal " of psychical research, and lastly
from certain everyday experiences of ordinary people.

First let us glance at the so-called " unconscious "
of the psycho-analyst. Psycho-analysis is a method of
curing functional nervous disorders, which has been
evolved by certain nerve specialists who were dissatisfied



4 PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

with the results of hypnotic treatment. 1 It is a method
based upon the assumption that every neurotic symptom
has its origin and explanation in the background of the
patient's mind. This explanation is unknown to the
patient himself, but can be discovered by him through
reference to that part of his mind which is active in his
dreams. The symptom is, as it were, a little bit of his
dream life thrust into his waking life, of his unconscious
mind into his conscious. The psycho-analyst follows up
the clue which the symptom gives ; under his guidance
the patient reveals to himself the contents and mode of
working of a sphere of his own mind to which he was a
stranger, that part whereby his dreams are woven, his
nervous symptoms formed.

Works on psycho-analysis employ technical terms,
but the actual things of which they treat are familiar
to us in ordinary life on both sides of the border-line of
sanity. The " unconscious mind " to which they intro-
duce us is the source of dreams, visions and trances,
of queer fancies, unreasoning fears, hobbies, and little
ways, of strange and erratic behaviour, of absent-
mindedness and fixed ideas.

When we turn to Psychical Research we find some of
the same material treated from a different point of view. 2
Here a scientific inquiry is pursued into the nature and
origin of striking and mysterious " psychic phenomena."
The psycho-analyst encounters some of these phenomena
in the course of his efforts to cure nervous illness, the
student of psychical research in the course of his inquiry
as to what strange things actually occur and what is
their scientific explanation. 'We read in the Society's

1 In functional nervous disease the actual physical apparatus of brain
and nervea is comparatively sound, but its working is deranged. In
organic disease, some definite injury to the structure prevents it from
working properly. So far as we know, no mental impression can cure
a cut nerve or a broken bone, but some of the pain accompanying
these may be functional and so susceptible to mental treatment. See
A. T. Schofield, " The Force of Mind."

* See a paper by Dr. Constance Long in the Proceedings of the Society
for Psychical Research. Vol. XXX, July, 1918.



VISUAL FANTASIES 5

Proceedings, amongst other things, of the doings of
spiritualistic mediums, of people in the hypnotic trance
and in what are best known to the layman as states of
double personality ; we read of automatic writing and
painting, of visions seen by crystal-gazers and clair-
voyants. All these are. evidence of the mind's activity
below the threshold of consciousness. The " subliminal "
of psychical research is identical with the " unconscious "
of psycho-analysis.

In both these fields of inquiry the experiences dealt
with are those of abnormal people, but we cannot fail
to be struck by their resemblance to certain common
experiences of everyday life. There would seem to be
no clear line of demarcation between the healthy person
and the neurotic, the normal and the " sensitive " (or
person with mediumistic powers). The sanest of us
knows what it is to dream, to have fits of absent-minded-
ness, unaccountable lapses of memory, unreasoning
fears ; and most of us at some time or other have seen
or heard things which were not there. The illustrations
which follow of the workings of the unconscious mind are
taken from its normal and abnormal states alike,
showing how the one state merges into the other.

It is not unusual to hear someone confronted with the
subject declare that he has no unconscious mind. One
speedy method of convincing such a sceptic is to lead
him to produce visual fantasies from the unconscious.
Most people see faces in the fire, or, like Polonius,
strange creatures in the clouds, but on investigation
it would be found that each of us sees different
forms, though it be the same fire and the same cloud
into which we gaze. 1 This fact may be strikingly
brought home to us by means of a simple process. Let
anyone take a sheet of paper and a bit of soft, coloured
chalk, cover the paper with rough shading, then put down
the chalk and simply look. With a pencil he may catch

1 Blake and Mrs. Blake saw different "faces in the fire." See
" Wm. Blake," by Arthur Symons, 1907, p. 48.



6 PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

and outline some of the forms that will appear and dis-
appear from his view. No two people see the same thing.
Some produce apparently insignificant scribbles or crude
and childish outlines, others rhythmical designs ; some
grotesque and horrible faces, others a jumble of frag-
mentary objects mingled with geometrical figures.
Leonardo da Vinci made the same discovery. Instructing
his pupils in the principles of the painter's art he wrote:

" I will not refrain from setting among these precepts a new
device for consideration which although it may appear trivial
and almost ludicrous, is nevertheless of great utility in arousing
the mind to various inventions. And this is that if you look at
any walls spotted with various stains or with a mixture of different
kinds of stones, if you are about to invent some scene you will be
able to see in it a resemblance to various different landscapes
adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys,
or various groups of hills. You will also be able to see divers
combats and figures in quick movement, and strange expressions
of faces, and outlandish costumes, and an infinite number of things
which you can then reduce into separate and well conceived forms.
With such walls and blends of different stones it comes about as
it does with the sound of bells, in whose clanging you may discover
every name and word that you can imagine." l

It is here suggested that what each sees in the chalked
paper and what Leonardo saw in the stained wall are
largely the product of the unconscious mind. Leonardo
used these fantastic images as material for his con-
scious mind to work upon ; the unconscious mind
of the born artist, when he is in the mood, leads
him to see in any blurred and homogeneous mass visions
of grandeur and beauty, of terror and grace, which
do not linger, but fuse into each other. 2 The object
presented to consciousness forms a basis or substratum
upon which the unconscious moulds or weaves these
images.

We may notice a continuous gradation of visual unages
in which the part played by the object looked at grows

1 " Leonardo da Vinci's Note-books," edited by Edward McCurdy,
1906, p. 173.

* Cf. the paintings of the cubists, vorticista, etc. See " Cubism,"
by Gleizea and Metzinger (Fisher Unwin, 1913), especially p. 83.



AUTOMATIC SPEECH 7

less while the part supplied by the unconscious fantasy
increases. The child beguiles a dull sermon by gazing
at the mysterious figures which lurk in the veining of
the marble pulpit ; William Blake, the visionary artist,
saw imaginary portrait-heads before him and copied
them on to paper j 1 the spiritualistic medium draws
" separate and well-conceived forms " without knowing
what he is drawing, it may be in the dark. A well-
known medium, David Duguid, who produced drawings
in this way, on one occasion reproduced certain illustra-
tions to a family Bible recently published and seen by
him. The unconscious plagiarism was brought home
to him by a threatened legal action. 2

As with visual images, so with speech, oral or written ;
we may trace the increasing preponderance of the un-
conscious contribution along a similar course. Auto-
matic drawing, we have seen, is sometimes done in the
dark, the executant not knowing what his pencil is
producing. Similarly, in speech from the unconscious,
one may produce words and phrases and even a long
discourse without knowing what one is saying. Speech
of this kind, proceeding from levels of the mind which
remain unconscious, is uttered by people in their sleep,
in delirium, while coming-to after an anaesthetic and when
intoxicated whether with drugs or emotion, in short,
when the speaker is beside, beyond or beneath himself.
Here the unconscious has it all its own way, but slighter
indications of its activity are to be noticed in everyday
life whenever we blurt out things we did not intend to
say, make slips of the tongue or are bothered with words
or phrases that run in the head.

The examples so far given enable us to recognise
a distinction between the so-called conscious and un-
conscious spheres of the mind. Each exhibits the
same material, but treated differently. That material

1 " Wm. Blake," p. 420.

* See " Direct Phenomena of Spiritualism," by E. T. Bennett, p. 30.
" The Shilling Library of Psychical Literature and Enquiry," No. IV.

C



8 PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

is supplied by external objects presented to the senses,
facts of experience, along with their corresponding
memories. The individual, who for the time being is
living in the unconscious, reacts to sensations and ideas
spontaneously, automatically, instinctively, without
knowing what he is doing ; his perceptions and mental
images have little correspondence with objective facts,
but close correspondence with his subjective feelings.
When he is conscious his perceptions have a closer
correspondence with objective facts, he knows more or
less clearly what he is doing and he brings his actions
under the control of the will.

The distinction between the two spheres is sometimes
strikingly shown in the course of recovering consciousness
after an anaesthetic. A psycho-analytic patient described
such an experience as follows : "At first I found myself
talking and I was merely an observer, listening to what
I was saying, and rather shocked at some of the things I
heard. Then I tried to take control of my speech, at
first unsuccessfully, but with more and more success
as I experienced a series of slight jerks at each of which
I became more awake. To start with, I found my head
was wagging itself. Then I could stop it wagging, but
directly I began to wag it, it ran away with me and
wagged itself. Then I could start it wagging, and con-
trol it within limits, much as one drives a frisky horse.
Finally, I was awake and could control it altogether.
My tongue wagged in a similar manner." Here we see
the factors of the conscious mind, purposive and con-
trolling, asserting themselves gradually over those of
the unconscious, impulsive and automatic. The specific
quality of the sensations seems to change along with
the increasing control of the will.

Just as visual fantasies are of use to the artist, so
is speech from the unconscious to the painter in words.
Many people who are not poets compose verses in their
dreams, and when these are caught and studied they
are seen to exhibit some of the characteristics of the



THE UNCONSCIOUS IN POETRY 9

magical passages of inspired poetry. They appeal to
their creator in the dream as full of meaning, vague,
unfathomable and elusive, like that of music. They
deal in clang associations, alliteration and repetition.
They are mostly doggerel, but not dull doggerel such as
is deliberately composed.

Here are some typical dream-lines, the creation of
one who throughout a long life neither made verse nor
appreciated it :

" On the shores
Where the Mogaclores
Run swiftly iftly by."

Compare the wonderful lines of Rossetti written during
music. 1

" O what is this that knows the road I came
The flame turned cloud the cloud returned to flame
The lifted shifted steeps and all the way ? "

We feel it was Rossetti's unconscious mind which
supplied that last line.

We find the same mysterious depth of meaning in
the well-known lines from Keats in which he speaks of

" magic casements opening on the foam
Of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn." 2

The student of the unconscious mind thinks he recog-
nises passages characteristic of it with their element of
the unexpected either in the words used or (as with
George Meredith) in the images described. He finds
a treasure-house of unconscious gems in the poetry
of Shelley, Francis Thompson, Henry Vaughan, and
many others, but we are on safer ground in quoting
Coleridge's " Kubla Khan," since we have his word
for it that he. dreamed the poem and wrote it down, so

1 Given in Ward's " British Poets."

2 " Ode to a Nightingale."

C 2



10 PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

much as he could remember, on waking. He dreamed
of

" A damsel with a dulcimer
Singing of Mount Abora."

* * * * *
and says :

" C'ould I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air
That sunny dome ! Those caves of ice !
And all who hear should see them there,
And all should cry Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair.
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise."

Writing from the unconscious, like drawing and speaking,
passes through a gradation in which the conscious
element diminishes and the unconscious grows. Every-
one whose pen flows easily occasionally finds himself
writing what he did not intend. He mis-spells a familiar
word, omits, repeats or changes a phrase without
noticing. Freud narrates how a patient of Dr. Brill's
wished to get out of an appointment which he dreaded.
Consciously, he was polite and intended to write that
he was unable to keep his appointment " owing to
unforeseen circumstances," but the unconscious, which,
says Freud, does not lie, guided his pen so that he
actually wrote " owing to foreseen circumstances."
Freud also quotes a case of a public man vindicating
his sincerity in a newspaper article, who called witness
to the fact that he had always " acted in a selfish manner