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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of The omnipotent self, a study in
-self-deception and self-cure, by Paul Bousfield
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: The omnipotent self, a study in self-deception and self-cure
-
-Author: Paul Bousfield
-
-Release Date: October 8, 2021 [eBook #66496]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-Produced by: Turgut Dincer, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed
-             Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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-             Archive)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OMNIPOTENT SELF, A STUDY IN
-SELF-DECEPTION AND SELF-CURE ***
-
-+-------------------------------------------------+
-|Transcriber’s note:                              |
-|                                                 |
-|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.  |
-|                                                 |
-+-------------------------------------------------+
-
-
-THE OMNIPOTENT SELF
-
-A Study in Self-Deception and Self-Cure
-
-
-BY
-PAUL BOUSFIELD
-M.R.C.S. (ENG.), L.R.C.P. (LOND.)
-
-_Physician to the London Neurological Clinic (Ministry of Pensions),
-Late Demonstrator of Morbid Anatomy, St. George’s Hospital, Late
-M.O. American Women’s Hospital for Officers, etc., etc._
-
-Author of _The Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis_.
-
-
-LONDON
-KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.,
-BROADWAY HOUSE, 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.C.
-1923
-
-
-PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE DEVONSHIRE PRESS, TORQUAY.
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE
-
-“_Nature has granted to all to be happy if we but knew how to use her
-gifts._”--CLAUDIUS.
-
-
-Many people, while not considering themselves as suffering from any
-nervous ailment, nor desiring the services of a physician, are yet far
-from being perfectly happy in their mental outlook and temperament.
-Either their feelings are too easily roused, or they are inclined to
-worry, to be depressed, irritable, nervous, or over-sensitive. Trifles
-which to them seem no trifles interfere with the smooth course of their
-daily lives, or this slight abnormality may manifest itself in an
-over-sensitiveness to physical pain or to mental or moral difficulties
-and conflicts. It is with the hope of helping a few such individuals
-to a better understanding of themselves, and through this to a more
-equable temperament and greater happiness, that this little book is
-written.
-
-There is no hard and fast line between the normal and the abnormal
-person, and indeed a very real difficulty exists in even defining a
-normal person. If we take our definition of normal as being “average
-or conforming to type or standard,” then the majority of people
-are normal. If, on the other hand, we take its other meaning, that
-of “performing the proper functions,” then there are few people
-approaching the normal under modern civilized conditions. A tendency
-to undue irritability or depression is a mild and very common form of
-abnormality. Hysterias, obsessions, and unreasonable fears are greater
-abnormalities, and fortunately of less frequent occurrence, while
-certain forms of insanity are still greater deviations from the normal.
-A similar combination of causes, however, may form the basis of all
-these abnormalities, and these various deviations from the normal are
-more of degree than of kind. But whereas in cases of obsessions and
-unreasonable fears or in such other abnormalities as homo-sexuality or
-sexual impotence, etc., the causes are deeply hidden and the forces at
-work somewhat complicated, in the lesser abnormalities there are causes
-frequently lying less deeply.
-
-In the case of obsessions, phobias, hysterias, sexual abnormalities,
-and so forth, we can only hope to effect an improvement by a thorough
-analysis of the unconscious causes and conflicts by a competent
-psycho-analyst. In the lesser troubles of the mind, however,
-considerable improvement can often be effected by means of a somewhat
-superficial self-analysis. This will be directed towards investigating
-one in particular of the primary causes which play an important part in
-all the minor unpleasant temperamental faults.
-
-In order to teach the patient to help himself, it will first of all be
-necessary to enlighten him to a considerable extent as to the general
-evolution of his character; at any rate in as far as one important
-mental complex known as “Narcissism” is concerned. In doing this, many
-other mental complexes will have to be superficially touched upon; but
-in order to simplify the work for the uninitiated, they will not be
-specifically named when they appear; for, although this would make the
-work more technically accurate, it would, at the same time, make it
-less clear, and in a book of this type this would be very undesirable.
-The first object I have in mind is that the work shall be lucid,
-concise, and readily understood by any person of ordinary education,
-so that he may gain an insight into the essential causes and growth
-of some of his abnormal characteristics without undue complication
-of ideas. It is further hoped that this small work may be of some
-assistance in suggesting to parents a few of the many things to be
-avoided in the early training of the child.
-
-PAUL BOUSFIELD
-
-_7, Harley Street, W._
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-PART I: THE OMNIPOTENT SELF
-
-CHAP.                               PAGE
-   I THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND              3
-
-  II REPRESSION                       19
-
- III THE FORCES SHAPING CHARACTER     27
-
-  IV DETERMINISM AND WILL POWER       41
-
-   V NARCISSISM                       49
-
-  VI FACT AND PHANTASY                64
-
- VII IDENTIFICATION                   74
-
-VIII THE IRRITABLE TEMPERAMENT        87
-
-  IX RATIONALIZATION                  98
-
-
-PART II: PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
-
-    X  SELF ANALYSIS                 111
-
-   XI  READJUSTMENT OF OBJECTIVES    121
-
-  XII READJUSTMENT OF THOUGHT        138
-
-XIII AUTO-SUGGESTION                 157
-
- XIV CONCLUSION                      165
-
-
-
-
-PART I
-
-THE OMNIPOTENT SELF
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I
-
-THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND
-
-
-§1
-
-In considering the question of character, with its various
-irregularities and idiosyncracies, we shall have to accustom ourselves
-to dealing with factors which do not exist in consciousness at all.
-Strange as it may seem to the uninitiated, many of our thoughts, ideas,
-and motives are quite outside our normal consciousness, and of them
-only the resulting emotions and actions appear on the surface. This
-may be taken as an absolute and indisputable fact, and one which the
-reader should try to appreciate at the outset, although it is somewhat
-difficult to realise, for we always find it hard to apprehend and
-understand something which we can neither see nor touch.
-
-If one were to tell the ordinary labourer that water is composed of
-two gases which when combined form a liquid, he would probably be
-quite incredulous, and possibly in his ignorance might even deny
-emphatically any such possibility, on the grounds that it was against
-all common-sense and experience; he failing to realise, of course, how
-very limited were both his sense and his experience. In spite of his
-feelings of absolute certainty, and in spite of complete faith in the
-unshakable logic behind his belief, he would be wrong.
-
-While it is not to be expected that many readers of this book will deny
-the existence of the unconscious part of the mind, it may well be that
-many will fail to realise that it is of more than theoretical value.
-It therefore becomes necessary for us to examine the matter somewhat
-carefully, and to familiarise ourselves with the ideas of the working
-of this unconscious mind.
-
-Without going into the further sub-divisions recognised in psychology,
-we will confine ourselves to dividing the mind into two parts--the
-conscious and the unconscious. _And of these, at any given moment, the
-conscious is by far the smaller part._ We are actually conscious at
-any moment of but very few things, such as the book we are reading,
-the chair we are sitting on, and dimly of our immediate surroundings.
-A thousand memories which we might conjure up of our childhood and
-our past are, for the time being, far from consciousness. Yet these
-matters exist somewhere in the mind, for we are able, if we choose,
-to search about in it, and bring them into consciousness, even though
-we may not have thought of them for many years. This leads us at once
-to a striking fact, namely, that while many things can be remembered
-at will, others which we feel we ought to remember, cannot be brought
-to mind at all. It is an extremely common experience to find that one
-has forgotten a name completely, and that no effort will bring it into
-consciousness, yet later on, apparently without effort, the name will
-“come back to us,” as we say. In fact, the very phrase we use--“come
-back to us”--implies that it has been somewhere away from us, that it
-has been lodged in some place that is foreign and unknown to us, yet
-which we are aware is somewhere within us.
-
-It is also common knowledge that a great many events and scenes of
-considerable importance to us at the time of action are forgotten, and
-that they can only be recollected if some sort of stimulus or reminder
-be given. For instance, a person may have forgotten completely where
-and how he spent a holiday ten years ago. No amount of racking his
-brain brings anything to light. But having been reminded of a single
-incident that occurred during that holiday, the whole of the rest may
-come up from the unconscious in full detail.
-
-There is a third kind of memory more important still, if one may
-be permitted to call it memory, and that is the memory of facts
-which no _ordinary_ stimulus of this sort will ever bring up into
-consciousness again. The term “memory” is used here because we have
-every reason to believe that somewhere in the unconscious all facts
-have been registered, and in many cases may be partially brought into
-consciousness again by suitable means, such for instance, as hypnotism
-or psycho-analysis, (two very different methods, by the way). Yet,
-though these impressions have been made on the mind, and though there
-is this unconscious memory still in existence, in the ordinary course
-of events we should never again be conscious of them.
-
-_We may, however, be very conscious of actions and emotions emanating
-from the unconscious memory._ Thus, suppose that as a child one had
-lived in the country, and on several very happy occasions a bonfire
-had been lighted at a picnic, and that later on one lived in a town,
-and that this picnic which happened at the age of three or four years
-had become completely forgotten, so much so that even photographs of
-the scenes or conversations on the subject carried on by other people
-brought no memory to light and seemed to touch no chord; it would still
-be quite likely that the mere smell of a bon-fire in the distance or
-any smell resembling this would be enough to cause a considerable
-feeling of elation and happiness in the person, a feeling that
-something pleasant was taking place, an idea that if only one could
-remember, a pleasant picture could be called up. This is because it is
-associated in the unconscious mind with these previous happy occasions.
-
-Or again, suppose a child at the age of two or three years has been
-dropped into a pond and nearly drowned. Although the incident may
-in later years be completely forgotten, the horror of deep water
-and all its associations may vividly persist. It seems probable,
-and a considerable amount of work has been done on this subject in
-psycho-analysis, that every action, thought, or idea that has ever
-been registered in the mind, even to some extent before birth, is
-permanently fixed; and that although much of this cannot be brought
-into consciousness by present methods, yet all the feelings and
-emotions, however slight, which attended these thoughts, ideas, and
-actions are perpetually being called forth by slight stimuli of which
-we are unaware, and these are playing their part in moulding our
-thoughts, feelings and actions in the present time.
-
-I had an interesting patient a short time ago who, owing to certain
-experiences in the war, was suffering from complete loss of memory; so
-complete that he did not know his own wife nor even his parents. Under
-hypnosis, the whole of his memory was rapidly brought back; and when it
-appeared to be normal and both he and his parents were quite confident
-that it was as good as it had ever been, I suggested that we might try
-an experiment to see if we could improve it still further. I asked him,
-amongst other things, if he could voluntarily remember the first time
-he wore knickerbockers. He had not the faintest recollection of the
-matter. I then hypnotised him, and told him to give me the details. He
-described the knickerbockers minutely, the number of buttons on them,
-the fact that he wore them on his third birthday, that his father had
-given him a penny, and told him that “now he was a little man, he must
-have money in his pocket,” together with a very large number of other
-details. I enquired of his father and mother and sisters, and they
-corroborated the details in every particular.
-
-I have tried several similar experiments with him and with one or two
-other patients under hypnosis with considerable success, and have even
-tried to take them back to the memory of their own birth. They have
-frequently produced many memories of events that occurred before the
-age of one year, but previous to that could only give reproductions of
-movements and pleasant and unpleasant emotions. Whether these latter
-are memories or not one has unfortunately no means of proving. But the
-fact that under hypnosis both educated and uneducated people alike
-exhibit extremely similar ideas as to types of movements, expressions,
-and feelings at the various stages of their very early life, inclines
-one to think that these reproductions may be memories. One has,
-however, to beware of the fact that observation and knowledge acquired
-in later periods of their lives might be the real factor underlying
-their apparent reproductions. Further evidence of a different nature
-will be given on this point, however, at a later stage in the book.
-
-
-§2
-
-So far, we have shown that there is an unconscious part of the mind
-which acts as a store-house for memories, ideas, and emotions of the
-past. We have not, however, shown that it is anything more than a
-store-house. But if we look into it from other points of view, we
-shall see that it is a great deal more than a mere store-house, for
-it thinks, reasons, comes to conclusions, and in fact assists in
-controlling our acts at every turn; indeed this unconscious part of our
-mind wields driving forces of the utmost potency in moulding our lives.
-
-Let us examine first the _reasoning_ faculty of the unconscious mind.
-
-Maeder gives a good example of this. A house-surgeon at a hospital
-wished particularly to keep a certain appointment, but he was not
-allowed to leave the hospital until his chief, who was out, should
-return later in the evening. As his appointment was of considerable
-importance, he decided to brave the anger of his chief. He therefore
-kept his appointment, but when he returned later, he found to his
-astonishment that he had left a light in his room, a thing he had
-never done before, although he had occupied that room for two years.
-He thought the matter over, and soon realised why he had done this.
-The chief, on going to his own house, would pass the window and would
-see the light burning within, and imagine that his house-surgeon was
-at home. The unconscious mind had rapidly reasoned this out and had
-determined that the conscious mind should forget to turn off the light.
-
-Another illustration of the persistent way in which the unconscious
-mind will reason and act can be given from my own experience. I had to
-attend a lecture given by a man, with whose views I totally disagreed.
-I had no wish to attend the lecture, but felt compelled to do so in
-an official capacity. Consciously, I determined to go; unconsciously
-when I made the note of the lecture, I wrote down the time of it in
-my engagement-book a week late. On discovering this, I consciously
-endeavoured to rectify the matter, but my unconscious mind wrote
-Tuesday instead of Thursday in my engagement-book, so it went down
-wrong once again. Later, having been forced to see my mistake by a
-friend mentioning the matter, I omitted for a short time to rectify it
-in my engagement-book, feeling sure that I should remember to do so a
-little later. But alas! for the determination of my conscious mind. I
-forthwith made an appointment for a patient at the real time appointed
-for the lecture, and so could not in the end attend it. Now, these
-lectures were held regularly on a particular day of the week, and I
-had generally looked forward to them, and attended them without any
-difficulty. It was only in this one case that I did not wish to go. My
-conscious mind decided to attend; but my unconscious mind played trick
-after trick in order that my real desires should be satisfied. Such
-examples could be multiplied indefinitely. It is possible that many
-would say that they do not actually prove unconscious reasoning nor
-power of thought. Let me, therefore, give one or two simple examples of
-a different nature.
-
-A friend of mine once told me that he had spent several days in trying
-to work out a chess problem without success. One morning, he woke
-up with a picture in his mind of the exact moves that he must make.
-The problem had been solved in his sleep unconsciously, and with no
-recollection on waking of any conscious effort at reaching the solution.
-
-In my own experience, as a school-boy, I failed to solve a problem in
-Euclid during an examination. On the morning afterwards, the solution
-flashed through my brain suddenly, as I lay in bed. Whether I had
-solved it in my sleep, or whether it was solved in bed as I lay awake,
-I am not prepared to say. Of this much, however, I am certain. I made
-no conscious effort; my mind merely wandered lazily in the direction
-of the previous day’s failure, and almost instantaneously the right
-solution appeared without effort.
-
-Let us now take another example of work which the unconscious mind is
-called upon to perform; an example which we are accustomed to view
-without question or thought, which is comparatively commonplace,
-and which we dismiss summarily by referring to it as “habit.” The
-accomplished pianist reads the music in front of him consciously, but
-he is not conscious of the extremely rapid translation which takes
-place from the brain to the fingers, so as to produce complicated
-movements on the key-board. And if we examine it carefully, we shall
-find that something very wonderful has actually taken place outside
-his consciousness. When he was first learning to play, he looked at
-the note on his music, and said to himself “That is C.” He looked at
-the key on the piano, and repeated “That is C.” He was taught that a
-particular finger must be placed on that particular note when playing
-in a certain key. He was taught that it had to be hit in a particular
-way and held down for a particular time, according to the size and
-shape of the note he was reading on the sheet of music in front of him.
-He was further taught that in order to modify any sound in a particular
-manner, he could use his feet on one or other of the pedals, and must
-be extremely careful to put his feet down and lift his feet up again
-at exactly the right moment. He was taught that when certain symbols,
-known as sharps and flats, preceded the notes at the beginning of his
-piece of music, the whole scheme of fingering would be different. And,
-at first, he had laboriously to go through the process of watching
-first the music and then the key-board, and of _thinking_ at each
-point what he should do with his fingers and with his feet, and how he
-should do it, and for what period he should keep on doing it. Now, the
-whole process is gone through with half-a-million notes which he has
-never seen before, many of them played simultaneously, and with an
-exactitude which he never attained when he was consciously thinking.
-Whatever may be the nature of the unconscious action which is taking
-place, all he has in consciousness is the music in front of him, and
-the final sound that he is producing, together with the emotions which
-these called forth in him as a result of the whole.
-
-Can there be any doubt left that a complicated unconscious process of
-the same kind is taking place?
-
-Or again, let us examine our own personal likes and dislikes.
-Frequently one can assign no reason whatsoever for these. They may
-exist, in fact, against what we call our better judgment. We may
-love a person in spite of certain faults, or dislike him in spite
-of his virtues. If the matter be examined further, however, we not
-infrequently find the reasons for our emotions towards him. Either
-his manner, dress, or tone of voice, or some other trivial feature
-may resemble someone we have liked before, or on the contrary, some
-mannerism may call to mind a similar mannerism which we associate
-either in ourselves or in some other person, with unpleasant
-characteristics. Our unconscious mind has rapidly sized up all these
-points, appraised them, and presented our conscious mind with the
-resulting emotions alone.
-
-So-called intuition is, to a large extent, merely rapid unconscious
-reasoning, in which minute details are taken into consideration by the
-unconscious, and only the final opinion presented to consciousness.
-One should beware of trusting intuition too much, however, in spite of
-popular prejudice to the contrary, for unconscious reasoning is just
-as liable to be wrong in its conclusions as is conscious reasoning;
-and it is just as liable to reach the conclusion which best serves its
-immediate purpose, and to suppress truth where it is unpleasant.[1]
-
-Some psychologists think that the unconscious mind is _infallible_
-in purely _deductive_ reasoning from the _premises_ from which it
-starts. But it provides its own premises from a secret store and also
-accepts any suggested premises which are not repugnant. The premises
-may therefore be wrong but the deductive reasoning is accurate. In this
-case the conclusions will only be wrong because the premises are wrong.
-
-FOOTNOTE:
-
-[1] Unconscious reasoning or intuition is found chiefly in those who
-have not been trained in subjects which induce and train logical
-conscious reasoning. It is not a prerogative of sex, but on the whole
-is found more amongst women, merely because of their method of training
-from childhood upwards. In children and savages intuition is found
-equally present in both sexes. The loss of intuition merely means
-that the training of the conscious mind has caused us to mistrust
-conclusions for which we cannot consciously see the reasons.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II
-
-REPRESSION
-
-
-§1
-
-One other faculty of the unconscious mind requires special mention, and
-that is its power of obliterating memories from the conscious mind,
-or as it is better termed, of _repressing_, since this word not only
-implies pushing out of consciousness, but also preventing from coming
-into consciousness. It is found that all persons have formed a regular
-habit of forgetting or partially forgetting, (and so disguising),
-things which are unpleasant to them. This especially refers to those
-things which are unpleasant to their self-respect, their moral beliefs
-and ideas, and their general pride in themselves. The primitive
-immoralities and thoughts and actions of early childhood which would
-now offend their æsthetic and moral susceptibilities, are, more or
-less, completely put out of sight, together with a host of unpleasant
-ideas and thoughts which have cropped up from childhood onwards.
-Indeed, there is a general tendency for anything of an unpleasant
-nature to be pushed out of sight.
-
-Darwin, in his autobiography, states, “I had, during many years,
-followed a golden rule, namely that whenever a published fact, a new
-observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general
-results, to make a memorandum of it without fail, and at once, for I
-had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt
-to escape from the memory than favourable ones.”
-
-We had a further example in the case of the house-surgeon who “forgot”
-to put out his light, and examples are extremely common in everyday
-life. We forget to post letters entrusted to us against our will, but
-we do not forget to post our own love-letters. We mislay bills very
-readily, but rarely do we mislay a cheque.
-
-Amongst my patients suffering from shell-shock, I have had very many
-hundreds who have completely forgotten some of the most unpleasant
-and terrifying experiences which occurred to them out at the front.
-Others unconsciously had found the easiest method of dealing with
-the unpleasant past to be that of blotting the whole of it out,
-dissociating it completely from their conscious mind, and then stating
-that they remembered nothing of their lives until they woke up in
-hospital. It is not only memories, however, which are repressed and
-remain dormant in the unconscious mind. Most of our primitive instincts
-handed on from our savage forefathers before even the evolution of man
-in his present form, lie similarly buried in this unconscious part of
-the mind, and we are wont to deny emphatically that we possess these
-unpleasant instincts. Nevertheless, just as _in utero_ we repeat more
-or less in detail the history of our physical evolution, so do we at
-that period and in childhood repeat to a great extent the history of
-our psychic evolution; and just as during this early period we possess
-the physical attributes of many of our ancestors, such as the gills
-of the fish or the tail of the lower vertebrates, so psychically do
-we at a somewhat later period, possess the instincts and desires of
-our progenitors, and utilise them as the hidden foundation stones
-in building our adult mental constitution. These various primitive
-instincts include all kinds of desires which would consciously be
-regarded as sexual perversions and moral crimes of different kinds, and
-they are present in all of us without exception. Our upbringing and
-conscious outlook upon them, however, causes them to be so abhorrent to
-us, that we successfully keep the majority of such ideas and feelings
-_from ever coming out of the unconscious in their primitive form_.
-In other words, we repress them. Occasionally, however, there is a
-tendency for these ancestral instincts to become conscious, and in
-our further efforts to prevent this we may develop instead hysterias,
-obsessions and unreasonable fears, together with many other nervous
-and abnormal signs and symptoms, into the nature of which it is not
-my intention to inquire further in this present volume. Those who
-are interested in pursuing this line of investigation will find an
-elementary account of it in a previous work of mine, “The Elements
-of Practical Psycho-Analysis.” All that I wish to emphasise here
-is that we do push out from the conscious mind unpleasant thoughts
-and memories, that we do repress and keep in the unconscious mind
-unpleasant desires and instincts, and that we do, as a result of this,
-have many unconscious or semi-conscious conflicts within ourselves,
-which may lead to unpleasant feelings of depression, irritability,
-fear, or in more pronounced cases hysterias, obsessions, and even
-permanent mental derangement.
-
-
-§2
-
-A further and somewhat important result of our possessing so much
-which is unconscious and of having so many feelings and ideas in
-consciousness of which we do not know the origin, or of whose
-origins we have but the vaguest and haziest notion is known as
-_rationalization_. This word signifies that we find reasons for doing
-or believing things which are of a pleasant nature and agreeable to us,
-and _vice versa_.
-
-Following on this rationalisation comes also a certain conservatism,
-which tends to retard progress of any sort, which dislikes looking at
-new ideas, and this for a very obvious reason. Looking at new ideas,
-examining ourselves or our work very closely, has a tendency to bring
-to light, from time to time, the very primitive instincts and feelings
-which we have been at so much pains to repress. And rather than submit
-to the indignity of discovering how really imperfect we are, and having
-our pride in our divinely constituted natures shaken, we have acquired
-a habit of denying and fighting strenuously against discovering truths
-connected with either our moral or physical evolution which would be
-unpleasant to us. In the light of our upbringing, such new truths are
-often unpleasant, therefore we rationalise that they must be untrue.
-For having been educated to venerate logic and reason, we can only
-be satisfied with any given conclusion we come to when we feel that
-it is justifiable in the light of logic and reason. But the logic of
-rationalisation is false logic.
-
-For many years, scientific and popular thought denied strenuously the
-possibility of the now universally accepted theory of human evolution;
-and on scientific grounds it was urged, with much plausible reasoning,
-that it was not possible to develop a high type like man from any low
-form of animal. On religious grounds it was argued equally passionately
-that if evolution were true, the Bible was wrong, God disappeared, and
-therefore the theory of evolution was untrue. The real reasons lying
-behind those reasons advanced by both the scientist and the general
-public, however, were not the reasons so carefully thought out by
-them, but consisted largely in the fact that they did not wish to find
-that the body, which they had hitherto thought a special and divine
-creation partaking of the miraculous, to be merely a stage in the
-evolution of life on this planet, and possibly not a final stage at
-that. For in that case, no longer would man be able to flatter himself
-that he was almost divine, he would have to relegate himself to the
-possibility of being in a stage of semi-barbarism; he would no longer
-be a final perfect product, but merely a half-finished article. It was
-this blow to his pride that he could not stand. And it is the same
-to-day. Whenever there is a likelihood that examination, particularly
-through research work, has thrown light on his psychic evolution,
-on the imperfections of his moral laws, or on the crudity of some
-conventional custom, the process which takes place in him is much the
-same.
-
-Firstly, dislike of the idea. Secondly, on further examination of it,
-hatred of the idea. Thirdly, rationalisation directed against the idea.
-Fourthly, contentment, in that he has proved by logic and reason that
-the idea is wrong. Hence, it is that the truth takes long to emerge,
-and that obsessions and hysterias, and even trivial abnormalities are
-difficult to cure, for the cure involves seeing our own imperfections
-naked and undisguised.
-
-In all these cases, we are trying to keep out of consciousness those
-things which will distress us or cause us to have conflicts, or to have
-to readjust our views of ourselves, or in fact cause us unpleasantness
-in any form. It will be noticed that I have mentioned pride in the
-belief that we have reached a condition of final development, and in
-our superiority over the rest of nature, as being one of the important
-factors in preventing our advance. It is to the development of this
-pride, and its ramifications that I am devoting the major portion of
-this book.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III
-
-THE FORCES SHAPING CHARACTER
-
-
-It will be seen from the foregoing that evolution of the individual
-character may be the result of a very large number of forces at
-work, of which many are quite unconscious; and that any considerable
-disturbance or variation of the unconscious factors will considerably
-modify the character of the individual, in spite of conscious desires
-in some other direction. The character of an individual is the sum of
-his thoughts, ideas, capacities, desires, feelings and actions, and the
-general forces moulding it may be briefly summarised as follows:
-
-
-     1. The primitive instincts inherited from his ancestors, and held
-     back in the unconscious mind.
-
-     2. Environment and education.
-
-     3. That pride in his own greatness, to which we referred in
-     the last chapter, which modifies all the other forces at work,
-     according to the direction of its development. This force will
-     henceforth be called by the name of Narcissism, for a reason
-     shortly to be explained.
-
-
-§2
-
-Of the inherited instincts we have already said as much as is necessary
-here. It suffices for us to recognise that they are for the most part
-of a primitive erotic type, and that they are so repressed and modified
-as to be unrecognisable in the normal adult. When they have been
-ineffectually converted by environment and education, we have present
-the basis of many neurotic and functional conditions, and this again is
-a matter which is outside the scope of the present work.
-
-
-§3
-
-Environment and education are extremely comprehensive terms as used
-in psychology. Environment does not merely refer to the home with its
-visible surroundings, nor does education merely refer to the scholastic
-side of it. Environment and education include the treatment of the
-child by the nurse during the first week of life; for instance,
-whether she leaves it alone when it cries, or whether she soothes it
-and rocks it to sleep again. A trivial fact, the reader will think,
-especially in the first week of the child’s life, yet experience
-shows us that this environment and education of the first week is an
-extremely important factor in its after-life. The thousand little
-actions, the trivial chance words of anger or contempt, not merely
-of the parent but of strangers or of other children, all make their
-impressions on the infantile unconscious mind. They all belong, in the
-strictest sense, to what we term its environment and education. Any
-stimulus, in fact, however small, which is capable of reaching the
-brain forms part of this environment and education which is reacting
-on the child. Psychologists are now generally of the opinion that
-the essential elements of the individual character have all been
-definitely formed by the age of five, and that, important as training
-in successive years may be, the environment and education during those
-first five years are more important still.
-
-_It is the object of education and environment to modify and utilise
-the force of the primitive instincts with which the child comes into
-the world in the best possible way._
-
-_Three things may happen to any particular instinct._ Firstly, it may
-remain unchanged and unrepressed, in which case the individual will
-be said, on reaching adult life, to be perverted in some way. Let us
-take as an example that instinct which exists in some animals, and
-which urges them at the mating season to exhibit their genital organs
-to their fellows of the opposite sex, with the perfectly natural and
-proper end in view of propagating the species. We occasionally find
-adult human beings in whom this instinct has remained unchanged and
-uncontrolled, and they generally find their way, sooner or later,
-into prison. The psychological term for the offence they commit is
-“exhibitionism.” In the small child, however, we have often seen this
-instinct at work, without regarding it as objectionable in any way.
-We have laughed at the little child who delights in running about
-naked, or asks us to come and see it being bathed, or on occasion calls
-even more obvious attention to its state of nakedness. It is quite
-unconscious of the primitive instinct which it is displaying, and since
-it is a child and cannot in any way fulfil the sexual objects of the
-instinct, we pass the matter over, without further thought.
-
-Secondly, our primitive instincts may be _displaced_, and the
-displacement must be such as to conceal them from our conscious
-thoughts, in order that they may be tolerated by the conscious mind.
-For instance, the normal adult will not be guilty of exhibiting his
-nakedness in the way above referred to, nor will he display desires of
-sexual exhibitionism in a conscious manner. But he, or more frequently
-she, will _displace_ these ideas, and will only call attention to the
-sex of her body indirectly by exhibiting the neck or arms, or more
-indirectly still through the medium of clothes, designed to suggest,
-(for the most part unconsciously) erotic ideas.
-
-Thirdly, a much higher state may be reached by some people in which the
-primitive instinct has now lost entirely its erotic meaning, instead
-of being merely disguised and displaced as in the last case. The force
-and energy of it has all gone from the personal physical plane to
-serve a useful social purpose of a non-sexual nature. This is known as
-_sublimation_, and instead of the desire of our exhibitionist to show
-himself or herself physically, the person may attain the desire by
-showing a fine character, by designing a fine building, achieving some
-high position, or anything in fact of an ideal or non-erotic nature.
-
-Exactly the same process takes place in the opposite of exhibitionism,
-which in its primitive form we term observationism. “Peeping Tom” is a
-celebrated example of this. We have a _displacement_ of observationism
-in the fairly average young man, who likes to observe all that he can
-of the charms of every woman he comes into contact with, who takes
-an eager interest in her shoulders, breasts, underclothing, and any
-part she may exhibit. And we have the third or _sublimated_ stage in
-the scientist, who has turned most of his primitive sexual instinct
-of “looking” in the sexual sense into looking down the microscope, or
-searching for the secrets of Nature, and delving amidst her hidden
-laws, instead of using the same primitive desire to look in an
-unsublimated and rather more infantile manner.
-
-It is exactly the same with a large number of other primitive
-instincts, which even did I mention them here would not be grasped
-or understood at all by many without very much further explanation.
-Suffice it to say, that many of our higher activities and desires
-are sublimations of lower and more primitive instincts, which we are
-learning to develop and control; _and that education and environment
-have, as their object, the training of the child by turning the forces
-at work in his primitive instincts through the stage of displacement
-into the final one of sublimation_.
-
-It should be clearly grasped that the energy lying behind our primitive
-instincts, whether it be repressed, displaced or sublimated, is a
-very real force, comparable with the physical energy which we are
-accustomed to deal with in everyday life. _And this energy must find
-some outlet for its discharge._ Thus,[2]“We know as regards physical
-energy that there are not several kinds of energy, but merely several
-manifestations of it, and that it may be changed from one form of
-manifestation to another, but that still the sum total of the original
-energy remains without addition or loss.”
-
-Thus there is a given amount of energy stored in a ton of coal. This
-energy can manifest itself as _heat_ in the furnace and boiler. By
-means of an engine we can change the manifestation into that of
-_motion_, then with a dynamo to _electricity_; the electricity we can
-again change into _light_, or back again into _heat_ or _motion_. There
-is _one_ energy, but by suitable means we can turn it to different
-uses, and give different manifestations of it. Owing, however, to the
-imperfection of the boiler, machinery, etc., we never transform the
-_whole_ of our energy into another form. In transforming heat into
-electricity, there is always some heat wasted; it is not destroyed, but
-it remains as heat for a time, and is absorbed by surrounding objects.
-A complete transference of energy does not take place, and the less
-efficient the machinery the less is the transference.
-
-Now evidence tends to show a considerable similarity between psychic
-and physical energy. In all probability there is only one ultimate
-psychic energy which, like physical energy, can be directed into
-different channels. Thus, the energy of erotic desire can be directed
-to a large extent into the energy of desire for music, religion,
-science, or sport; or the energy of the desire for sport may be changed
-into the energy of the desire for mental exercise, such as chess,
-mathematics, or science. For example, an individual feels “restless,”
-he then desires to play tennis; the afternoon is wet: he plays chess
-instead. His psychic energy has been diverted from one channel into
-another with its accompanying excitement and satisfaction of desire:
-with its final feeling of fatigue and repletion.
-
-Psychic energy, like physical energy, can never be entirely diverted
-from one channel to another. There is always some, often a large
-quantity, which is not altered in character. The amount of this depends
-largely on the person concerned, just as the amount of physical energy,
-changed from one form to another depends on the efficiency of the
-engine or machinery.
-
-This possibility of transference of energy of desire from one form
-to another is of the utmost importance to the psycho-analyst. By the
-technique of psycho-analysis the energy of repressed desires is first
-freed from deleterious objectives, and then transferred to legitimate
-ones. The energy behind the conflicts which lead to alcoholism or
-drug-taking may, under suitable conditions, be transferred to energy of
-higher types of desire with more suitable outlets. These processes are
-known as _transference_ and _sublimation_ respectively.
-
-It may be taken that every mind has a given amount of psychic energy
-which _must_ find somewhere its suitable outlet in satisfying desire,
-whether for accomplishment or for enjoyment.
-
-We may here again take the opportunity of stating that the efficiency
-or lack of efficiency demonstrated in different individuals in their
-attempts to transfer the energy of desire from a lower to a higher
-channel depends not only on heredity and constitutional circumstances
-but to an extraordinary degree on the individual’s environment and the
-actions of the parents in the first three or four years of his life.
-The reason why seemingly excellent parents produce sometimes execrable
-progeny becomes clearer under psycho-analysis. The over-strict parent
-produces one type of inefficient children, the parent who spoils
-produces other inefficient types. The nurse, the nursery, the casual
-visitor, the trivial conversations, the unconsidered sights and
-experiences, all have a terrific influence in the first few years
-of the child’s life. Parents do not realise that conventional or
-arbitrary methods of education, whether in one direction or another,
-are not going to effect the results they expected. The primitive
-unconscious mind of the child understands and absorbs in a manner
-that civilised man does not recognise. The bad father may by accident
-or _neglect_ produce an excellent child--the good father with all
-his designs may produce a bad one. This is not an attempt to show
-that as the child grows up _all_ its actions are dependent on the
-early environment; merely that we can never compare the good or bad
-in individuals; that an apparent failure, owing to his inefficiency
-of powers of sublimation, may yet be devoting more energy to ascent
-than the successful saint whose early environment made for efficient
-transference of energy of desire. Some of the commonest of errors made
-by well-meaning parents will come to light at a later period. “_They
-teach their children to repress erotic and other desires but they omit
-at the same time to assist the development of that sublimation of them
-which is absolutely essential._”
-
-
-§4
-
-We now come to the third great factor in character formation, and as
-this particular factor is going to occupy the major portion of this
-book, I will not do more here than indicate briefly the symbolic
-meaning of the term Narcissism; the reason why this term is used in
-connection with our primitive feelings of pride will then gradually
-unfold itself.
-
-Narcissus was the son of the river god, Cephissus. In his mother’s
-eyes he was extremely beautiful, and later in the eyes of all others,
-including himself. It was his wont to walk abroad in solitary places
-lost in admiration of the graceful form which he thought no eyes
-worthy to behold, save his own. On one occasion, he wanted to drink
-from a cool spring and catching sight of his face in the water for
-the first time in his life, at once fell in love with it, not knowing
-it to be his own likeness. On his knees at the edge of the pool, he
-stretched himself, and looked down upon a face and form so entrancingly
-beautiful, that he was ready to leap into the water beside it.
-
-“Who art thou, who hast been made so fair?” cried Narcissus. And the
-lips of the image moved, yet there came no answer. He stretched out his
-hand towards it, and the beautiful form beckoned to him. But when his
-hand touched and broke the surface, it vanished like a dream, only to
-return in all its enchantment when he was content to gaze motionless,
-even then, again, growing dim beneath the tears of vexation he shed
-into the water. Repeatedly, he tried to gather the lovely image in his
-arms, but it always eluded him, but when he entreated and implored, it
-imitated his gestures with unfeeling silence.
-
-Maddened by the strong allurement of his own likeness, he could not
-tear himself away from the mirror which ever mocked his fancy. Hour
-after hour, day after day, he leant over the pool’s brink, crying in
-vain for that imaginary object of adoration. But at last from despair
-his heart ceased to throb, and he lay still among the water-lilies that
-made his shroud.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Before proceeding further and examining the development of Narcissism,
-and those factors which come to preserve it, and make it forceful in
-our unconscious mind, we must first briefly consider the subject of
-determinism.
-
-FOOTNOTE:
-
-[2] “Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis,” by Paul Bousfield.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV
-
-DETERMINISM AND WILL POWER
-
-
-Determinism is the doctrine that all things, including the will, are
-determined by causes. It is the antithesis of the doctrine of free
-will. In its complete form, it holds that the individual has no direct
-and voluntary control over his thoughts and actions but that every
-thought and action is inevitably the result of a large number of
-previous thoughts and actions which have gone before.
-
-There is a very large amount of evidence, and indeed, whether we admit
-it or not, the evidence is quite irrefutable, that in regard to the
-majority of our actions the doctrine of determinism holds good. But the
-evidence is by no means sufficient to enable us to conclude that we
-have no free will.
-
-[3]Freud in his book on the “Psychopathology of Everyday Life” and in
-other works gives many convincing examples that much in our character,
-that many of our actions, evil and good, are quite beyond our control
-at any given moment. But there is one thing that appears to have been
-overlooked, and that is, _that in all the examples given one could
-not conceivably utilise free will in any case_. If I ask you to think
-of a number what opportunity do you get of using your will power?
-If you put the wrong latch-key into the door by accident, have you
-made any effort to use will power? When a patient is suffering from
-hysteria due to repressions of various kinds, in that particular matter
-_the will power has already been lost_. When a chronic alcoholic is
-unable to cease from drinking his will power in reference to this has
-disappeared, therefore determinism holds the field completely. The
-will has no opportunity of working then. In all the examples which
-Freud gives one discovers on careful investigation that for some reason
-or another there is no opportunity for the use of free will. Such
-evidence as we have certainly does not prove the nonexistence of free
-will, but merely shows that in a very large number of our thoughts and
-actions we do not use any will at all, and that in other cases we are
-unable to use our will effectively.[4] When determinism does rule we
-may liken it physically to this: a patient sits down and crosses one
-leg over the other and leaves the one leg hanging free. On tapping
-it smartly beneath the patella the foot will kick; the knee jerk has
-been elicited. If this be done fifty times the result will be the
-same fifty times. There is movement of the leg, but this movement is
-predetermined. On the other hand this does not prove that no other
-movement of the leg is possible. Under the conditions just given the
-man’s will, or the freedom of the leg, is merely _eliminated during
-that period_. Or again, we may liken it to a locomotive standing at the
-top of a hill; if the brake be taken off, the locomotive will run down
-the hill, and will do it every time; but this will not prove that did
-somebody happen to put the brake on half-way down the hill the engine
-would still go on running. However, all actions which we may ascribe to
-our will are no doubt strictly limited by other determined conditions.
-The man on the engine may run it backwards or forwards, but only within
-_the very much prescribed limits which the rails allow_. We may safely
-accept this much determinism, that although the will exists, its
-capabilities are strictly circumscribed by determinism.
-
-It is rather in his general direction than in any specific act that
-a man has most control. We certainly have not the amount of free
-will which we like to believe we have. For example, the reader of
-this chapter may have returned home to-night and have said, “I will
-not have a meal to-night, it is too hot.” What are the factors (or
-determinants, as they are called) in this case? Perhaps external heat,
-producing langour by various physiological processes, combined with
-lack of appetite, in its turn produced by several causes, and added to
-this, depression, produced by a bad business deal, and in its turn the
-result of many other determinants outside the reader’s control. There
-is no desire to eat, and these various determinants, added together,
-prove stronger than the habit of eating the evening meal. Having,
-however, read this chapter as far as this point, the reader desiring to
-disprove my unpleasant suggestion, immediately says, “Ah! I will prove
-that I have free will. I will eat my meal in spite of not wanting it.”
-
-Alas! this does not _prove_ free will, new determinants have merely
-been added on the other side, and desire to prove strength of mind has
-now out-weighed accumulated efforts which prevented you from eating.
-
-Since it has been shown that a man’s control is constantly being
-limited by other determinants, it follows that the criminal whose
-environment and determinants, conscious and unconscious, have been
-manufactured for him from evil sources, yet who, on the whole, is
-progressing upwards in spite of these, may be forming a far better
-character than the arch-bishop whose environment from the beginning has
-been such as never to give him criminal characteristics, yet whose
-growth has been, on the whole, towards a more selfish position, even
-though this be not noticeable to the eyes of others.
-
-_Now many of the determinants forming our characters lie in the
-unconscious. They are unknown to us and only the results of their
-activities are visible. Herein lies the difficulty of controlling
-ourselves. How can we efficiently control that of which we do not know
-the existence? Herein, also, lies the value of psycho-analysis, for it
-brings many of these determinants to light, and we are thus able to
-control them consciously._ Only a part of all this can be accomplished
-by such self-analysis as may be indicated in this book. Yet even so, a
-much greater degree of self-control may be obtained.
-
-
-§2
-
-Let us now consider briefly why persons who have not previously been
-irritable, should suddenly become irritable; who have not previously
-been hysterical, should suddenly become hysterical; who have not
-previously been in the habit of weeping, should at some time after
-reaching adult life, revert to that infantile habit.
-
-The explanation of mental troubles of various kinds involves two
-factors. In the first place, any individual is capable of bearing a
-certain amount of conflict and a certain amount of repression. It is
-only when the accumulated force is more than he can control, _that is
-when new determinants are added_, that the symptoms begin to appear. He
-is like a steam engine in which as long as the steam is being used up
-in doing work, or as long as the safety valve is working efficiently
-when work is not being done, the boiler stands a pressure of 100lbs.
-very comfortably. If the safety valve gets jammed, and the energy
-cannot be transferred from the steam to the work, the pressure in the
-boiler rises higher and higher until it bursts from the joints and
-rivet-holes.
-
-The second factor which determines the mode of expression of this
-out-burst of repressed energy is known as the _law of regression_.
-This means that if the adult outlet of energy becomes dammed up or is
-insufficient, _the energy will flow through an earlier channel which
-has once been used_. The individual will, in fact, revert to some
-method which he was wont to use in earlier years, or in infancy. It
-is true that this may be disguised and not recognised as an infantile
-mode of expression until it is looked into more closely. This question
-of regression, however, need not be more than touched upon here. It
-will be much more fully dealt with when we come to actual examples at a
-later stage.
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[3] “The Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis,” by Paul Bousfield.
-
-[4] The doctrines of determinism and free-will respectively can be
-brought entirely into line with one another if we include freewill
-itself as one of the determinants. Thus, if in the formula
-
-    S = a + b + c + d + etc.
-
-where S is the resultant action, and a, b, c, d, etc., are the several
-determinants, it happens that d = 0. The presence of d does not
-invalidate the formula. _But if_ d _does not happen to be zero, the
-absence of_ d _would invalidate the formula_. If d represents the
-“will” component there may be plenty, even a majority of cases in which
-d = 0, but there may be cases in which the omission of d will render
-the result erroneous.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V
-
-NARCISSISM
-
-
-The term Narcissism has already been mentioned and some slight
-indication of its importance in character development has been given.
-We have also examined the derivation of the term, and found that it
-implies self-interest, self-importance, self-worship; all of which
-characteristics are in modified degrees possessed by everybody. There
-are, however, many other manifestations of Narcissism, many tricks by
-which it gets past our conscious intentions, many ways in which it
-associates itself with other instincts, and unknown to us works our
-undoing. We shall therefore, in this chapter, examine the development
-of Narcissism from its very earliest stages, and trace out in some
-detail whither it may lead.
-
-Most people were they asked at what moment the child’s mind first
-began to register feelings, thoughts, and emotions, would probably at
-once and without hesitation say, “At the moment of birth.” It seems
-the obvious thing to say, but like many other obvious things such a
-statement appears to have but little evidence in support of it and much
-against it.
-
-The act of birth has performed no sudden or miraculous change upon the
-growth and tissues of the body. It is true that oxygen is now absorbed
-through the lungs instead of as originally through the mother’s blood,
-but the essential tissues, the brain, the muscles and the bones have
-undergone no sudden change. Before birth, they were living tissues,
-and we know that the muscles were at work, for we had felt the baby’s
-movements _in utero_; we know that the heart was at work, driving
-the blood through the child’s arteries. We had learnt this also by
-means of the stethoscope many weeks before the child was born. Why
-then should we assume that the brain had registered nothing at birth?
-We do indeed know that it must have been at work in part, for it was
-learning to regulate the action of the child’s heart and the child’s
-secretions, the blood pressure, and the motions of its limbs. We are
-therefore justified in assuming that it must be capable of registering
-impressions, even though it were incapable of reason or thought.
-
-It is true that at birth it commences to undergo many vivid new
-experiences, but that is no reason for assuming that it has not
-undergone any experiences _in utero_, and that these experiences have
-not made some impressions on the brain. Let us see for a moment what
-impressions it is likely to have received and registered. First of
-all, it would most certainly hear sounds, the sounds of the blood
-rushing through the mother’s arteries and the sounds from the outer
-world, muffled and indistinct when they had penetrated the mother’s
-body. All these sounds would be of a soft crooning nature, and those
-caused by the blood in the mother’s arteries would be of a rhythmic,
-humming, rising and falling nature, a kind of rhythmic lullaby very
-similar in many respects to the lullaby the mother will hum to the
-child when she wishes to put it to sleep at a later period. We should
-expect these sounds to be registered on the child’s brain so that if
-it ever heard their like again, some chord of _feeling-memory_ would
-be struck, and some emotional association brought to mind. In the
-second place, external movements would be registered on the child’s
-mind as the mother walked about. There would be a swaying or swinging
-movement. Again we should expect that when, in after life, the child
-experienced a swaying or swinging movement, a chord of memory would be
-touched again, and these earlier associations would be revived; not as
-a conscious memory or fact, of course, but as a feeling.
-
-Again, conscious movements of its own limbs might be impressed upon it.
-It would find, when it tried to move, that its movements were limited,
-and that it attained more perfect peace by refraining from attempting
-to struggle and change its position. It would be impressed by the
-pleasantness of inertia as opposed to the unpleasantness of making
-an effort. And finally, its general position with the knees drawn up
-and the chin bent down would be firmly registered, so that when in
-after-life it again assumed this position, once more the chord of
-memory would be struck, and the old feeling of repose would be likely
-to return.
-
-Now, we cannot assume that the child has any active mental state before
-its birth, but we know that its condition (taken in conjunction with
-its extremely limited experience) is one as near omnipotence (from its
-standpoint) as may be. It breathes, or rather absorbs oxygen without
-any effort of breathing. It is fed, it is kept warm and comfortable
-without any effort whatsoever. It lives in a world entirely its own,
-where everything works together for its comfort and well-being. It has
-to make no struggle for existence. It has to deal with nothing _real_,
-save perhaps that its voluntary movements are limited, and this perhaps
-is bad for its education, since at that period of its life it learns
-that it can be most comfortable by making least effort! And here we see
-the beginning of that which we all possess in after-life, _inertia_,
-the difficulty of making a beginning at anything, the objection which
-we have to making efforts.
-
-Now let us see what happens to this omnipotent little creature at
-birth. It goes through the probably painful process of having its
-position roughly changed and being thrust into an atmosphere which is
-cold and unusual to it. Moreover it has to make its first struggle for
-breath, its first effort to sustain existence. And in its struggle for
-breath it utters cries, which by experience it very soon finds to be
-magic sounds which enable it to fulfil its wishes. But of this, more
-later.
-
-After its first rude awakening, let us once more see what happens. It
-is wrapped up in something warm; that is, it is returned to a semblance
-of the womb, by having something round it which keeps out the cold. It
-is gently rocked to and fro by the nurse or other attendant, and again
-the semblance of the previous rocking in the womb is returned to it.
-Crooning sounds are murmured over it, and the semblance is still more
-complete. It frequently draws its knees up somewhat if it is placed in
-such a position that it can do so with ease, and falls asleep. It has
-attained as nearly as possible once more the semblance of its pre-birth
-condition, where it has no cares, and is warm and comfortable again.
-And though it has become acquainted with effort, it is quite obvious
-that its feeling of omnipotence, if we may so term it for the moment,
-is hardly yet disturbed, and the world it has come into differs but
-slightly from the world which it has left; it is still a world in which
-the infant is the centre and ruler, in which its every want is attended
-to without an effort on its part, save that it may sometimes have to
-call attention to its wants by means of that magical cry which it soon
-learns how and when to use, and which acts in a truly magical manner in
-accomplishing the fulfilment of all its desires.
-
-During the first few weeks of the infant’s life this delusion on the
-part of the child is largely kept up. Few people think there is any
-harm in attending to all a baby’s wants in the first month of its
-life. They do not think it could possibly be wrong to spoil it at that
-age, because its intellect has not developed. They forget entirely
-that its mental condition and attitude towards life, apart from actual
-thought, may inevitably be affected at this period. Hence, whenever
-the baby cries, it is not uncommonly rocked to sleep, or fed, or if
-it holds out its hand and shows its desire to possess anything, it is
-immediately allowed to possess it, and to play with it. It has to make
-but the faintest attempts to adjust itself to its environment, it has
-to face but the slightest reality; all its desires are immediately
-fulfilled, and kept in a condition of almost continual fulfilment. And
-it may remain for a considerable period as near being an omnipotent
-creature as it is possible for any living thing to be. Its omnipotence,
-however, is really a fallacy, or as I prefer to term it at a slightly
-later stage, a phantasy, for the world in which it lived before birth,
-which seemed to it as a world, was not really a world at all, but a
-very small and a very temporary abode, and the world in which it is
-living for the first few months after birth is again not really a world
-but a combination of extremely limited and carefully selected portions
-of the world, in which every attempt is made to disguise from it the
-realities of the actual world.
-
-Again let us emphasise the fact that the chief effort that the infant
-has to make is the effort of crying. And it may learn very quickly
-that this is so all-powerful as to practically efface the unpleasant
-task of having to adjust itself to the realities of life. This process
-is carried on with slight modifications for many months. The infant has
-but to wave a magic wand, as it were, has but to emit a little magic
-noise from its mouth, and all the world it knows is set in motion to
-give it satisfaction and some semblance of its pre-birth omnipotence.
-
-_This cry which brings it gratification, if it has been really
-effective over a too-prolonged period, will tend to fix permanently
-in the child’s mind the fact that either weeping or making a magic
-noise with the mouth will always attain for it gratification. And
-although at a later stage the conscious mind will be obliged to accept
-a considerable amount of reality and to reject the idea of omnipotence,
-yet the unconscious mind will persist in the struggle and will make
-futile efforts to forget reality, to change reality into phantasy, and
-to regain its omnipotent state._
-
-When a man uses expletives because some task of his has failed to
-result in success, he is really repeating the infant’s cry. He is
-really uttering a magic sound which his unconscious mind hopes may
-somehow remedy the failure. He has not definitely accepted the reality
-of failure as a commonplace hard fact of life at the moment at which he
-utters his expletive.
-
-When a person weeps at some unpleasant happening or in anger at
-something which has touched his pride, exactly the same is taking
-place. He, or she, has failed to make a complete adaptation of
-himself to the facts and realities of life. _He has obeyed the law
-of regression_, to which I referred in a previous chapter, and has
-returned to the infantile method of expression, namely weeping, with
-the unconscious hope that a magic compensation will result; that
-instead of his having to adapt himself to the facts of life, the facts
-of life will somehow adapt themselves to his phantasy.
-
-Hence, the first piece of advice that one must give to parents is
-that they should, from the earliest possible moment, train the
-infant to understand that the magic cries will not at once produce
-their expected result; and the first week in the infant’s life is
-all-important in this matter. The choosing of the nurse who has charge
-during that period should be done with great care, and what is required
-of her should be insisted on. Too great emphasis cannot be laid upon
-these points.
-
-The child should be fed at regular and proper intervals, and should
-be kept warm. But if it cries, as it will do naturally, it should be
-left to itself to cry. It should not be picked up, rocked to sleep,
-given another meal nor petted. If it is left to cry, it will learn very
-rapidly and at the right period of its life that the sounds which it
-emits are not magical, and it will begin to adapt itself to the fact
-that it lives in a real world which has not been built solely and only
-for its own delight.
-
-It is curious to note how regression, this instinct to return to the
-earlier mode of expression, to return apparently even to the pre-birth
-state, persists in the unconscious mind.
-
-During the war, I knew a youth who was intensely agitated by the
-air-raids. He felt perfectly safe, however, if he could crawl under
-the bed or table, where he would curl himself into practically the same
-position as that of a normal baby before birth. When questioned, he had
-not, of course, the slightest conscious knowledge of why he felt safe
-in such curious circumstances. But it does not seem improbable that
-the association of ideas produced by his position and by the confined
-space created a feeling akin to that feeling of safety which has been
-his in his pre-birth omnipotent position where nothing could harm him.
-A similar feeling of security was experienced by many normal persons in
-cellars and other confined spaces and was probably of the same origin;
-for there is no doubt that this safety was felt even though their
-reason told them that a bomb was as likely to reach their confined
-space as any other place in the neighbourhood.
-
-Again, I know of innumerable cases in which soldiers felt very much
-safer from bombs which fell at night when they were under cover of a
-canvas tent. Logically, of course, the thing was absurd; emotionally,
-it was a fact. And all were equally unconscious of any possible
-reasons for the feeling of security produced. An example of this same
-tendency at an earlier age is seen in children who cover their heads
-with the bedclothes when they are frightened.
-
-To return to our Narcissistic infant, we are now impressed with the
-fact that one thing of the utmost importance in the first years of its
-life is that it shall gradually come into contact with reality, shall
-discover that all things do not belong to it, that its omnipotent
-feelings are based purely upon phantasy and not upon reality; and upon
-the method of its disillusionment and the age at which this begins
-largely depend the future powers of adaptation of the child to its
-surroundings. It has now become obvious that the new-born infant lives
-in a world of phantasy, in which, the relative importance of itself to
-things outside itself is not merely distorted but is entirely absent.
-And if we can suppose a child kept artificially in this condition till
-it reached adult life, every wish satisfied instantaneously, every
-force it knows directed entirely towards gratifying its immediate
-desires, we do not require much imagination to understand how
-absolutely helpless and lost this omnipotent creature would be if
-suddenly turned into the world to face life and reality. His one desire
-would be to return to his omnipotent state, his one effort to keep at
-bay reality and turn it into the pleasant phantasy of the previous
-twenty years. For he would surely, before his disillusionment, have
-really come to believe himself omnipotent, the only real thing in a
-phantasy world of his own fashioning and dreaming.
-
-An extreme case of this kind is, of course, an impossibility. But there
-are many and various degrees in which it is approached. Probably the
-nearest approach to it may be found in cases where some sort of moral
-or mental conflict has been too much for an extremely Narcissistic
-mind, which has then completely regressed, refused to recognise the
-outer world, and developed a certain form of insanity; and from this
-stage of complete Narcissistic regression all degrees and kinds of
-manifestations of it may be found, until we reach at the other end of
-our list a person who expects everyone around to consult his wishes
-and peculiarities or who is merely somewhat impatient, or inclined to
-irritability, or merely over-sensitive to either mental or physical
-pain.
-
-There is no more certain fact than that if an infant be allowed to
-postpone its acquaintance with reality too long it becomes fixed in a
-more or less degree in conditions in which phantasy plays too prominent
-a part, and regression of some kind takes place as it meets with real
-difficulties.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI
-
-FACT AND PHANTASY
-
-
-In the last chapter we emphasised the fact that one of the first
-products of Narcissism was the infantile difficulty of distinguishing
-between fact and phantasy, of realising the world outside oneself. This
-tendency to mix up fact with phantasy is by no means only to be found
-in an abnormal mind. It is present in some degree in all persons; each
-one feels himself to be the most real thing present, and in feeling
-this he has a tendency to believe that others round him are in some way
-less real, though, fortunately, very few carry it far enough to imagine
-that all the others are merely part of a dream in which the dreamer is
-the only real figure, as the Red King in “Alice Through the Looking
-Glass” is supposed to have done, when the remark is made to Alice,
-“You’re only a sort of thing in his dream! If that there king was to
-wake you would go out bang--just like a candle!”
-
-And yet quite a large number of people find it difficult to realise
-firstly, that they must die, and secondly that the rest of the world
-will not die also when they die. They know, of course, that this
-latter is not the case, yet they cannot look upon it as a commonplace
-fact. Their Narcissism refuses to contemplate their own mortality. It
-represses the fact and leaves the idea vague and unreal to them.
-
-In children, the difficulty of distinguishing between phantasy and
-reality is quite normally much more accentuated than in adults.
-And since they start in a world of phantasy and their training is
-to lead them to a world of reality, it is obvious that the halfway
-stages will be obscured by a strange mixture of the two. All children
-go through the stage in which phantasy and reality are by no means
-clearly differentiated, and most young children succeed, day by day, in
-fulfilling impossible wishes in phantasies in a manner which a properly
-developed adult can never do.
-
-A little boy desires to possess a pony; if this be impossible his
-imagination gives life to a rocking-horse, and failing that he may
-tie a piece of string to a chair, and with great pleasure and much
-emotion urge on his fiery untamed steed across mountain and desert.
-He fulfils his wishes immediately by means of a phantasy, which, for
-the time being, successfully replaces reality. If this child grows up
-normally, this possibility of phantastic fulfilment should gradually
-disappear. How many adults, for instance, could take a bath-tub into
-their dining-room, sit in it, and with the aid of a vivid imagination
-thoroughly enjoy a pleasant sail at sea? We trust no one, at any
-rate of our readers, for they would be of that type which has no
-perspective, and they would most certainly fail in their vocation as
-practical men and women. Yet remnants of phantasy thinking remain with
-everyone, and in a moderate degree, so far as we know, such remnants do
-but little harm if they are present in small measure only, and kept in
-water-tight compartments.
-
-Adult phantasy thinking very largely consists in what is known as
-identification, which may be either conscious or unconscious. Of this,
-we shall have more to say shortly. At the moment let us trace out what
-should happen to the normal child as it grows older. Education and
-environment should be gradually convincing the child of the unreality
-of its phantastic thoughts and of its early world, should be inducing
-it to think in terms of facts and to adjust himself to these facts,
-instead of attempting the impossible task of adjusting these facts to
-suit his own phantastic conceptions of them. The method of thought
-which he should develop in order thus to fit himself to meet the
-world adequately has been conveniently termed “directive thinking.”
-Directive thinking is controlled thought based upon facts seen in their
-true perspective, and with a purpose in view which is both definite
-and possible. It is the very opposite of phantasy thinking, which is
-generally indefinite, based upon a lack of perspective, and attempts
-continually to obtain the fulfilment of wishes impossible of fulfilment.
-
-In directive thinking, the purpose in view must be purposive to the
-thinker, a change to be produced in the world, either in its happiness,
-its morals, its commercial prosperity or in other forms of progress
-or even of deterioration; or the purpose may be to effect changes in
-the individual’s own happiness or prosperity, or it may be directed
-towards a mental change in the thinker himself with no immediate idea
-of changes in his external surroundings.
-
-Thus a man may wish to improve his own character by eradicating a bad
-habit. He may do this by thinking carefully about it, by analysing the
-causes of the habit, by giving himself auto-suggestion in opposition to
-the habit. All this, even if the habit may not in the end be eradicated
-must be classed as directive thinking. _Directive thinking is thus
-obviously, controlled thinking requiring an effort of attention and
-concentration as opposed to phantasy thinking which knows but little
-control save that of desire, and little effort or concentration._
-
-In all the business of everyday life, directive thinking must be
-employed; whether we are merely using our minds to decide the most
-trivial problem, such as the best way of eradicating weeds from the
-garden, or whether we are deciding upon a policy to be pursued in some
-great commercial or political enterprise. Every time we use our brains
-in directive thinking we are establishing a habit which gradually gives
-us power to produce changes in our environment and in the world in
-general. Every time we indulge in phantasy thinking we encourage the
-habit of living in a world of our own ideas, and we are destroying the
-habit which enables us to create in reality.
-
-The two forms of thinking may, of course, overlap considerably. The
-novelist or playwright, for instance, is very largely a phantasy
-thinker. He may feel the emotions of the various phantasy characters
-which he evolves, but in order to arrange the words and sentences,
-and furthermore in having an idea to portray or in drawing attention
-to evils which he thinks should be remedied, he is using considerable
-energy in directive thought. So that it becomes obvious that directive
-thought need not merely apply to the things of the immediate present
-nor even the near future, and in trying to draw distinction between
-the two, one is often confronted with a superficial criticism, that
-certain ideas must pertain to phantasy thinking, because they can never
-come to pass. That, however, is quite incorrect. The possibility that
-an idea may come to fruition in two or three hundred years time, and
-that the thoughts which have been given to the idea must assist its
-growth and ripening, is sufficient to constitute these thoughts as
-directive.
-
-We must now look at the second important element in the child’s early
-education, which would follow logically upon the first one that it
-should be made to face the facts around it; and that is, that in its
-games and occupations it should be encouraged, as far as possible, to
-take lines of directive thought, and not obtain its pleasures through
-phantasies only.
-
-Thus, it would be much better to give him bricks to play with, so that
-he may use directive thought in designing and building a house, than
-to give him a ready-made toy, such as an engine wherewith he will
-merely carry out the phantasy of being a driver or a passenger and of
-travelling wheresoever he wishes. A toy wheel-barrow which he can take
-into the garden and fill with real stones and earth is far better than
-a doll which he will merely imagine to be something to be brought up
-like himself, which he will endow with phantastic life and feelings
-which are quite unreal. In fact, as far as possible, the child’s games
-and occupations should involve his _doing_ something, rather than
-merely imagining something. Of course, imagination and phantasy will
-come into its games, and are bound to do so, but as much directive
-thought as possible should be added.
-
-The ordinary fairy-tale should be swept from the nursery; here the
-child does nothing but identify himself with the hero or heroine in
-the most impossible of situations of a purely phantastic type. There
-is plenty of scope for giving a child an interest in stories from the
-fairy-land of science, or from the lives of famous persons in the
-centuries that have passed; all of which, if properly selected and
-dressed up, will assist the child’s directive thought. For though
-the facts with which the stories may deal are as wonderful as any of
-Grimm’s fairy-tales, _they are facts of which the child will never
-have to be undeceived, and he will never have to have his faith shaken
-in the stories which he has learnt_; thus the child will learn from the
-outset to think directively.
-
-I know that many mothers, when they read this, will be inclined to
-shake their heads and say to themselves, “Poor little darling, I could
-never treat it so.” And that they will be inclined, as is shown very
-early in this book, to say “These things cannot be true,” for they are
-not the ideas they are accustomed to. Yet I can assure them that by
-means of carrying out many of those actions and teachings which they
-think are pleasant and harmless, they are really damning the child,
-while many of these ideas which they might term cruel are really of
-the greatest value and kindness to it. Moreover, experience has shown
-that if diplomacy be used, the child will be as equally interested in
-wonderful facts as in wonderful phantasies. The only difference is
-that it is more trouble to the parent or educator to search out and
-deal with facts himself. It is quite true that the child’s imagination
-requires training, as part of its intellectual education. But there
-is vast difference between encouraging it to imagine the possibility
-of impossible things, and encouraging it to exercise its imagination
-in realisation of facts, however far they may be removed from the
-experience of everyday life. Many people have the idea that a child
-should be encouraged to use its imagination; whereas in fact the
-child’s imagination requires curbing, training, sublimating. Such
-people do not realise that the early life of a child is lived almost
-entirely in imagination, that it has no difficulty whatsoever in using
-its imagination, and that the real difficulty is in preventing it from
-using too much imagination directed into false channels and by-paths of
-permanent unreality.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII
-
-IDENTIFICATION
-
-
-We must now traverse another path through which Narcissism wanders. We
-have emphasised the fact that when a child comes into the world, he is
-to himself the only real thing; the rest of the world is merely seen
-from his phantastic view point, and at this stage he accepts himself as
-the one all-powerful centre of everything. Another important fact which
-arises from this, however, we have not dealt with, and that is, that he
-does not separate the outer world from himself as a separate entity.
-His unconscious view point is that the world is subordinate to himself,
-beneath his omnipotent control, if you like, that it is a dream of his
-own imagining, that it is something which belongs to him in every sense
-of the word. This, summed up, means that it is part of himself, that
-his identity and the identity of the dream-world around him are part of
-the same thing.
-
-Thus, the infant does not at first distinguish between himself and his
-mother. When he is hungry, he cries, and he probably has almost as
-ready access to his mother’s breasts as if they were part of his own
-body. And such imagination is more than encouraged when he is allowed
-the use of a rubber teat to suck in the intervals between his meals.
-
-It is generally a comparatively slow process through which the infant
-passes, this one of separating himself in thought and feeling from
-objects surrounding him. It is one which is hardly ever completely
-accomplished. We have already mentioned the fairy-tale which encourages
-the child’s phantasy thought. Let us now see how he really obtains
-pleasure from that fairy-tale. It is by identification. In imagination
-he is a fairy prince or princess, as the case may be; his pleasure in
-the triumphs and progress of the central figure of the story is that
-of performing his prodigious deeds by proxy; and if he thus identifies
-himself with the hero of the story, he is also encouraged to believe
-that he possesses the power and qualities of that hero. He is less able
-to realise that he, unlike the hero, cannot perform magic deeds with a
-mere wave of a wand. Indeed, when the story is over, he will probably
-play at being a fairy, and in phantasy perform the magic deeds again.
-
-This demonstrates the force of his identification with the hero of the
-story. _And it must be remembered that sooner or later the child will
-have to wake up, will have to realise that it possesses no magic power,
-and the struggle within it will be great._ It is obviously a mistaken
-form of kindness to enhance such pleasures of the moment, when you are
-merely accentuating the struggle which the child will have to make at
-a later period to overcome his Narcissism. In passing, I may mention
-that you have probably already done the child considerable damage by
-allowing him to have his rubber teat at the beginning of this period of
-identification, since he identifies it with the mother’s breast, and is
-thus encouraged to think that the breast is always with him.
-
-Let us now see where this Narcissistic identification may come out
-later in life.
-
-First of all, it is this which enables us to enjoy novels, just as
-we enjoyed fairy-tales as children. We identify ourselves with the
-hero or heroine of the book, and in phantasy perform their various
-wonderful feats. Thus we satisfy our Narcissistic desire to be great
-and powerful. If we lack cleverness, and the hero is clever, by
-identification and imputation we may attain the pleasures of feeling
-clever and superior. If the heroine is beautiful and everyone falls in
-love with her, we may by proxy be the same. If the hero is a sailor,
-and we have always desired to sail, yet have never been on the sea,
-our ambition is now attained--and see how easily attained--in a truly
-omnipotent fashion, without effort on our part, just by reading
-about it. Exactly the same thing takes place at theatres, where the
-Narcissist identifies himself with the actors on the stage. So far
-so good; if a person can content himself with an occasional theatre
-or occasional novel, wherewith to take a restful regression to an
-infantile outlet of energy, no harm is done. There are times when we
-must rest, and there are times when we must sleep, which also appears
-to be Narcissistic regression to a condition somewhat resembling
-our pre-birth state. But there are many who cannot control their
-identification in this way, who cannot confine it to the stage and the
-novel, who bring it into the affairs of life continuously. They may
-unconsciously identify themselves with their father or mother, their
-relations or friends, or even their enemies, and perhaps, in turn, with
-everyone with whom they come into contact. Like a looking-glass, they
-reflect everything that goes on around them. They feel the pleasures of
-their friends, they also feel their pains. They are called sympathetic,
-they are often ultra-sympathetic--they are a nuisance.
-
-I remember on one occasion I had asked a woman of strong Narcissistic
-temperament to take a fly out of the corner of my eye. She absolutely
-refused to do so under any consideration, as she was sure she would
-hurt me too much. Inquiry showed that Narcissism had exaggerated her
-own feelings, so that a speck of dust in her own eye was torture. Yet
-her eye was so tender and important to herself that she could not bear
-anyone to touch it even in order to get something out. _And she could
-not imagine that anybody else could have feelings that differed from
-hers_; and since she identified herself so much with other people, I
-have no doubt it would have been a real agony to her, had she attempted
-to extract the fly from my eye.
-
-Such people are by no means uncommon. We all know the person who cannot
-bear to hurt us, even for our good. For instance, some cannot bear to
-bandage a wound for us since they cannot bear to see pain in any form.
-They state that it is almost as if they felt it themselves, and they
-call themselves “sympathetic.” But in spite of popular belief to the
-contrary, such sympathy is not a virtue, there is nothing altruistic
-about it; it is an inconvenient fault of an entirely selfish kind. In
-order to help one’s friend, one does not need to feel his feelings and
-suffer his pains, one wants to understand them; the more one enters
-into his feelings, the more one’s judgment is biased, and the less one
-is able, as a rule, to be of assistance. Worse still, in connection
-with these people, they not only pour out sympathy in this way,
-but attribute it to themselves as a virtue, and they cannot bring
-themselves to believe their friends to be really good, unless their
-friends also can react in a similar way towards them. They call a
-normal person unsympathetic, perhaps exaggerate the term and call him
-brutal, wishing indeed that their friends who have climbed higher from
-Narcissism should regress to their lower stand-point.
-
-I have given here but one type of Narcissistic identification with
-other persons; it seems to me unnecessary to carry it further since
-any reader who chooses to think the matter out for himself will find
-endless modifications of such identifications. We all possess it in
-part, and on the whole women are more Narcissistic than men. Let it
-not be thought, however, that this is a reflection on women; it is a
-reflection on the way they have been brought up, for from the earliest
-times environment impresses them with the idea that “little boys are
-made of slugs and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails, and little girls are
-made of sugar and spice and all things nice!” And hence on such lines
-as these, their Narcissism is encouraged, and their capabilities of
-facing fact and reality discouraged from the very outset, until
-differences of temperament are produced in the adults of the two sexes,
-which in no way belong to Nature, but purely to our conventional and
-somewhat barbaric stand-point.
-
-There are yet more important results of Narcissistic identification
-than those already mentioned; Narcissism leads, in many instances, to
-the choice of a particular love-object. Narcissism is, of course, by no
-means the only or chief factor in the choice of love-objects, as anyone
-who has studied psycho-analysis will at once realise. It is, however,
-the only one I intend to touch on in this particular work.
-
-Just as the mythical Narcissus himself fell in love with his
-reflection, so does his prototype of to-day. An infant is not only
-the omnipotent centre of all, he is also the only interesting portion
-of the universe in his early days. His interests are entirely
-self-centred, and his joys and pleasures belong to himself alone; and
-as he grows older, everything that is like him is identified with
-himself. In the worst form of Narcissism in the adult, the individual
-remains entirely selfish, and is incapable of loving anybody outside
-himself at all.
-
-_By identification, however, he can love in a sense those attributes of
-his own personality which he sees in other persons._ Thus, he may love
-somebody for a facial similarity, for a voice which is like his, or for
-tastes which are like his own, but most commonly he loves them for a
-body like his own. And from this we see that he may fall in love with
-somebody of his own sex. Hence, homo-sexuality,[5] as it is called,
-is frequently one of the distressing results of an early Narcissistic
-upbringing. But it need not be necessary for such homo-sexuality to
-be of a grossly erotic type; such desires may be for the most part
-repressed in the unconscious, or appear only in minor ways such as
-the desire to kiss, fondle or touch favoured persons of the same sex.
-On the other hand, frequently the early education and environment of
-the Narcissistic person has been such as to leave him quite incapable
-of complete repression; and we then have expressed more or less
-open erotic desires and actions for persons of the same sex. Such
-persons, however, should not be treated as criminals in this particular
-matter; they are by this time as hopelessly incompetent to deal with
-themselves, as is the kleptomaniac or a person having any other form
-of so-called degenerate mentality. Here again, we see the reason why
-homo-sexuality is so much more rife amongst women than amongst men. The
-minor details of their early environment tend so much more to confirm
-them in Narcissism. It is partially repressed and partially displaced
-homo-sexuality which causes some women to kiss one another, to call one
-another by affectionate names and so forth, to delight in taking hold
-of one another’s hands on occasion; actions which normally, between
-persons of opposite sex, would at once be taken to indicate some sort
-of erotic affection, but which we are so used to seeing amongst women
-that we do not realise their repressed and unconscious significance.
-
-Let it not be thought, however, that this subject of homo-sexuality is
-based on this one simple problem; there are many other early infantile
-fixations, which play a very large part in causing persons to become
-homo-sexual. I only mention this one Narcissistic complex as being
-another example of how identification takes place as one of the chief
-results of the Narcissistic temperament, and to what lengths such
-identification may, on occasion, lead. Of course, all degrees of such
-identifications may be met with, and it is quite common to find persons
-who can love hetero-sexually as well as homo-sexually; that is to say,
-who can love persons of the opposite sex in the usual way, as well as
-persons of their own sex. But such people, even in their hetero-sexual
-love, tend to choose a love-object which resembles themselves in some
-manner or the other. However, a certain amount of Narcissism (which
-fortunately everyone still possesses), may be of value in this way,
-for it is certainly good for a man and woman to have similar interests
-when they marry; it is excessive Narcissism, excessive identification,
-excessive sympathy, which is deleterious, just as in other
-manifestations of Narcissism, with which we are going to deal shortly,
-it is excessive impatience, excessive anger, excessive tears which are
-really harmful, and lead to the greatest unhappiness. Although perhaps
-in these latter instances, to be without impatience, anger, or tears
-would be better still.
-
-Thirdly, there is yet another method of Narcissistic identification.
-Just as a child identifies itself with its living surroundings, so
-does it identify itself with its inanimate surroundings. As its mother
-and nurse are treated as part of it in the early stages, so also are
-its rubber teat, feeding bottle and toys treated. If you take away
-the baby’s rattle, it will cry or stamp or weep with as much vigour
-and display of emotion as if you had caused it bodily pain by means
-of rigorous physical punishment. You have in fact taken away part
-of itself from the little omnipotent person. In later stages in his
-career, if his Narcissism has been allowed to remain, the adult will
-still identify himself with his belongings. He will be absurdly upset
-at the breaking of a tea-cup which belongs to him, at the theft of
-some jewelry, at damage done to his clothing or property in some way,
-however trifling. He cannot realise that these things which belong to
-him are more or less unimportant trifles, which can be replaced, or
-if they cannot be replaced, can be equally well done without, if he
-has attained that philosophical attitude of mind which belongs to the
-person who has thrown off this uncomfortable spirit of Narcissistic
-identification. Moreover, the Narcissist who thinks himself to be the
-best and most important of beings, will attach similar importance to
-his property. If he drives an inferior motor-car, which breaks down on
-every journey he makes, he will excuse it in all sorts of irrational
-ways, he will praise it on every possible occasion as “the best car
-on the market,” and what seems more absurd still, he will very likely
-think it the best car on the market. It is the same with his house,
-his books, with his relations, with everything that is even distantly
-connected with him. He will speak in high praise of them all, and be
-anxious, at all times, to show them off, and to uphold their virtues
-to all comers. The Narcissist, indeed, rationalises about things in
-general considerably more than most people. The fuller meaning of
-rationalization and its methods of working, however, we shall leave
-till later on.
-
-FOOTNOTE:
-
-[5] Homo-sexuality--sensual love for a person of the same sex as
-oneself.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII
-
-THE IRRITABLE TEMPERAMENT
-
-
-Irritability is not merely that quality in a person which makes his
-friends carefully guard their every word, lest inadvertently they
-should cause an outburst of temper, in its fullest sense it means
-over-sensitiveness to unpleasant stimuli, followed by over-reaction of
-any kind whatsoever. Thus, if a person by accident damage his clothing,
-his over-sensitiveness and over-reaction might result in an oath, in
-abusing the nail which tore his clothing or in abusing the workman who
-put the nail in place originally. It might again result in a feeling of
-depression, with anger displaced on to anyone who was present during
-the next hour, on the smallest pretext; or in an over-sensitive woman,
-it might result in an outburst of tears, or perhaps merely in volubly
-deploring the accident for half-an-hour with the next visitor who
-called; or she might merely “worry” about it, and keep turning the
-memory of it over and over in her mind, refusing to allow the fact to
-separate itself from her fancy.
-
-All these various results, with many others which may be imagined,
-can be gathered together under the one term “irritability,” or the
-term “over-sensitiveness” would do equally well. This irritability or
-over-sensitiveness may apply to material things or to purely mental
-ones. Narcissism may lead to an irritability of the body, and again it
-may lead to irritability merely of the mind. When Narcissism leads to
-an extremely sensitive body, it reacts to pain of every sort, however
-mild, as though it were acute. The omnipotent mind cannot bear to have
-its body disturbed. I gave an example a short while back of the lady
-who could not take a fly out of my eye, because her own eyes were so
-sensitive. Not only was this particular lady sensitive as regards her
-eyes, but at that period she was as afraid of the dentist touching a
-tooth as if it had been a serious abdominal operation. Pain of any sort
-or even slight accidents involving practically no pain, were reacted
-to as though they had been overwhelming misfortunes. Here we had
-an excellent example of one in whom Narcissism had produced extreme
-irritability of a physical nature.[6]
-
-On the other hand, one finds a mental sensitivity equally pronounced.
-People who are always in fear lest somebody should find fault with
-them, with their mode of behaviour, with their manner of dress, even
-with their habit of thought. Unconsciously, to themselves they are the
-acme of perfection, they are the centre of importance, and they are
-inclined to think that people are paying very much more attention to
-them than is actually the case. They may consciously realise that they
-are not important at all, that other people do not give them a thought;
-but their unconscious Narcissism will not accept this slight upon their
-importance, and they remain miserably self-conscious in all their acts,
-reacting with exaggerated feeling whenever some slight criticism of
-their thoughts and actions appear even to be implied.
-
-Pride, vanity, and self importance are other manifestations of this
-temperament. The person who feels slighted, or whose feelings are hurt
-when other persons think too little of his opinions, or pay too little
-attention to his actions, or, in fact, whose feelings are hurt easily
-by anything whatsoever, is for the most part a Narcissist, in whom once
-again the infantile omnipotence has been disturbed.
-
-Jealousy very often represents the Narcissistic idea. The
-“dog-in-the-manger” attitude, which finding it cannot possess for
-itself, cannot bear anybody else to possess, is largely the attitude
-of unconscious phantasy, in which the individual cannot relinquish the
-idea that somehow he will succeed by means of his omnipotent mind in
-possessing the desired object, and his unconscious mind retains this
-idea so long as the object has not become the property of somebody else
-in such a definite and irrefutable manner as to prove in spite of his
-unconscious phantasy that he cannot possibly possess it himself.
-
-The “dog-in-the-manger” attitude is one which simply refuses to
-recognise the impossibility of possessing something, although the
-desire for possession in any particular case may unconsciously mean
-nothing except the desire to prove to oneself one’s own omnipotence.
-And many a case of jealousy in love-affairs is nothing but this
-unconscious desire to prove to oneself the possession of power; it is
-the hatred of acknowledging the fact that one has not control where
-one desires to have it most. Curious as it may seem jealousy is bred
-mostly out of self-love rather than out of love for the other person,
-although, of course, except in extreme cases, love for the other person
-may also exist.
-
-The reaction which takes place whenever the Narcissistic element
-is hurt, almost always takes the form of a regression. It will be
-remembered that a regression implies a return to an infantile method
-of expression. The Narcissist unfailingly hopes, in his unconscious
-that his omnipotence will enable him to avoid an unpleasant fact, and
-to controvert it magically. He therefore falls back on those acts of
-infancy, which he found useful at that early period of his life as
-magical means of attaining his ends. Let us assume, for example, that
-our Narcissist has entered quietly into an argument with a friend, with
-full faith in himself and his argument that he will convert his friend
-to his own point of view. He finds, however, that he is getting the
-worst of the argument. This is unbelievable to him, he cannot realise
-it; his friend must be pig-headed. Rapidly his unconscious mind says to
-itself, “What methods did I employ in my childhood, what magic formula
-did I use then to obtain what I wished?” “Ah!” says the unconscious, “I
-remember; I used abusive terms to my nurse, and the dear thing did what
-I wanted at once.” Very soon he is using abusive terms to his friend,
-who, however does not later on remark, “Oh! that man is a Narcissist.”
-He merely says, “You know, So-and-So never can keep his temper in an
-argument.” And the poor Narcissist all the time feels and thinks that
-he has been hardly dealt with, that people do not understand him, that
-they deliberately will not follow his arguments.
-
-Of course, the last is very likely to be right, for in argument there
-is generally more rationalization than there is about most things in
-life. Nevertheless, the fact remains that it is not really important
-that his friend should understand either him or his argument as a
-rule, and if he were not Narcissistic he would not over-react to this
-stimulus.
-
-Other methods of reaction in a like manner are all regressions to
-infancy. Some Narcissists, when they ask their unconscious memory,
-“What magic did I employ as a child?” find that it was the magic of
-words, and they use expletives of various kinds, which correspond
-in every way to the magic words which a conjuror whispers over his
-tricks when he performs the apparently impossible. Others remember in
-their unconscious mind that they wept copiously, that when they wept
-the feeding bottle was returned to their lips, or the toy to their
-hands. Others go back a stage further. They withdraw in to themselves,
-they refuse to speak, or they say, “I am so upset, I must go and lie
-down.” They attempt to return, in fact, to the condition of isolation
-and rest, if not of pre-birth, at least of that period immediately
-following birth, when if they cried, they were rocked and crooned over
-and put to sleep.
-
-Another form of regression largely due to Narcissism is that of
-alcoholism. Here again, there are other causes at work in the
-unconscious, but Narcissism is one of the most important of them.
-The Narcissist does not like real responsibility; he certainly
-thinks that he is always desiring responsible posts and positions,
-but this is merely because to hold a responsible position or to have
-responsibility signifies importance and power. As a matter of fact,
-when responsibility is thrust upon him, he often has a strong tendency
-to avoid it, because responsibility entails dealing with facts as
-they are, and not with phantasies; and the responsibility which the
-Narcissist seeks is largely that of phantasy. In spite, therefore, of
-his statements to the contrary, we know that he wishes to run away from
-responsible positions, and alcohol has a peculiar power of enabling
-one to forget the responsibilities of the moment, and at the same time
-to give one a feeling of potency and well-being. Consequently, when
-the Narcissist comes up against an unpleasant fact, a responsibility
-which he does not wish to take, anything in fact which disturbs his
-sense of well-being, alcohol serves the purpose of allowing regression
-to infancy. It returns him very swiftly to that early period when he
-had no responsibility, when he need take no thought of the facts around
-him, when he had a sense of well-being and omnipotence. This potency
-is increased by the fact that it also removes, simultaneously, other
-repressions, that is, it allows other forms of infantile energy to be
-expressed without conscious criticism or hindrance.
-
-Exactly the same thing may be said of drug-taking. The drug-taker is
-simply habitually seeking something to remove his responsibilities, to
-lead him away from his conflicts which he does not wish to face, away
-from the world of reality into an infantile world, where whatever his
-surroundings, whatever the facts that exist, he is able to ignore them,
-and feel himself in phantasy their master.
-
-But the curious thing about all these regressions is that, in a sense,
-they serve to satisfy the individual. They comfort him with the
-unconscious assurance at the moment they are performed, that all will,
-somehow, be well, that these reactions will somehow bring about the
-desired end, that the abuse will succeed where the argument did not,
-that the tears will somehow perform their magic act, that a rest in bed
-will bring about new life, and that the new life will succeed where the
-old life failed.
-
-Never does the Narcissist realise facts as they are, deal with them as
-facts, see them in their proper proportions, and leave them alone when
-he cannot use them.
-
-Impatience of a different kind is also one of the common reactions. A
-man may go into a restaurant; he finds it is full, and quite naturally
-he is kept waiting a few minutes before the busy waiter can bring him
-the menu. He refuses to recognise the fact that he is only one of a
-hundred persons present, that the restaurant has to be run at a profit
-to the proprietor, that innumerable waiters cannot therefore be kept
-to serve his high omnipotence; he frets with impatience and he cannot
-resign himself to the inevitable waiting. He will not understand that
-_time_ is one of the factors over which he has no power. In fact,
-this difficulty to realise the _factor of time_ is an extremely common
-one with Narcissists. No sooner has a project entered their heads than
-they expect to see it fulfilled. Such fulfilment can only take place in
-phantasy, just as they did indeed attain their wishes in childhood. As
-children they could instantaneously create a chariot and horses from an
-arm-chair with complete neglect of the time-factor, and now as adults,
-they hope instantaneously to create an omelet without waiting for it to
-be cooked, to create a business or a character, or fame or happiness
-in the same instantaneous way, without reference to time. They are
-quite unable to see, completely and wholly, any difference between the
-phantasy of childhood and facts of adult life; and one of the most
-essential differences between the two is this _time factor_.
-
-It takes minutes for an omelet to be cooked, it takes years for a
-business to be created, it takes a lifetime for a character to be
-formed, fame they may never attain, but happiness lies within their
-grasp at once, if only they could relinquish their Narcissism.
-
-FOOTNOTE:
-
-[6] It may be of interest to readers to know that this physical
-over-sensitiveness has very largely disappeared from this particular
-lady as the result of partial psycho-analysis.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX
-
-RATIONALIZATION
-
-
-Having now briefly sketched the birth and some of the possible
-developments of Narcissism, it may be well to revert to the subject
-of rationalization, on which I have already touched briefly, before I
-deal with some of the methods with which we may combat our Narcissistic
-tendencies. The reason for reverting here to rationalization is this.
-Already I know that there are few readers who will not have discovered
-some material in this book which will have touched a tender spot in
-themselves. And since we know that the great effort of Narcissism is
-to cover up those tender spots, and to deceive ourselves in thinking
-that either they are not there, or better still, that they are virtues
-and really particularly healthy spots, it is as well to examine these
-tendencies and observe one of the chief methods by which we do produce
-such disguises successfully. Of these methods of disguise, our greatest
-comforter, yet our worst enemy, is rationalization. The term means
-“_finding apparently adequate reasons for things_.”
-
-One of the qualities which we highly cultured animals possess is that
-of reason. We have discovered that logic is one of the essential
-factors of law and order, and that the highest form of intellect
-possesses reason in a large measure. Among our gods, the god of reason
-and logic stands high, and our very Narcissism will not permit us to
-do and accept things which are contrary to logical reasoning. For that
-means in the first place, that they are contrary to what we have been
-taught to revere highly as a good quality, and yet more still it means
-that they are contrary to the magic of WORDS, for logic means words;
-logic is words which follow one another in irrefutable sequence. And
-we have already learnt that _the infant has early associated words and
-sounds with magic, since by the persistent use of these he has got what
-he wanted_. So that doubly are logic and reason revered.
-
-Now, the unhappy thing about life is that we are continually wishing
-to do things or feel things or believe things which do not follow
-logically upon other things which we have also had to feel or think or
-believe at some time. Some of our wishes are logically incompatible
-with other of our wishes. More over, we very often do not wish to
-believe or think things which do follow logically on actual facts which
-have gone before. How are we then, as reasonable people, to deal with
-the situation? By rationalization, by finding a reason which suits our
-purpose; and this can only be done, as a rule, by leaving out some
-important factor, by ignoring some truth, and by arguing from false
-premises. We do not do this consciously, that would be unworthy. Our
-unconscious censor manages to delete from consciousness the unpleasant
-truth, as we have already pointed out, and brings forth an array of
-facts which appear irrefutable, and he succeeds in giving us most
-plausible reasons so that we may believe that which is most convenient
-to us.
-
-Let us consider for a moment such a subject as religion. The Roman
-Catholic will adduce evidences of various kinds to show that his is
-the only right and proper form of religion to be accepted by any
-intellectual person. The Baptist will likewise do the same, and will
-probably hold that Papal institutions, in many instances, spring not
-from Heaven but from Hell. If you discuss it with either of them, you
-may be flooded with reasons, logical evidences of the correctness of
-their views. Obviously, they cannot both be right in so exclusive a
-manner, and a very little insight will show that the reasons they
-adduce have really very little to do with their beliefs, although they
-think they have. Reverence for their parents, early environment, and
-other factors of this kind, have really induced their present beliefs,
-but these would not appear to them as logical reasons and so they
-select others.
-
-So it is with any unpleasant theory which comes into being. At the
-time of Darwin, a large number of facts were discovered which led
-unbiassed persons to believe in the theory of evolution. This appeared
-contrary to many religious beliefs, and the general public did not
-want to accept such a theory. They could not, however, shut their
-eyes to facts; what were they to do? By carefully leaving out some of
-the facts, and introducing speculative material, which they called
-facts, but which were not facts, they succeeded in producing excellent
-reasons, or what seemed excellent reasons to them, for refuting the
-theory of evolution and retaining their old beliefs. In other words,
-they went through a process of rationalization.
-
-The same thing was taking place a few years ago with reference to
-psycho-analysis. People did not like their omnipotent feelings
-disturbed, did not like to find that the superior bricks of which
-their edifice had been built were originally made from clay, and they
-found excellent reasons for not believing it. This, fortunately for
-progress, is gradually passing away, just as the opposition to the idea
-of the evolution of the body passed away. But rationalization is a
-process which has been and is still going on continuously. When Harvey
-discovered the circulation of the blood, when Galileo discovered that
-the earth went round the sun, when psycho-analysts discovered that
-much which mothers thought kind was really cruel, and when you read a
-book which tends to point out that some of your cherished virtues may
-possibly be faults, the same tendency is at work. Your mind sorts out
-some of the reasons, refuses to look at others of them, and by such
-careful selection, by this unconscious process of rationalization,
-supports your belief in yourself, holds fast to that which has been,
-and attempts continuously to prevent further changes and disturbances.
-This rationalization, however, is much more widely distributed than
-I have so far indicated; in order that one fact may be justified by
-reason, all the lesser facts which come before it must be similarly
-justified, until even into the trivial details of everyday life the
-leaven of rationalization has penetrated. Examples of it may be seen
-every day in the newspapers, in politics, in even trifling arguments.
-Take for instance the subject of woman’s suffrage. One half of the
-country produced irrefutable arguments to prove how bad it was, the
-other half to prove how good it was. In both cases, the arguments were
-but straws in the wind, they were quite unnecessary, they were only
-rationalization. Long before the argument on either side came into
-being, the feelings were there, the desires were there; and desires
-must somehow be proved right with the magic of words, before we feel at
-liberty to fulfil them. In neither case in this argument was the root
-of the matter touched. If some philosopher had come forward and said,
-“The first question we have to ask before thinking about suffrage,
-is should a woman wear a skirt?” or some such similar fundamental
-question, it would probably have been said that it had nothing to
-do with matter, and yet this question of _artificial_ difference
-between the sexes is really fundamental to the whole subject. But the
-rationalist will find that he will not meet me in this statement. The
-woman who wishes to retain certain privileges, and yet accept certain
-other privileges, will at once find reasons why she should wear a skirt
-and yet have the vote. She will tell me all sorts of things about her
-physical disabilities, things which she believes to be fundamental
-truths, many of which, in fact, are fundamentally wrong, but accepted
-as truths because they lead to rationalization being able to support
-her wishes.
-
-In a similar way, on the much discussed subject of “prohibition” the
-prohibitionist will rationalise on a certain few facts, in order to
-support his emotions and desires. A moderate drinker will do exactly
-the same, in the opposite direction. Neither of them will have the
-courage to ignore his personal feelings, nor may he have the power
-to do so, and to take all the facts into consideration and come to a
-conclusion, irrespective of his wishes on the subject.[7]
-
-Of course, one of the other difficulties in the way of coming to
-correct conclusions in all these things is that people will insist on
-arguing upon subjects, when the amount of real scientific knowledge
-they have on the subjects is extremely small. The newspaper editor will
-quote a few popular facts, in order to support some theory of his own,
-having but a limited knowledge of psychology, physiology, anatomy, or
-of some other science which has considerable bearing on the subject,
-he will end by producing a series of conclusions probably entirely
-wrong. This, of course, is inevitable in our limited circumstances;
-but it should not be equally inevitable that we should hold firmly
-to our beliefs, when we realise how limited is our knowledge of
-any one subject. And in order to examine facts and to get rid of
-rationalization as far as possible, we must try, with the utmost power
-at our command to refuse that reaction of self-defence and self-pride,
-which prevents us from looking at ourselves and from realising that
-most of our opinions about ourselves may be completely erroneous. We
-must be prepared to accept temporary, not fixed, judgments, based
-upon the evidence which we have. We must be prepared to reverse those
-judgments in the light of new evidence. We must be careful not to
-reject this evidence merely because we do not like it.
-
-It will now be seen how very necessary it is, in dealing with
-Narcissism in particular, to understand something of rationalization,
-so that we may be on our guard in examining ourselves, against
-allowing this to play too great a part in our conclusions. Otherwise,
-with all the goodwill in the world, we may never succeed in making
-any improvement whatsoever, in ourselves. The greatest scientists
-themselves have been amongst those who realised this.
-
-It was Darwin who wrote, as we have quoted in the earlier part of this
-book, “I had, during many years, followed a golden rule, namely, that
-whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across
-me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of
-it without fail and at once, for I had found by experience that such
-facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than
-favourable ones.”
-
-And it was the great scientist, Helmholtz, who said, “It is better to
-be in actual doubt, than to rock oneself in dogmatic ignorance.”
-
-FOOTNOTE:
-
-[7] Of course this does not imply that no one is ever capable of
-putting his conscious feelings on one side, and examining a subject
-in spite of pre-conceived ideas and desires, but that this is the
-exception rather than the rule.
-
-
-
-PART II
-
-PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X
-
-SELF ANALYSIS
-
-
-In attempting to cure ourselves of hyper-Narcissistic characteristics,
-there are several lines of treatment which may be followed, some of
-which depend upon the particular manifestation of Narcissism with
-which we have to deal. One, however, which should be followed in
-every case, we borrow from the methods of psycho-analysis. We cannot
-call it psycho-analysis because the technique employed by an amateur
-in examining himself must be vastly different from the technique
-employed by a psycho-analyst in dealing with his patient. But it is a
-modification of one detail of the technique of psycho-analysis which,
-if properly applied, may have far-reaching results. It is on the lines
-of that phenomenon which is known generally as ab-reaction, and is as
-follows.
-
-When an individual has come to the conclusion that he is suffering from
-some characteristic of Narcissistic nature, which he would rather
-be without, he should, first of all, carefully call to mind, and if
-possible make historical notes of the situations which stimulate the
-particular temperamental reaction to which he objects. If he can, he
-should go further than this, and recall as many as possible of the
-actual situations of recent date, when this particular reaction has
-been called forth.
-
-If he have an ungovernable temper, for example, he should, in detail,
-go first into the type of situations which call forth that temper, and
-secondly, he should revise in detail the recent occasions upon which he
-has lost his temper, and thirdly, _he should attempt to find out the
-particular moment, the particular words, the particular occasion which
-first began to stir feelings of temper within him before he actually
-began to show violent manifestations of it_.
-
-Having all these things set forth satisfactorily, it would be well
-if he spent half-an-hour every day, for a considerable period, in
-performing the next part of the treatment. He should go into a room
-by himself, where he will not be disturbed, recline on a couch or
-a comfortable chair, and allow his mind to drift backwards, year by
-year, remembering as far as possible, every instance on which the
-unfavourable symptom has been called forth. He will find that if he
-does not concentrate too hard, but merely keeps in mind the various
-causes of his temper and recent manifestations of it, other times
-and instances will come into his mind unbidden. He will, in fact, be
-surprised at the amount of detail which he can remember concerning
-the matter. Things which he had not thought of for years, happenings
-which he had passed over as trivial, will come into his mind, and be
-found to have stimulated, in some way or the other, the ill-temper (or
-other Narcissistic trouble) which he is endeavouring to get rid of. He
-must take himself, as far as possible, right into childhood. He will
-not necessarily of course, go back as far as this on the first few
-occasions, but after he has been at work on himself in this way for
-some days, he should have no trouble whatever in beginning to recall
-some of the infantile occasions upon which his Narcissism called forth
-temper.
-
-In all the instances which he brings up into his conscious mind, he
-should write down and study not only the facts remembered, but also the
-emotions which he felt. These he should examine from every possible
-point of view, and see what Narcissistic element appears to be present
-in them. Many memories will come into his mind of an infantile nature
-which do not express the particular symptom from which he now suffers,
-but will obviously have some bearing on it. These he should examine in
-the same way, because it is important for him to get into his conscious
-mind as much as possible of the various occasions in his life on which
-Narcissism acted, when he was not conscious of it. Not only must he
-see how these various occasions were exhibitions of Narcissism, but he
-must try and trace them back, and must compare them with his typical
-infantile methods of expression. These may be represented by shouting,
-crying, stamping, weeping or any other infantile manifestations
-of those omnipotent phantasies which now seem to him to be the
-starting-point of his more recent expression of them. He has, in fact,
-to lay bare before himself, as much as possible of his previously
-unconscious Narcissistic life; its beginnings, its evolution, and its
-ultimate form. This making conscious of what was previously unconscious
-or but partly conscious, is, in itself, a most potent factor in
-improvement, if he will have the patience to steadily persevere and to
-go over daily, for a considerable period, the material he has brought
-to the surface. If he does not do this regularly, it is liable to sink
-back, and become once again an unconscious factor and a determinant to
-his actions over which he has no control.
-
-This bringing into consciousness the unconscious causes and motives
-under-lying behaviour is, in psycho-analysis, one of the powerful
-factors at work producing cures of neurotic obsessions and so forth,
-and it is equally potent with the minor temperamental abnormalities
-with which we are dealing here. For it means that previous mental
-conflicts which were either wholly or partially unconscious, are now
-rendered conscious habitually; and a conscious conflict, or rather a
-conflict in which the forces at work become conscious, is far easier
-to direct than one in which the very forces themselves are hidden and
-unknown. Let us take a more material example for comparison. Suppose an
-officer to be in command of a company of soldiers out in the desert,
-and attacked on a dark night by savages. It might very well be that he
-was well armed, that his machine guns were efficient, but that he would
-be quite overwhelmed because he could neither see the savages nor know
-their numbers, their whereabouts nor their armaments. But supposing
-that the War Office had thoughtfully equipped him with one or two good
-search-lights, which he could direct upon the savages so that the
-number of savages, their armaments, position, and so forth, could be
-brought into his consciousness, he would be in a far better position,
-for he could direct his machine-guns at the threatened points, instead
-of being forced to fire them wildly and as likely as not miss his
-targets altogether.
-
-Exactly the same happens with these manifold feelings to which I
-have just been referring. The more one can see of them, their
-histories, their evolution, their beginnings, the more one holds them
-in consciousness, the easier does the conflict between good and evil
-become in the individual. Again, this method of self-help which I have
-given here, differs considerably from that pursued in psycho-analysis,
-in that it is following up only one unconscious factor, albeit, one
-of the most important factors; but in psycho-analysis we follow up in
-turn all the unconscious forces at work, great and small, and in any
-temperamental abnormality there are certainly many more unconscious
-factors than Narcissism concerned, although Narcissism may be the
-predominant one. Thus, for instance, alcoholism, though always
-possessing a Narcissistic element, frequently has other determinants
-present of an exceptionally strong[8] nature. So that while an
-analysis of Narcissism only, may be of the greatest value in some
-cases, in others, where Narcissism does not occupy so great a field,
-the other unconscious factors are too potent to allow much benefit to
-accrue from a partial self-analysis of this kind.
-
-In drug-taking, however, there is a slight difference from alcoholism,
-for, as a rule, Narcissism is nearly always the essential factor. It
-will be understood that Narcissism links itself to almost any other
-characteristic, influencing it for the worse by fixing it more deeply,
-and holding it back from becoming conscious more strongly than would
-otherwise be the case.
-
-The patient will find himself, during this self-examination, repeatedly
-trying to excuse himself. He will find himself saying, “I remember on
-such an such an occasion losing my temper, but on that occasion I was
-perfectly justified.” Or in another instance, he may say, “I remember
-weeping (or I remember being depressed or angry, or impatient), but
-circumstances then existed which seem to me proper occasions for such a
-manifestation to have taken place.”
-
-Let me emphasise at the outset, that any such excuses will be
-rationalizing; that he must say to himself, “Whether they appear normal
-or abnormal, according to accepted standards, those occurrences most
-certainly had their Narcissistic factor.” For it must be understood
-that although there are many occasions when impatience or weeping may
-be looked upon, conventionally, as normal occurrences, that is only
-because everybody possesses certain imperfections due to Narcissism;
-and if one is going to attempt to improve one’s temperament in this
-way, every occasion must be examined without excuse or rationalization,
-otherwise the individual who is thus at work upon himself will only
-succeed in defeating himself to his own detriment, by putting up
-a resistance to his cure or improvement. And, indeed, one of the
-important factors in this work, just as in psycho-analysis itself, is
-the factor which comes into play in overcoming these resistances of
-seeing ourselves as we are, of seeing the evolution and beginnings of
-our temperament as it really was.
-
-This is bound to reveal in all of us without exception much that is
-unpleasant, and that we would rather not see. Resistance to seeing such
-material is inevitable, if the examination is sufficiently thorough. If
-no resistance has to be overcome, the individual may be certain that he
-is shirking the facts.
-
-FOOTNOTE:
-
-[8] Alcoholism is further complicated by the fact that a habit of
-_physical_ craving is formed, which as a rule cannot be overcome
-by mental treatment alone. This craving, fortunately, can now be
-eradicated by medicinal means. Indeed, patients of mine have been cured
-of all desire for alcohol in about one week as a rule. The patient
-is then in somewhat the same condition as a man who has never tasted
-alcohol, and he will have no craving for alcohol thereafter, unless he
-deliberately drinks it again. Herein, however, we see the importance of
-the psychic factor, for should the cured alcoholic begin again to take
-alcohol, either because he thinks that he has attained self control
-and can do so, or because he finds abstinence difficult on social
-grounds, he will almost inevitably regress to his old condition of
-uncontrolled desire, no matter how long has elapsed since he was cured
-of it. _The same causes which originally led him to excess, viz., his
-mental complexes, are still present and again produce similar results._
-Of course, a very large proportion of those who have been cured by
-medicinal treatment do not relapse, because they have sufficient common
-sense not to experiment with themselves. In the other cases, however,
-the only hope of a permanent cure consists in following up the physical
-treatment with mental treatment, i.e., analysis.
-
-On the other hand, in most cases of drug taking a medicinal cure is
-generally sufficient, for there is no “social urge” to taking drugs as
-there is in the case of alcohol, and once the craving has been cured,
-the tendency to experiment again is the exception rather than the rule.
-But even here it is found that any indulgence in the drug, however
-slight, will again produce in the individual his old craving. _He has
-found a previous path of narcissistic regression and will inevitably
-follow it, for though the craving had been eradicated the complexes
-remain._ There are many potential alcoholics and potential drug-takers
-in the world, but they will never know it unless unfortunate chance
-induces them to open that particular channel of regression.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI
-
-READJUSTMENT OF OBJECTIVES
-
-
-In the last chapter we described a process of self-assistance of
-the kind which should be applied by any person, to any Narcissistic
-manifestation he may desire to improve. In the present chapter we are
-going to deal with a method of treatment which is by no means necessary
-in all cases, but is very necessary in a large proportion of them.
-
-We must bear in mind that the Narcissist’s inability to realise
-distinctly the difference between phantasy and fact will often lead
-him to suppose possible that which is impossible in the ordinary
-affairs of everyday life, and to ignore difficulties which may really
-be insuperable, which stand in the way of his aims and projects. He
-will thus be continually finding himself at a disadvantage, continually
-failing, from apparently trivial reasons, to accomplish an end, and
-as a result he may become depressed, nervous, worried, and subject
-to that lassitude accompanied by headaches, which so frequently comes
-to the Narcissist when he struggles unavailingly with the ordinary
-aims and tasks of everyday life. Moreover, not only does he fail to
-recognise the difficulties in the way of any particular task, but he
-fails to recognise the fact that two projects which he has in his mind
-may be incompatible with one another; or he fails to recognise that
-great “_Time-factor_,” which I have mentioned before, and tries to
-condense more work and more visible results into a given period than is
-humanly possible.
-
-This type of Narcissist is always considerably addicted to day-dreams,
-with which, however, we shall deal in a further chapter. For the
-present, we are going to restrict ourselves to the question of
-arranging his aims and wishes on a sound and possible basis. In the
-first place, let it be understood that although the method of treatment
-so far carried out may have made clear to the patient the origin and
-development of his phantasy thought and phantastic aims, there yet
-remains the breaking of the habit, and this is rendered far more easy
-if we attempt to substitute another habit of a different nature. Let
-us further impress upon him the fact that a frequent examination of
-his aims in a directive manner by the method about to be discussed is
-in itself an exercise in directive thinking, helping to form a habit
-opposed to a former habit of phantasy thinking. And, lastly, let it be
-remembered that Narcissists are generally very averse from making real
-personal sacrifices which have no glamour attached to them; that they
-object to adapting themselves to reality which may be unpleasant, and
-that by the method I am about to describe, they will have to deal in
-trivial things, and the conscious adjustment which they will thus make
-towards reality will gradually become habitual.
-
-What we are attempting to do now is to substitute directive thought
-and directive aims, aims possible of attainment, for phantasy thoughts
-and impossible aims. Most people will find on self-examination that
-their aims are by no means clearly defined; they have an object in
-life, but it is vague in outline, and ill-defined; it is often only
-a question of getting somehow through life, with enough food to eat,
-and sufficient phantasy thought to keep them from boredom. This again,
-is especially the case with some women, whose household duties require
-but little directive thought, since they are daily repetitions of the
-same thing. Dusting a room is a habit which becomes pleasanter if
-accompanied by phantasy thinking; whereas, had that woman some definite
-aim, apart from the habit of house-cleaning, it would be possible to
-accompany the room-dusting with directive thought which revolved round
-the aim in question, and this would very much add to the pleasure and
-efficiency of the individual’s life. If a person, on self-examination,
-finds that his aims are not clearly defined, or are in conflict with
-one another, or, on the other hand, that his aims or thoughts are in
-part phantasy and impossible of fulfilment, that person should at once
-deliberately remould and re-state his aims, so that they become:
-
-(a) clearly defined,
-
-(b) clearly possible.
-
-Moreover, the aims should be of two kinds:
-
-(1) immediate,
-
-(2) remote.
-
-The remote aim is the ideal for which he is striving; and however high
-that ideal be, it should be of a kind possible of fulfilment, not
-necessarily in the lifetime of the individual, in all cases, for he may
-be working for something of which he does not expect fulfilment for
-even hundreds of years, yet it may be perfectly legitimately termed a
-real aim, as opposed to a phantastic one.
-
-_Now, the first thing which the individual should bear in mind is that
-an immediate aim should always be in harmony with the remote aim._ Let
-it also be borne in mind that when we state that the aim should be
-clearly possible, we do not only mean that the aims should be possible
-from a point of view of external environment and circumstances, but
-also having regard to the patient’s own intelligence, will-power,
-education, and physical health--in other words possible in the case of
-this particular individual.
-
-Now let us consider in detail the further course to be pursued by the
-person who proposes to treat himself on these lines. Let him take
-pencil and paper and write out in the fullest of details a list of
-his aims, great and small, in the first place, without any reference
-to their bearing upon one another, or any attempt at classification,
-keeping in mind that by aims in life, we mean wishes which he hopes
-will be fulfilled. Let him think of every conceivable wish in his mind,
-and write it down, whether phantastic in nature, or trivial, or whether
-both possible and important.
-
-In the next place, let him see that this list is written so clearly
-and accurately, that each of the aims is well defined and without
-ambiguity. Now let him run through the list again, and see whether
-any of the aims are in conflict with one another, and whether any of
-them are inconsistent from the view point of his, and are therefore
-impossible of fulfilment. Let him put his pencil definitely through
-such impossible aims, and cut them out of his life, with as full a
-realisation as possible of the fact that they are nothing but dreams,
-that he need never consider them again, that he must not regret them,
-for that is mere infantile crying after the impossible. He must
-replace them in due course with others possible of fulfilment.
-
-Now let him take the revised list and separate it into two divisions,
-writing the aims down again under the two headings, (1) immediate aims,
-and (2) remote aims. Here, he will have to bear in mind one of his
-chief faults, if he be strongly Narcissistic. Such persons in their
-phantasy carry their aims to completion long before reality can permit
-of it. The time-factor is not realised, and hence they have a great
-tendency to confuse remote aims with the immediate aims, in their
-desire to see immediate results; hence, also, because they cannot soon
-see such results, they give way to despair, become depressed, and have
-the tendency to regress to the infantile characteristics to which I
-have already referred. Here lies the importance of dividing the aims
-into immediate and remote. For as soon as the individual’s mind has
-grasped the fact that an aim is necessarily remote, and therefore
-impossible of immediate fulfilment, he is much more able to adjust
-himself to these facts, and to pay real and undivided attention to
-the immediate present. Apart from the fact that sorting and adjusting
-of the aims relieves the mind of many previous conflicts, it acts as
-a stimulus to a considerable amount of directive thinking. And the
-patient will be surprised at first to find the amount of time it is
-possible to spend in a really useful recasting of his life interests.
-
-It was not until the author, himself, took pencil and paper, and
-classified his own aims, and put down the points for and against each,
-and attempted to see the disharmonies existing amongst them, that he
-realised the full value of this procedure. It might be thought that in
-a very short period any person could put down all his aims, and that
-but little modification would take place in them from day to day. This,
-however, is very far from being true, as will be seen by anyone who
-carries out this method fully.
-
-Perhaps at this point the details taken from a case of a woman
-suffering from a “nervous breakdown” in which I used this method as a
-subsidiary form of treatment, may not only be of interest, but will
-also throw some light on the practical working of the method. I may
-mention that her chief troubles were insomnia, constant worrying, great
-depression, and inability to settle down to work of any kind.
-
-In the first place, this patient commenced by stating that she had no
-aim in life at all. She had to admit, however, immediately after, that
-she had at least the aim of wishing to get well, or otherwise she would
-not have come to me. On being asked why she wished to get well, several
-subsidiary aims appeared. For the most part, they were rationalization,
-and I knew these aims would be thrown over in due course, but that, for
-the purpose in view, did not matter. I told her to go home, and write
-down her aims, in the manner I have just indicated.
-
-The following was the list brought to me on the next day.
-
-
-     (1) To be well.
-
-     (2) To be married.
-
-     (3) To become a doctor.
-
-     (4) And if I cannot do that, to become a masseuse.
-
-     (5) Or a psycho-analyst.
-
-     (6) Or a private secretary.
-
-     (7) And I should like to have two children.
-
-
-With this rather pathetic list in front of me, I asked her to give as
-far as possible the reasons she had for these various wishes, and to
-examine these on the lines I had indicated, with the following results.
-
-(1) _To get well._ “The reason for this aim is obvious; it is necessary
-in order to obtain the others,” said she.
-
-(2) _To get married._ “This aim has three subsidiary immediate aims,”
-she replied, “and there may be others. (a) I want a comfortable home of
-my own, (b) I want satisfaction of my natural instincts in accordance
-with the custom of ordinary adult life, (c) I could attain the later
-aim of having two children.” She immediately added, “In that case, the
-aim of having two children is a remote aim, and if I follow your advice
-I must no longer have day-dreams about them, I must put them out of my
-thoughts, I must not waste time on anything connected with them, until
-I am married.”
-
-(3) _To become a doctor._ “Concerning this,” she added, “I have
-always liked studying Zoology, and microscopic work, and diseases.
-Moreover, it is the only way in which one can make money in a really
-interesting manner.” She then stated that she realised this to be
-a double aim, and to consist, firstly, of the aim of earning a
-livelihood, and secondly, of that of having an interesting occupation.
-This aim was soon discovered to be phantastic, however, for she had to
-admit that her financial position would not permit of the necessary
-study, and that there was no prospect of any improvement in this. She
-therefore realised that although she had had it at the back of her
-mind for several months that somehow such an aim might be possible of
-fulfilment, she now clearly saw that it was not. She at once removed
-it from the list, and realised that neither regrets nor phantasy in
-connection with it would be of any avail, and again, that she must bear
-in mind possibilities and realities.
-
-(4) _To become a masseuse._ She at once stated her thoughts on this
-subject. “I have known one or two masseuses, who seem to make money,
-and who are very happy. Moreover, it is an occupation that a lady can
-take up.” She then discovered that this involved three aims: (a) to
-make money, (b) to be happy, (c) to remain genteel. On the opposite
-side, however, she added that she was not sufficiently physically
-strong for the work, and was afraid she would soon tire of it, because
-as an occupation itself, it did not appeal to her. This aim, also,
-immediately disappeared from the list.
-
-(5) _To become a psycho-analyst._ This, said she, was a very
-interesting subject, and she thought she could do much good by means of
-it. Moreover, she thought she would like psychology though she had not
-studied it much as yet. “Moreover,” said she, “psycho-analysts probably
-make a lot of money. And further, it would be very nice to sit at
-home in an arm-chair to do one’s work, and to let other people do the
-talking.” She at once recognised this latter idea to be a thoroughly
-Narcissistic regression. And then she found that all the other ideas
-contained multiple aims in themselves, each of which had to be thought
-out and classified, and into the details of which I need not go. Except
-to say that when she considered the matter from a practical point of
-view, the difficulties of training, the time it would take, and more
-especially the fact that she feared that psycho-analysis might not be
-popular by the time she was ready, she determined that it was only a
-phantasy aim, upon which she had been wasting phantasy thought, and she
-ruled it out.
-
-(6) _To become a private secretary._ On this point, she considered that
-her personal appearance and general education would help her, and was
-quite compatible with the aim. But she knew no shorthand, book-keeping,
-nor typewriting. She, however, realised at once that the immediate aim
-in this case should be the shorthand, book-keeping, and typewriting,
-and she said, “I will go to-morrow and see where I can learn these
-things.” I pointed out to her that she might very possibly change
-her mind, when she considered things further, but that even if she
-did so, the mastery of shorthand, typewriting and book-keeping might
-stand her in good stead, and in any case that she would be working for
-an immediate object, in turning some of her phantasy into directive
-thought. And on the morrow, she actually did commence her studies on
-these subjects.
-
-(7) _The desire to have two children._ This was at once classified, as
-I have already said, as a remote aim; though, as a matter of fact, she
-got married shortly afterwards, and the remote aim is now on the way to
-being fulfilled, as she has one child.
-
-I have shown by this example the ill-considered, phantastic, and
-conflicting aims, which some persons may at first produce when they
-attempt deliberately to classify them. But it must be remembered that
-each of the subsidiary aims which she had discovered her primary aims
-to be divided into were, in turn, again capable of being divided into
-further subsidiary aims. And the next stage of this form of technique
-is to discover these. Day by day, the pencil and paper must be
-brought out, and a list of aims and wishes for that day compiled and
-considered. They must be in turn examined to show (1) whether they are
-compatible with one another, (2) whether they are compatible with other
-immediate aims, (3) whether they are compatible with the remote aims.
-
-A strong attempt must then be made to eradicate any aims or wishes
-which are antagonistic to one another, or to the primary aims of the
-individual, which have already been passed as real. As progress is
-made, definite and personal aims will be developed day by day, many of
-these, no doubt, apparently trivial, others at least important for the
-day in question, all important from the point of view of developing the
-habit of thinking in terms of reality.
-
-For instance, on one occasion, the lady above mentioned wrote on her
-list in the morning that she wished to work hard at her shorthand
-in the early part of the day, to go to a matinée in the afternoon,
-and to a dance in the evening. On consideration, however, she came
-to the conclusion that the dance in the evening, following after
-the day’s work and entertainment, would probably interfere with her
-next morning’s work, and it was not, moreover, compatible with that
-immediate aim of regaining complete health at the earliest possible
-moment. It was, therefore, rejected; the lesser aim was recast, and
-a quiet dinner with a friend substituted. Only by such rigorous and
-possibly painful self-treatment can the Narcissist’s conflicts be
-regulated and viewed in a proper perspective.
-
-Every daily aim has a further subsidiary aim appertaining to it. For
-instance, a man may have made up his mind to devote a certain part
-of the day to studying; the lesser aim includes the subject to be
-studied, the amount to be done, and the time to be occupied. It is
-important that he should not over-estimate the amount he can get done
-in a given time. One reason why so much detail should be considered,
-is that it is astounding how excessively a person, with a tendency to
-phantasy thought, over-estimates the amount of work it is possible
-to get through in a given time. No sooner is a task commenced than
-he expects it to be almost finished. The daily programme frequently
-includes far more than is possible, and he forms a habit of being late
-for everything; all this being merely the ordinary omnipotent idea of
-childhood, which fulfils a wish in phantasy as readily as it is formed.
-
-I must now give a warning, that those who follow this method are, at
-first, nearly always extremely impatient for results, for this very
-reason that they do not realise the time-factor; and they must realise,
-and consciously and patiently accept inevitable delay, with the
-assurance that if they can overcome their Narcissism sufficiently to
-persist in the method they will steadily and gradually develop a habit,
-an attitude of mind which devotes its energy to directive thought, to
-real aims, and to displacing from themselves the phantastic medley
-which was there before.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII
-
-READJUSTMENT OF THOUGHT
-
-
-We have seen in an earlier chapter how one of the ways in which
-Narcissism manifests itself is in day-dreams. We saw how a child would
-substitute a phantasy or day-dream for a reality, and so fulfil its
-wishes and desires in this unreal manner. And we saw how, if this were
-persisted in to excess, the same or a modified method of fulfilling
-one’s wishes in realms of phantasy would remain even in adult life.
-I may here remark that even _very little_ day-dreaming constitutes
-excess, and is bound to have a deleterious effect upon the efficiency
-and happiness of the individual’s life; unless, perhaps, that
-individual is mixing sufficient directive thought with his phantasies
-as in the case of a novelist or artist, for instance. In realising
-this, it must be borne in mind, that time and energy spent in phantasy
-thinking are time and energy lost to reality and fact; that the
-encouragement of the habit of phantasy thinking destroys the ability
-to think directively, or rather renders the full development of it
-impossible. Moreover, by encouraging day-dreams, we are simultaneously
-holding on to our Narcissism, and making it more likely that it
-will also find outlets in other deleterious ways. For instance, the
-“worrying nature” which is constantly thinking of possible troubles to
-come, and of how past troubles might have been avoided is indulging in
-a form of phantasy thinking. If the habit of phantasy thinking has been
-cultivated for pleasurable purposes, a channel has been opened which
-will be used without conscious intention for other kinds of phantasy
-as well. The habit of worrying to which we have just referred, is an
-example of this.
-
-Worry consists in weaving phantasies about something which cannot at
-the moment be influenced directively. It may be about something which
-_has_ happened and therefore cannot be influenced at all by thinking
-about it, or about something which _may_ happen but over which the
-thinker has no immediate control; and it consists in going over all
-the “mays” and “mights” connected with the case, and experiencing
-the unpleasant emotions belonging to each phantasied situation. In
-order to get rid of this worrying habit, to close the channel which
-permits of it, a person must simultaneously cut out pleasurable
-day-dreams also, and thus close the channel entirely. Therefore, let
-us recommend the individual who indulges largely in day-dreams, to get
-rid of the habit as soon as possible. Those who have other abnormal
-characteristics which they wish to eradicate, should understand that
-they must, simultaneously, get rid of their day-dreams. And this means
-pulling oneself up, not merely when one discovers oneself imagining
-some glorious vista in which one occupies a principle but impossible
-part, it means similarly pulling oneself up in a thousand little ways;
-it means catching oneself whenever one wanders from a type of directive
-thought to a type of phantastic thought.
-
-For instance, in the examination of one’s aims, one is thinking
-directively, and one comes to the conclusion that, say, a course
-of shorthand and typewriting shall be taken at once, that the aim
-of being a secretary is one suitable and compatible with one’s
-attainments. At this point, it is very easy for the individual to
-suddenly find that he or she has become, in day-dreams, the secretary
-of a duke or American millionaire. And if he does not pull himself up
-at this stage, he will find that the duke’s money has been left him,
-or she will find that she has married the American millionaire. And
-so the phantasy goes on. It starts in reality, but the Narcissistic
-temperament takes it right away from this. It must be nipped in the
-bud at the very beginning, if the habit of directive thought is to be
-established. As soon as the individual finds himself drifting in this
-way, wasting energy, fulfilling wishes by mere dreams, he must pull
-himself up short, and say to himself, “Here the real ends, there the
-phantasy begins. This is the point I must come back to, I must deal
-with this matter from the real point of view only, without allowing
-this phantasy to intrude itself.”
-
-And here again, much patience will be needed, for if the habit has
-already been cultivated, he will soon be back in phantasy again,
-probably in less than five minutes. But phantasy thought does not only
-mean day-dreams in the sense in which we have spoken of them here. It
-may take all sort of disguises, and what would be phantasy thought in
-one person, would be directive thought in another. In one case, the
-environment and education and inherent ability would not be of that
-order which could make the thoughts come to be facts; in the other case
-the abilities of the person might be sufficient to do so. Thus, were an
-ordinary person to sit in his arm-chair, and phantasy a wonderful plan
-for the conquest of Europe, without having either the will or the means
-of carrying out his ambition, that would constitute phantasy thinking
-pure and simple. If, however, a Napoleon did the same, with the will
-and the possible means, with the near aim at hand in the conquest of
-a small country, and the subsequent conquest of Europe as an ultimate
-one, his method of thought would have to be described as directive
-thinking. So that similar thinking in two different individuals may
-really be classified as two different principles of thinking.
-
-I have no doubt that many readers will be saying to themselves now,
-“But my greatest pleasure is to be found in day-dreams. I find in
-directive thinking nothing but hard work.”
-
-In such a case, if the individual cannot enjoy his directive
-thinking, and he gets no emotional discharge by means of it, it is
-possible that his aims in life are unsuited to him, or that he has
-not sufficient aims in life, that his time is not as fully occupied
-with interesting _acts_ as it should be. In such a case, subsidiary
-aims should be formed deliberately, wherein he could take an interest
-in directive thinking. _For it may be accepted as a fact that, with
-proper cultivation and education, more real pleasure can be found in
-suitable directive thinking than in any amount of day-dreams._ It is
-also a further fact that the individual’s energy is not then wasted,
-but is more or less efficiently utilised. Moreover, instead of losing
-strength of character, he is now gaining it. Let it be borne in mind,
-always, that continual indulgence of phantasy thought, from its very
-ease, breeds the habit of inertia, for the individual’s aims and wishes
-attain fulfilment without any need for activity on his part; and here
-a vicious circle is produced, because the inertia, which he has thus
-encouraged, now in its turn tends to make him resort to phantasy the
-more.
-
-It is easy, of course, to say, “I will cut myself off from phantasy
-thought, I will pull myself up whenever this occurs, and leave it
-alone.” But it is by no means easy to act up to this resolution. If,
-however, another kind of directive thought is deliberately substituted
-for the phantasy, the task is made very much easier. If the water in
-the bath is too hot, and we want it to cool rapidly, we do not merely
-turn off the hot tap, we simultaneously turn on the cold.
-
-The task will be rendered more easy still, if the individual selects
-his subject of directive thought to replace phantasy beforehand, not
-waiting until the time comes. For instance, we will suppose that,
-as one subsidiary aim with which to fill in his time, a person has
-selected the collection of postage stamps. He will each day have in
-front of him some page which he wishes to arrange in chronological
-order, to consider from the point of view of water-marks and
-perforations; and he may make up his mind that as soon as he finds
-himself dealing in phantasy thought he will not only cut out the
-phantasy thought but will at once start arranging, in his mind, the
-stamps which he was shortly going to arrange in his book. It matters
-not in the least what form the substitute thought takes, so long as it
-possesses two qualities, (1) it is directive, _i.e._, it is going to
-lead to some sort of actual change or action, and (2) that it bears
-a pleasurable interest. And for that reason, I have selected a very
-trivial form of directive thought as an example. The point is that
-the individual should select some subject in which he has a personal
-and active interest, as a subject with which he may replace phantasy
-thought, whenever the latter comes into his mind.
-
-Phantasy thought may, further, not be of necessity thoughts impossible
-of fulfilment, except in the immediate present. Thoughts of erotic
-or other desires which intrude themselves at untimely moments, are
-phantasy thoughts, and some people frequently complain that they are
-annoyed by them, especially when they have no intention of actually
-fulfilling them in fact, or when the means of fulfilling them are
-not present. Here again, to have a subject ready at hand, or to
-have a substitute thought for the undesired thoughts is a very real
-assistance. Even a sentence thought out beforehand or a good maxim
-which can be repeated several times and considered, forms an excellent
-substitute thought with which to replace the unwanted phantasy.
-
-Let us now consider a few other examples. The majority of educated
-people, of a so-called normal type, when they have completed their
-day’s work, and are fatigued, require some sort of mental rest, and as
-a rule some kind of phantasy thought is resorted to in the evening.
-Also, when this fatigue is cumulative, they say, “We have worked
-eleven months, and now require one month’s holiday.” This is really an
-unconscious phantasy requiring a regressive reward. They are not really
-tired out, physically or mentally, but they have accumulated, after
-a series of postponements, a large number of Narcissistic efforts at
-phantasy; and the holiday which they now require is really to satisfy
-this. It is a return to childhood and the time of irresponsibility,
-and their occupations on the holiday may very likely be, to a large
-extent, similar to those with which they occupied themselves in
-childhood. They throw off their adult status and responsibility, and
-deliberately take this regressive reward. Even with normal people
-the idea of _rest_ in the form of a holiday, often means nothing but
-phantasy thought, time disregarded, no effort of any sort to be made.
-
-But in the less Narcissistic type of person who still retains directive
-thought even on a holiday--a holiday means merely change in immediate
-aim, change in occupation, rather than rest from aim and occupation.
-
-Phantasy thinking may take many quite surreptitious forms. In old age,
-for instance, we know that type of person, who is quietly slipping
-into helpless imbecility. He is the same man, who, at an earlier age,
-lacked the habit of directive thought. On the other hand, there is
-our intellectual old man or woman, still full of the day’s problems
-or politics, who indulged, in early life, but little in phantasies.
-Experience shows us that the influence of directive or undirective
-thought in youth may not only determine our happiness in declining
-years, but may even determine the actual age to which we live. For,
-paradoxically, it is the Narcissist, who of all people desires a long
-life, and who is, of all people, the least likely to attain old age. He
-frequently “worries himself into the grave.”
-
-We have not yet exhausted the forms of phantasy thought. A casual
-conversation between acquaintances in which no information of value
-is imparted, in which merely some emotional material is brought to
-the surface and thrown out, is undirective thought. The first person,
-interested in some emotional experience, recounts to the second the
-facts of that experience, often without arousing any emotional feeling
-in the second person. Such is the type of conversation which takes
-place over a vast majority of tea-tables. It is wasted energy.
-
-Another example is that of conventional letter-writing, in certain
-cases. The duty letter which one person writes to another person is
-of the same type. The writer who deals with his or her experiences
-on a shopping expedition, who states a series of things which have
-happened, merely in order to enjoy them once again in phantasy, is
-performing the same waste of energy. There is no return for this
-expended energy, the rush of ideas produces no result. Perhaps the
-time is due for a letter to be written, and it is the turn of this
-person to write a letter. As a result of this conventional attitude,
-the writer has to resort to phantasy thought to satisfy the needs of
-the moment. We have pointed out that reading a novel is a form of
-phantasy thinking, in which we identify ourselves with the hero. The
-same occurs in our cinemas. Here, the pleasure of phantasy thinking is
-enhanced by the fact that the visual impression is produced direct,
-whereas in reading a novel the visual impression is by words only,
-and a certain amount of effort is needed to translate it in the mind
-into its pictorial form; and thus the cinematograph induces a form of
-phantasy thinking which needs the least effort of all to realise. It
-is within the reach of anyone possessing a few pence, and although the
-average person may regard it as educative and useful to the community,
-the magistrate who is dealing with the youthful delinquent knows the
-cinematograph to be very harmful to the child’s mind. And there is no
-doubt that the unconscious effect of such mental stimuli is excessively
-deleterious to the race in general. The indulgence in it encourages
-the habit of phantasy thinking at a small cost, and such a habit soon
-becomes established as part of the individual’s make-up. Nor does the
-evil stay itself here. For the phantasy in the cinematograph consists
-usually in the fulfilment of impossible wishes, and in this, as in
-other cases, the emotional output is increased out of all proportion
-to the real exciting causes. This results in a misplacement in the
-emotional output in the unconscious mind, which in its turn is the
-basis of many neurotic conditions which may even require a physician’s
-aid to eradicate. And one must remember that a neurotic condition need
-not merely be the illness of an individual, it may be, and often is,
-the disease of a nation. Hence, like the fairy-tale, the cinema, as it
-is at present, should not be used as a child’s pastime.
-
-
-§2
-
-In other forms of Narcissism also, we shall find it easier to break
-away from phantasy if we substitute a reality; that is, if we turn our
-flow of energy into a real, instead of an imaginary channel, instead of
-merely trying to dam the flow in the original channel. In cases where
-this Narcissism involves a bad habit, such as irritability, impatience,
-weeping, etc., the line that should be followed differs rather from
-that suggested in the case of day-dreams. In the first place, not only
-should we pull ourselves up short, but we should also bear in mind,
-immediately, the first part of the technique which we suggested in
-a previous chapter. That is to say, we should call to mind what our
-abnormal act really means, and having done this, having realised it in
-consciousness, _we should then endeavour to use the same energy which
-we should have used for this abnormal act in an immediate and useful
-manner_. Now, in all these cases, our abnormal reaction takes place
-because our omnipotence or sense of perfection is disturbed; and since
-this sense of perfection is not real, the easiest and most convenient
-channel for us to turn our energy into is one which still satisfies the
-sense of perfection, that is to say, one in which we may feel that _we
-are, by our act, becoming more perfect in reality, instead of clinging
-to our perfection in phantasy_. It is impossible to give examples to
-cover the very many reactions which may take place, but one actual
-example, given in detail, should be sufficient to enable the individual
-to invent others to suit his own case. Let us again take the case
-of the impatient man, in which the Time-factor has never been fully
-realised.
-
-Let us say that he has entered a restaurant for lunch, and that
-having glanced down the menu, he then has to wait ten minutes before
-the waiter attends to him. Probably, after the first minute of that
-time, he has begun to get impatient; at the end of ten minutes he is
-either making up his mind to go without his lunch, so great is his
-irritability, or else he is, with great emotion, explaining to his
-neighbour how extremely inefficient this restaurant is, as regards
-management, service, and, in fact, everything connected with it. He is
-utterly unable to realise the facts of the case. Let us again refer
-to the facts for a moment. The restaurant is a business, and must make
-a profit; in order to do this, only a limited number of waiters can
-possibly be kept, and the number of these has to be regulated by the
-_average_ number of customers, by the profit which it is possible to
-make in the neighbourhood, and other factors. In the second place, the
-luncheon hour is one at which the number of customers is well above
-the average, and therefore in which the service is bound to be the
-slowest; however good the management, however skilful the waiters, they
-are obliged to devote a certain number of minutes to each customer;
-and the probability is that our Narcissistic individual is being as
-well attended to as anybody else. He does not realise this however, he
-is not dealing with the facts at all. He merely knows that he wishes
-for an immediate meal, that his sense of perfection is thoroughly
-disturbed, and his unconscious idea is that if he is sufficiently
-impatient, what he wants will come to him immediately, just as it did
-in childhood.
-
-Now let us see how he may deal with himself. We will suppose that
-he has read this chapter before his next visit to the restaurant in
-question. Once again he sits down, once again he finds he is kept
-waiting. His impatience begins to manifest itself in its early stages.
-He pulls himself up, and the first thing that he does is to realise the
-causes of his impatience, as set out in the last paragraph. He must go
-quickly over the original causes of his Narcissism in infancy, and of
-how he obtained means of satisfaction, and so developed his present
-habit of thought. He must run over the facts concerning the restaurant,
-and realise that it is a business place, and that it is at its busiest
-hour. In other words, he must get into full consciousness the various
-factors associated with this Narcissistic outburst of impatience. Then,
-let him realise as a kind of summary, “What I am actually objecting
-to is the disturbance of my unconscious feeling of omnipotence and
-perfection. Let me, however, turn this energy, utilise this time
-during which I am waiting in attaining a step nearer real perfection
-instead of bemoaning the loss of my imaginary perfection. Now, a step
-towards real perfection will be attained, if I overcome this habit
-of impatience. Let me, therefore, utilise this time in sitting here
-patiently, in worrying no longer about the time the waiter is taking,
-in being actually pleased with the fact that I am becoming more
-patient, and that my time is being usefully filled with a directive
-aim, which has as its object the same ultimate idea as the original
-phantastic one, namely, that of perfection.”
-
-Critics may here suggest that this long monologue on the part of the
-impatient individual might have been cut short by allowing him to say,
-“Obviously, the waiters are busy, it is no use being impatient, let me
-be patient.” I must point out, however, that the result would probably
-not have been the same. The longer method has its value in the fact
-that he brings into consciousness the two ideas of perfection, the
-Narcissistic idea which is being hurt, and the real idea which he is
-desiring consciously to obtain. _And it is very much easier to turn
-energy from one channel to another, if there are lines of similarity
-between the two channels._
-
-Hence, when one’s sense of perfection is assailed, let one turn
-one’s energy into some form of thought which still satisfies the idea
-of perfection attained or attainable. A similar process can be gone
-through with any other Narcissistic form of trouble, and consists in
-recapitulating the causes, and in reaching a determined effort to
-deflect consciously the energy from the phantastic into the real. The
-same principle holds good for all temperamental troubles of this sort,
-but the individual will have to devise for himself a suitable formula
-to use to suit the needs of his own case.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII
-
-AUTO-SUGGESTION
-
-
-Suggestion, in one form or another, plays an extremely important
-part in the life of everyone. Suggestion consists in impressing upon
-the unconscious mind some idea or thought in such a way that the
-unconscious mind will take it and absorb it as part of itself, and
-utilise it unconsciously and instinctively. Quite unconsciously,
-throughout childhood and adult life, we are receiving suggestions from
-the actions of those around us.
-
-For example, I remember as a boy going repeatedly with a relative
-to a friend’s house. At the time, I did not notice that my relative
-invariably used the knocker, and never rang the bell, or rather I did
-not consciously notice it. On one occasion I, myself, was sent with
-a message to this house, and although I was in the habit of ringing
-bells whenever I went to other houses, at this particular one, I
-instinctively knocked only. The suggestion that I should knock upon
-that particular door had been implanted in me by the fact that I had
-repeatedly seen the same action take place, although I had paid no
-conscious attention to it. It had impressed itself upon my mind as
-the right action to take place, under the particular circumstances
-attending a visit to this house, so that I performed the action itself
-automatically, without any further thought in the matter.
-
-The example impressed itself upon my mind, because while I was in the
-house, on this occasion, a man came to mend the bell, which had been
-out of order for many months. Hence, the reason my relative invariably
-knocked.
-
-Suggestion of various kinds is a very powerful factor, and as in
-the example given above, it is for the most part an unconscious
-factor in determining our actions. But it is possible for us to give
-ourselves _conscious_ suggestions which will afterwards cause us to
-act automatically, in accordance with the suggestion. A great deal too
-much, however, has been claimed for suggestion in recent months. There
-are many circumstances in which suggestion is not likely to be any
-good at all, there are also circumstances when it may arouse an actual
-opposition in the unconscious mind, where a counter-suggestion is set
-at work immediately, and the condition of the individual may actually
-be worse than before he started giving himself suggestions.
-
-Apart from other things, one factor may be mentioned which is very
-antagonistic to suggestion, and that is _fear_, possibly fear which
-is for the most part unconscious. Thus, supposing that the alcoholic
-gives himself the suggestion that he shall pass a public-house without
-going into it, and he has a definite fear of the wish to go in; he
-will probably find that in suggesting that he shall not have the wish,
-he is actually re-enforcing the strength of the wish which is there.
-His unconscious counter-will is at work, and turning the force of the
-suggestion in the wrong direction, and he will very likely succumb
-to temptation more readily than before. Hence, in a subject where we
-have acute fear of failure, suggestion must be very carefully dealt
-with. Moreover, suggestion, to be efficient, must have other things in
-its favour, some knowledge, in fact, of the underlying causes of the
-deleterious action which we wish to eradicate. It is not impossible to
-improve oneself by suggestion, even though one may be ignorant of the
-cause of one’s trouble, but I have found that it is infinitely more
-easy to obtain this improvement if one has previously brought into
-consciousness the underlying cause, and can therefore direct one’s
-suggestion to this rather than merely to the effect or symptom. I have
-myself devised a method for the use of certain of my patients by means
-of which suggestion may be directed to both the cause and result,
-as indicated shortly. Ordinary methods of suggestion are frequently
-merely directed to the cure of the symptom rather than the disease; in
-fact, such auto-suggestion, popular as it has become, may frequently
-be likened to a doctor who treats small-pox by putting ointment on the
-spots, or appendicitis by giving morphia. It will be successful in
-those cases where the manifestations of the disease are worse than the
-disease itself; but when the causes are strong and virile, suggestion
-directed towards the symptom will not avail.
-
-In an earlier chapter, we described how the individual suffering
-from deleterious abnormalities of temperament could, to some extent,
-trace the cause of this back to infancy. We told how this, in itself,
-would, if repeatedly brought to mind on succeeding occasions, produce
-considerable improvement. We have further discussed how he could
-consciously turn the energy from one form of reaction into another
-and more suitable form. All these methods, however, may be made
-considerably more efficient by the active use of auto-suggestion, as I
-have indicated, directed partially to the cause and partially to the
-result desired. Thus, the form which suggestion should take in the case
-of the man, whom we quoted in the last chapter as being over-impatient
-in the restaurant, would be somewhat as follows:
-
-He would have to impress upon himself several suggestions; and in the
-case of each of these suggestions he would be required to form a mental
-picture of himself in the conditions to which the suggestions referred.
-Firstly, “In circumstances in which I have been accustomed to react
-with impatience, I will no longer act as I did when I was a little
-child.” (In repeating this to himself in the manner to be referred to
-shortly, he should hold a picture of himself reacting impatiently when
-a child, and contrast it with the manner in which he ought to have
-acted.) Secondly, “Under conditions which have previously caused me to
-react with impatience, I will in future, at once think out the _real_
-circumstances of the case.” (And another suitable mental picture should
-be visualised here, as also in each of the following suggestions.)
-Thirdly, “Under conditions which previously caused me to react with
-impatience, I will no longer be impatient.” Fourthly, “Under conditions
-to which I have been accustomed to react with impatience, I shall now
-devote my energy to perfecting myself, in reality.” Thus, he is taking
-himself through the stages from childhood onward, and re-educating
-himself in each stage by means of a forced education in which the
-individual “grows up” in reality from the point at which he stopped in
-childhood.
-
-Not one, but all these thoughts, and possibly even intermediate ones
-that may develop, should be impressed upon the unconscious mind, so
-that they may act automatically. As to the method which should be
-adopted by the patient in giving himself suggestions, I recommend the
-following. That he first of all write down briefly the results of his
-self-examination, that he should take those results in chronological
-order, and write down from them suitable suggestions dealing with
-the various stages, such as I have just written with regard to the
-impatient man. That every night and morning, or at any other time
-during the day, he should for five or ten minutes lie down, relax
-himself, and close his eyes; that he should then repeat to himself
-fifteen or twenty times each of the suggestions, taking the earliest
-first, then the next, and so on. They need not be repeated out loud,
-but if repeated under the breath and accompanied by a suitable movement
-of the lips, it will suffice. Effort should be avoided; suggestion
-is not an effort of will so much as an impression effected by the
-imagination. When an individual is giving himself suggestion, he is not
-fighting an active battle, he is merely allowing ideas to sink into his
-mind; and if they are repeated often enough, like drops of water which
-in time wear a channel in the stone, they will make their mark and
-produce their effects in due course.
-
-Suggestion, in fact, minimises the need for the use of will-power,
-at any given moment in a difficult situation. If the battle has been
-fought out beforehand in imagination, it will automatically succeed
-when the time comes. The will has played its part previously when
-adopting the method of suggestion.
-
-This is not a text-book on suggestion, and I do not propose to go
-further into the method here. I merely wish to point out the practical
-efficiency of the use of a certain amount of auto-suggestion when
-applied in conjunction with the other methods of combating Narcissism
-already outlined, and when applied in an intelligent manner, so that
-not merely the symptoms, but the original causes themselves shall be
-affected by it.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV
-
-CONCLUSION
-
-
-The previous portion of this book has been devoted to showing how
-Narcissism may be harmful, and how in its endeavour to obtain
-satisfaction it may render the individual unhappy in the utmost
-degree. It is possible that the reader will have gathered that the
-author regards Narcissism as wholly and completely a useless and
-detrimental element in life; the more so, since at various points
-we have had to emphasise that in one form or another very little of
-it persisting in adult life may be a great deal too much. It should
-be realised, however, that Narcissism to a slight extent, and at
-certain periods, plays an important and also necessary part in the
-individual’s life. We mentioned at one place that a certain amount of
-identification was beneficial in choosing one’s life partner. Whereas
-too much identification might lead to one’s choosing a sexual partner
-of the same sex, a small amount of identification might lead to one’s
-choosing a partner with the same tastes, and would further lead to a
-tendency to enjoy whatsoever the other one enjoyed, and to dislike what
-the other one disliked, and this similarity would lead to a certain
-harmony in life. _Narcissism is a normal thing in the new-born infant,
-and Narcissism is the root of many virtues; but its final adult form
-must be sublimated and very much attenuated._ It is like the salt in
-cooking; a little is essential to bring out the flavour, but a very
-little more spoils the whole dish.
-
-A certain amount of self-love, self-appreciation, self-importance, and
-self-consciousness of one’s own capacities is necessary in every one;
-without it he would be ill prepared to cope with men and circumstances.
-But this necessary self-importance and self-appreciation is not, as
-many might think, due to Narcissism alone. It has a slight Narcissistic
-element, but it is largely a resultant of other unconscious instincts,
-which we have not attempted to deal with here; and we only mention
-it, lest the reader should draw the conclusion that these necessary
-elements in our character are drawn purely from a Narcissistic
-basis, and that he should therefore be left puzzled as to how, if he
-should eradicate Narcissism, he would be able to retain necessary
-characteristics which apparently belong to this same instinct. It is
-also very necessary for the reader to bear in mind that much which
-may be developed from Narcissism is useful; even though the original
-from which it came may be dangerous and harmful. Moreover, a certain
-amount of enjoyment of phantasy such as is obtained from novels or
-theatres may be in many people quite a useful and adequate form of
-relaxation. With them it may be strictly cut off from real life, may
-be strictly limited as regards time and place, and, in fact, entirely
-under their control. In such persons it forms a useful element in their
-lives. I do not say that if their early education and environment had
-been different they might not possibly possess an even better form of
-recreation, but merely that, taking facts as they are, in certain cases
-it forms a useful factor in the working scheme of life.
-
-In others, however, in those where it has exceeded the limits of
-absolute control, it is necessary, for the time being at least, to
-attempt to cut it out as completely as possible, because where it is
-allowed slight free play, it is liable to get out of hand, unless it
-can be dealt with absolutely at the will of the individual. Hence the
-necessity for such stringent treatment as I have laid down in the
-previous chapters of this book.
-
-I have attempted to show that happiness is, for the most part,
-within the individual’s own grasp. Happiness comes from within the
-individual and not from without. Unhappiness must not be confused
-with pain, either mental or physical, for pain is a normal reaction,
-to a harmful stimulus which all are liable to feel; it is for the
-most part beyond the individual’s control so long as the stimulus
-persists; but the peace of mind, the absence of worry, of irritability,
-of perpetual uneasiness, which we call unhappiness, lies within the
-control of everybody. It largely consists in continually recognising
-what facts are unchangeable, and ceasing to bemoan or phantasy about
-these unchangeable facts. It is true that the road to happiness may
-be difficult if we have long been accustomed to tread the path of
-Narcissism, but it is equally true that if the advice laid down in this
-book be followed patiently and systematically, a very much happier
-frame of mind will be attained as a result. In a few cases, Narcissism
-is not a predominant factor causing the temperamental disturbance
-although superficially it may appear to be so. In such cases (where
-other primitive instincts are really of paramount importance) the same
-degree of improvement will not be attained by this method of self
-treatment and only a more prolonged course of regular psycho-analysis
-is likely to produce the desired result.
-
-Happiness is not to be found by seeking happiness in the direct sense.
-This, I am aware, sounds very much like a mere high-sounding thought
-of a writer. It is the sort of phrase that people dismiss with the
-remark, “That is all very well in theory.” This statement, however,
-is not made from any moral or sentimental point of view, nor on any
-purely theoretical grounds, but as a scientific fact, which has been
-demonstrated as the result of psychological research. It may be
-interesting to note here how much the psychology of happiness is in
-agreement with many of the teachings of the New Testament, although a
-different terminology and mode of expression may be used.
-
-It was pointed out earlier how the individual who employed too much
-phantasy thought in youth might worry himself into an early grave,
-although he was the same individual who most desired a long life. It
-has now been shown that happiness does not come to those who seek
-happiness, but to those who can adapt themselves to realities, that
-is, to those who can control their Narcissism. Narcissism is not so
-very different from the word “self,” as used in Christian teachings,
-and any who are interested enough to compare them will find that there
-is considerable parallelism between Christian teaching and certain
-psychological observations.
-
-I must emphasise the fact once more that patience, that is a
-realization of the time factor, is very necessary for those who attempt
-self-treatment on the lines indicated in this book. For since lack of
-this is often one of their faults to start with, they may otherwise
-involve themselves in a vicious circle, from which they do not
-escape. Patience and attention to detail will, however, enable them to
-accomplish that improvement which they have set out to achieve. In the
-words of Horace, “Happiness is here, happiness is everywhere, if only a
-well-regulated mind does not fail you.”
-
-
-THE END
-
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 66496 ***
+
++-------------------------------------------------+
+|Transcriber’s note:                              |
+|                                                 |
+|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.  |
+|                                                 |
++-------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+THE OMNIPOTENT SELF
+
+A Study in Self-Deception and Self-Cure
+
+
+BY
+PAUL BOUSFIELD
+M.R.C.S. (ENG.), L.R.C.P. (LOND.)
+
+_Physician to the London Neurological Clinic (Ministry of Pensions),
+Late Demonstrator of Morbid Anatomy, St. George’s Hospital, Late
+M.O. American Women’s Hospital for Officers, etc., etc._
+
+Author of _The Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis_.
+
+
+LONDON
+KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.,
+BROADWAY HOUSE, 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.C.
+1923
+
+
+PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE DEVONSHIRE PRESS, TORQUAY.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+“_Nature has granted to all to be happy if we but knew how to use her
+gifts._”--CLAUDIUS.
+
+
+Many people, while not considering themselves as suffering from any
+nervous ailment, nor desiring the services of a physician, are yet far
+from being perfectly happy in their mental outlook and temperament.
+Either their feelings are too easily roused, or they are inclined to
+worry, to be depressed, irritable, nervous, or over-sensitive. Trifles
+which to them seem no trifles interfere with the smooth course of their
+daily lives, or this slight abnormality may manifest itself in an
+over-sensitiveness to physical pain or to mental or moral difficulties
+and conflicts. It is with the hope of helping a few such individuals
+to a better understanding of themselves, and through this to a more
+equable temperament and greater happiness, that this little book is
+written.
+
+There is no hard and fast line between the normal and the abnormal
+person, and indeed a very real difficulty exists in even defining a
+normal person. If we take our definition of normal as being “average
+or conforming to type or standard,” then the majority of people
+are normal. If, on the other hand, we take its other meaning, that
+of “performing the proper functions,” then there are few people
+approaching the normal under modern civilized conditions. A tendency
+to undue irritability or depression is a mild and very common form of
+abnormality. Hysterias, obsessions, and unreasonable fears are greater
+abnormalities, and fortunately of less frequent occurrence, while
+certain forms of insanity are still greater deviations from the normal.
+A similar combination of causes, however, may form the basis of all
+these abnormalities, and these various deviations from the normal are
+more of degree than of kind. But whereas in cases of obsessions and
+unreasonable fears or in such other abnormalities as homo-sexuality or
+sexual impotence, etc., the causes are deeply hidden and the forces at
+work somewhat complicated, in the lesser abnormalities there are causes
+frequently lying less deeply.
+
+In the case of obsessions, phobias, hysterias, sexual abnormalities,
+and so forth, we can only hope to effect an improvement by a thorough
+analysis of the unconscious causes and conflicts by a competent
+psycho-analyst. In the lesser troubles of the mind, however,
+considerable improvement can often be effected by means of a somewhat
+superficial self-analysis. This will be directed towards investigating
+one in particular of the primary causes which play an important part in
+all the minor unpleasant temperamental faults.
+
+In order to teach the patient to help himself, it will first of all be
+necessary to enlighten him to a considerable extent as to the general
+evolution of his character; at any rate in as far as one important
+mental complex known as “Narcissism” is concerned. In doing this, many
+other mental complexes will have to be superficially touched upon; but
+in order to simplify the work for the uninitiated, they will not be
+specifically named when they appear; for, although this would make the
+work more technically accurate, it would, at the same time, make it
+less clear, and in a book of this type this would be very undesirable.
+The first object I have in mind is that the work shall be lucid,
+concise, and readily understood by any person of ordinary education,
+so that he may gain an insight into the essential causes and growth
+of some of his abnormal characteristics without undue complication
+of ideas. It is further hoped that this small work may be of some
+assistance in suggesting to parents a few of the many things to be
+avoided in the early training of the child.
+
+PAUL BOUSFIELD
+
+_7, Harley Street, W._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PART I: THE OMNIPOTENT SELF
+
+CHAP.                               PAGE
+   I THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND              3
+
+  II REPRESSION                       19
+
+ III THE FORCES SHAPING CHARACTER     27
+
+  IV DETERMINISM AND WILL POWER       41
+
+   V NARCISSISM                       49
+
+  VI FACT AND PHANTASY                64
+
+ VII IDENTIFICATION                   74
+
+VIII THE IRRITABLE TEMPERAMENT        87
+
+  IX RATIONALIZATION                  98
+
+
+PART II: PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
+
+    X  SELF ANALYSIS                 111
+
+   XI  READJUSTMENT OF OBJECTIVES    121
+
+  XII READJUSTMENT OF THOUGHT        138
+
+XIII AUTO-SUGGESTION                 157
+
+ XIV CONCLUSION                      165
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+THE OMNIPOTENT SELF
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND
+
+
+§1
+
+In considering the question of character, with its various
+irregularities and idiosyncracies, we shall have to accustom ourselves
+to dealing with factors which do not exist in consciousness at all.
+Strange as it may seem to the uninitiated, many of our thoughts, ideas,
+and motives are quite outside our normal consciousness, and of them
+only the resulting emotions and actions appear on the surface. This
+may be taken as an absolute and indisputable fact, and one which the
+reader should try to appreciate at the outset, although it is somewhat
+difficult to realise, for we always find it hard to apprehend and
+understand something which we can neither see nor touch.
+
+If one were to tell the ordinary labourer that water is composed of
+two gases which when combined form a liquid, he would probably be
+quite incredulous, and possibly in his ignorance might even deny
+emphatically any such possibility, on the grounds that it was against
+all common-sense and experience; he failing to realise, of course, how
+very limited were both his sense and his experience. In spite of his
+feelings of absolute certainty, and in spite of complete faith in the
+unshakable logic behind his belief, he would be wrong.
+
+While it is not to be expected that many readers of this book will deny
+the existence of the unconscious part of the mind, it may well be that
+many will fail to realise that it is of more than theoretical value.
+It therefore becomes necessary for us to examine the matter somewhat
+carefully, and to familiarise ourselves with the ideas of the working
+of this unconscious mind.
+
+Without going into the further sub-divisions recognised in psychology,
+we will confine ourselves to dividing the mind into two parts--the
+conscious and the unconscious. _And of these, at any given moment, the
+conscious is by far the smaller part._ We are actually conscious at
+any moment of but very few things, such as the book we are reading,
+the chair we are sitting on, and dimly of our immediate surroundings.
+A thousand memories which we might conjure up of our childhood and
+our past are, for the time being, far from consciousness. Yet these
+matters exist somewhere in the mind, for we are able, if we choose,
+to search about in it, and bring them into consciousness, even though
+we may not have thought of them for many years. This leads us at once
+to a striking fact, namely, that while many things can be remembered
+at will, others which we feel we ought to remember, cannot be brought
+to mind at all. It is an extremely common experience to find that one
+has forgotten a name completely, and that no effort will bring it into
+consciousness, yet later on, apparently without effort, the name will
+“come back to us,” as we say. In fact, the very phrase we use--“come
+back to us”--implies that it has been somewhere away from us, that it
+has been lodged in some place that is foreign and unknown to us, yet
+which we are aware is somewhere within us.
+
+It is also common knowledge that a great many events and scenes of
+considerable importance to us at the time of action are forgotten, and
+that they can only be recollected if some sort of stimulus or reminder
+be given. For instance, a person may have forgotten completely where
+and how he spent a holiday ten years ago. No amount of racking his
+brain brings anything to light. But having been reminded of a single
+incident that occurred during that holiday, the whole of the rest may
+come up from the unconscious in full detail.
+
+There is a third kind of memory more important still, if one may
+be permitted to call it memory, and that is the memory of facts
+which no _ordinary_ stimulus of this sort will ever bring up into
+consciousness again. The term “memory” is used here because we have
+every reason to believe that somewhere in the unconscious all facts
+have been registered, and in many cases may be partially brought into
+consciousness again by suitable means, such for instance, as hypnotism
+or psycho-analysis, (two very different methods, by the way). Yet,
+though these impressions have been made on the mind, and though there
+is this unconscious memory still in existence, in the ordinary course
+of events we should never again be conscious of them.
+
+_We may, however, be very conscious of actions and emotions emanating
+from the unconscious memory._ Thus, suppose that as a child one had
+lived in the country, and on several very happy occasions a bonfire
+had been lighted at a picnic, and that later on one lived in a town,
+and that this picnic which happened at the age of three or four years
+had become completely forgotten, so much so that even photographs of
+the scenes or conversations on the subject carried on by other people
+brought no memory to light and seemed to touch no chord; it would still
+be quite likely that the mere smell of a bon-fire in the distance or
+any smell resembling this would be enough to cause a considerable
+feeling of elation and happiness in the person, a feeling that
+something pleasant was taking place, an idea that if only one could
+remember, a pleasant picture could be called up. This is because it is
+associated in the unconscious mind with these previous happy occasions.
+
+Or again, suppose a child at the age of two or three years has been
+dropped into a pond and nearly drowned. Although the incident may
+in later years be completely forgotten, the horror of deep water
+and all its associations may vividly persist. It seems probable,
+and a considerable amount of work has been done on this subject in
+psycho-analysis, that every action, thought, or idea that has ever
+been registered in the mind, even to some extent before birth, is
+permanently fixed; and that although much of this cannot be brought
+into consciousness by present methods, yet all the feelings and
+emotions, however slight, which attended these thoughts, ideas, and
+actions are perpetually being called forth by slight stimuli of which
+we are unaware, and these are playing their part in moulding our
+thoughts, feelings and actions in the present time.
+
+I had an interesting patient a short time ago who, owing to certain
+experiences in the war, was suffering from complete loss of memory; so
+complete that he did not know his own wife nor even his parents. Under
+hypnosis, the whole of his memory was rapidly brought back; and when it
+appeared to be normal and both he and his parents were quite confident
+that it was as good as it had ever been, I suggested that we might try
+an experiment to see if we could improve it still further. I asked him,
+amongst other things, if he could voluntarily remember the first time
+he wore knickerbockers. He had not the faintest recollection of the
+matter. I then hypnotised him, and told him to give me the details. He
+described the knickerbockers minutely, the number of buttons on them,
+the fact that he wore them on his third birthday, that his father had
+given him a penny, and told him that “now he was a little man, he must
+have money in his pocket,” together with a very large number of other
+details. I enquired of his father and mother and sisters, and they
+corroborated the details in every particular.
+
+I have tried several similar experiments with him and with one or two
+other patients under hypnosis with considerable success, and have even
+tried to take them back to the memory of their own birth. They have
+frequently produced many memories of events that occurred before the
+age of one year, but previous to that could only give reproductions of
+movements and pleasant and unpleasant emotions. Whether these latter
+are memories or not one has unfortunately no means of proving. But the
+fact that under hypnosis both educated and uneducated people alike
+exhibit extremely similar ideas as to types of movements, expressions,
+and feelings at the various stages of their very early life, inclines
+one to think that these reproductions may be memories. One has,
+however, to beware of the fact that observation and knowledge acquired
+in later periods of their lives might be the real factor underlying
+their apparent reproductions. Further evidence of a different nature
+will be given on this point, however, at a later stage in the book.
+
+
+§2
+
+So far, we have shown that there is an unconscious part of the mind
+which acts as a store-house for memories, ideas, and emotions of the
+past. We have not, however, shown that it is anything more than a
+store-house. But if we look into it from other points of view, we
+shall see that it is a great deal more than a mere store-house, for
+it thinks, reasons, comes to conclusions, and in fact assists in
+controlling our acts at every turn; indeed this unconscious part of our
+mind wields driving forces of the utmost potency in moulding our lives.
+
+Let us examine first the _reasoning_ faculty of the unconscious mind.
+
+Maeder gives a good example of this. A house-surgeon at a hospital
+wished particularly to keep a certain appointment, but he was not
+allowed to leave the hospital until his chief, who was out, should
+return later in the evening. As his appointment was of considerable
+importance, he decided to brave the anger of his chief. He therefore
+kept his appointment, but when he returned later, he found to his
+astonishment that he had left a light in his room, a thing he had
+never done before, although he had occupied that room for two years.
+He thought the matter over, and soon realised why he had done this.
+The chief, on going to his own house, would pass the window and would
+see the light burning within, and imagine that his house-surgeon was
+at home. The unconscious mind had rapidly reasoned this out and had
+determined that the conscious mind should forget to turn off the light.
+
+Another illustration of the persistent way in which the unconscious
+mind will reason and act can be given from my own experience. I had to
+attend a lecture given by a man, with whose views I totally disagreed.
+I had no wish to attend the lecture, but felt compelled to do so in
+an official capacity. Consciously, I determined to go; unconsciously
+when I made the note of the lecture, I wrote down the time of it in
+my engagement-book a week late. On discovering this, I consciously
+endeavoured to rectify the matter, but my unconscious mind wrote
+Tuesday instead of Thursday in my engagement-book, so it went down
+wrong once again. Later, having been forced to see my mistake by a
+friend mentioning the matter, I omitted for a short time to rectify it
+in my engagement-book, feeling sure that I should remember to do so a
+little later. But alas! for the determination of my conscious mind. I
+forthwith made an appointment for a patient at the real time appointed
+for the lecture, and so could not in the end attend it. Now, these
+lectures were held regularly on a particular day of the week, and I
+had generally looked forward to them, and attended them without any
+difficulty. It was only in this one case that I did not wish to go. My
+conscious mind decided to attend; but my unconscious mind played trick
+after trick in order that my real desires should be satisfied. Such
+examples could be multiplied indefinitely. It is possible that many
+would say that they do not actually prove unconscious reasoning nor
+power of thought. Let me, therefore, give one or two simple examples of
+a different nature.
+
+A friend of mine once told me that he had spent several days in trying
+to work out a chess problem without success. One morning, he woke
+up with a picture in his mind of the exact moves that he must make.
+The problem had been solved in his sleep unconsciously, and with no
+recollection on waking of any conscious effort at reaching the solution.
+
+In my own experience, as a school-boy, I failed to solve a problem in
+Euclid during an examination. On the morning afterwards, the solution
+flashed through my brain suddenly, as I lay in bed. Whether I had
+solved it in my sleep, or whether it was solved in bed as I lay awake,
+I am not prepared to say. Of this much, however, I am certain. I made
+no conscious effort; my mind merely wandered lazily in the direction
+of the previous day’s failure, and almost instantaneously the right
+solution appeared without effort.
+
+Let us now take another example of work which the unconscious mind is
+called upon to perform; an example which we are accustomed to view
+without question or thought, which is comparatively commonplace,
+and which we dismiss summarily by referring to it as “habit.” The
+accomplished pianist reads the music in front of him consciously, but
+he is not conscious of the extremely rapid translation which takes
+place from the brain to the fingers, so as to produce complicated
+movements on the key-board. And if we examine it carefully, we shall
+find that something very wonderful has actually taken place outside
+his consciousness. When he was first learning to play, he looked at
+the note on his music, and said to himself “That is C.” He looked at
+the key on the piano, and repeated “That is C.” He was taught that a
+particular finger must be placed on that particular note when playing
+in a certain key. He was taught that it had to be hit in a particular
+way and held down for a particular time, according to the size and
+shape of the note he was reading on the sheet of music in front of him.
+He was further taught that in order to modify any sound in a particular
+manner, he could use his feet on one or other of the pedals, and must
+be extremely careful to put his feet down and lift his feet up again
+at exactly the right moment. He was taught that when certain symbols,
+known as sharps and flats, preceded the notes at the beginning of his
+piece of music, the whole scheme of fingering would be different. And,
+at first, he had laboriously to go through the process of watching
+first the music and then the key-board, and of _thinking_ at each
+point what he should do with his fingers and with his feet, and how he
+should do it, and for what period he should keep on doing it. Now, the
+whole process is gone through with half-a-million notes which he has
+never seen before, many of them played simultaneously, and with an
+exactitude which he never attained when he was consciously thinking.
+Whatever may be the nature of the unconscious action which is taking
+place, all he has in consciousness is the music in front of him, and
+the final sound that he is producing, together with the emotions which
+these called forth in him as a result of the whole.
+
+Can there be any doubt left that a complicated unconscious process of
+the same kind is taking place?
+
+Or again, let us examine our own personal likes and dislikes.
+Frequently one can assign no reason whatsoever for these. They may
+exist, in fact, against what we call our better judgment. We may
+love a person in spite of certain faults, or dislike him in spite
+of his virtues. If the matter be examined further, however, we not
+infrequently find the reasons for our emotions towards him. Either
+his manner, dress, or tone of voice, or some other trivial feature
+may resemble someone we have liked before, or on the contrary, some
+mannerism may call to mind a similar mannerism which we associate
+either in ourselves or in some other person, with unpleasant
+characteristics. Our unconscious mind has rapidly sized up all these
+points, appraised them, and presented our conscious mind with the
+resulting emotions alone.
+
+So-called intuition is, to a large extent, merely rapid unconscious
+reasoning, in which minute details are taken into consideration by the
+unconscious, and only the final opinion presented to consciousness.
+One should beware of trusting intuition too much, however, in spite of
+popular prejudice to the contrary, for unconscious reasoning is just
+as liable to be wrong in its conclusions as is conscious reasoning;
+and it is just as liable to reach the conclusion which best serves its
+immediate purpose, and to suppress truth where it is unpleasant.[1]
+
+Some psychologists think that the unconscious mind is _infallible_
+in purely _deductive_ reasoning from the _premises_ from which it
+starts. But it provides its own premises from a secret store and also
+accepts any suggested premises which are not repugnant. The premises
+may therefore be wrong but the deductive reasoning is accurate. In this
+case the conclusions will only be wrong because the premises are wrong.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] Unconscious reasoning or intuition is found chiefly in those who
+have not been trained in subjects which induce and train logical
+conscious reasoning. It is not a prerogative of sex, but on the whole
+is found more amongst women, merely because of their method of training
+from childhood upwards. In children and savages intuition is found
+equally present in both sexes. The loss of intuition merely means
+that the training of the conscious mind has caused us to mistrust
+conclusions for which we cannot consciously see the reasons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+REPRESSION
+
+
+§1
+
+One other faculty of the unconscious mind requires special mention, and
+that is its power of obliterating memories from the conscious mind,
+or as it is better termed, of _repressing_, since this word not only
+implies pushing out of consciousness, but also preventing from coming
+into consciousness. It is found that all persons have formed a regular
+habit of forgetting or partially forgetting, (and so disguising),
+things which are unpleasant to them. This especially refers to those
+things which are unpleasant to their self-respect, their moral beliefs
+and ideas, and their general pride in themselves. The primitive
+immoralities and thoughts and actions of early childhood which would
+now offend their æsthetic and moral susceptibilities, are, more or
+less, completely put out of sight, together with a host of unpleasant
+ideas and thoughts which have cropped up from childhood onwards.
+Indeed, there is a general tendency for anything of an unpleasant
+nature to be pushed out of sight.
+
+Darwin, in his autobiography, states, “I had, during many years,
+followed a golden rule, namely that whenever a published fact, a new
+observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general
+results, to make a memorandum of it without fail, and at once, for I
+had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt
+to escape from the memory than favourable ones.”
+
+We had a further example in the case of the house-surgeon who “forgot”
+to put out his light, and examples are extremely common in everyday
+life. We forget to post letters entrusted to us against our will, but
+we do not forget to post our own love-letters. We mislay bills very
+readily, but rarely do we mislay a cheque.
+
+Amongst my patients suffering from shell-shock, I have had very many
+hundreds who have completely forgotten some of the most unpleasant
+and terrifying experiences which occurred to them out at the front.
+Others unconsciously had found the easiest method of dealing with
+the unpleasant past to be that of blotting the whole of it out,
+dissociating it completely from their conscious mind, and then stating
+that they remembered nothing of their lives until they woke up in
+hospital. It is not only memories, however, which are repressed and
+remain dormant in the unconscious mind. Most of our primitive instincts
+handed on from our savage forefathers before even the evolution of man
+in his present form, lie similarly buried in this unconscious part of
+the mind, and we are wont to deny emphatically that we possess these
+unpleasant instincts. Nevertheless, just as _in utero_ we repeat more
+or less in detail the history of our physical evolution, so do we at
+that period and in childhood repeat to a great extent the history of
+our psychic evolution; and just as during this early period we possess
+the physical attributes of many of our ancestors, such as the gills
+of the fish or the tail of the lower vertebrates, so psychically do
+we at a somewhat later period, possess the instincts and desires of
+our progenitors, and utilise them as the hidden foundation stones
+in building our adult mental constitution. These various primitive
+instincts include all kinds of desires which would consciously be
+regarded as sexual perversions and moral crimes of different kinds, and
+they are present in all of us without exception. Our upbringing and
+conscious outlook upon them, however, causes them to be so abhorrent to
+us, that we successfully keep the majority of such ideas and feelings
+_from ever coming out of the unconscious in their primitive form_.
+In other words, we repress them. Occasionally, however, there is a
+tendency for these ancestral instincts to become conscious, and in
+our further efforts to prevent this we may develop instead hysterias,
+obsessions and unreasonable fears, together with many other nervous
+and abnormal signs and symptoms, into the nature of which it is not
+my intention to inquire further in this present volume. Those who
+are interested in pursuing this line of investigation will find an
+elementary account of it in a previous work of mine, “The Elements
+of Practical Psycho-Analysis.” All that I wish to emphasise here
+is that we do push out from the conscious mind unpleasant thoughts
+and memories, that we do repress and keep in the unconscious mind
+unpleasant desires and instincts, and that we do, as a result of this,
+have many unconscious or semi-conscious conflicts within ourselves,
+which may lead to unpleasant feelings of depression, irritability,
+fear, or in more pronounced cases hysterias, obsessions, and even
+permanent mental derangement.
+
+
+§2
+
+A further and somewhat important result of our possessing so much
+which is unconscious and of having so many feelings and ideas in
+consciousness of which we do not know the origin, or of whose
+origins we have but the vaguest and haziest notion is known as
+_rationalization_. This word signifies that we find reasons for doing
+or believing things which are of a pleasant nature and agreeable to us,
+and _vice versa_.
+
+Following on this rationalisation comes also a certain conservatism,
+which tends to retard progress of any sort, which dislikes looking at
+new ideas, and this for a very obvious reason. Looking at new ideas,
+examining ourselves or our work very closely, has a tendency to bring
+to light, from time to time, the very primitive instincts and feelings
+which we have been at so much pains to repress. And rather than submit
+to the indignity of discovering how really imperfect we are, and having
+our pride in our divinely constituted natures shaken, we have acquired
+a habit of denying and fighting strenuously against discovering truths
+connected with either our moral or physical evolution which would be
+unpleasant to us. In the light of our upbringing, such new truths are
+often unpleasant, therefore we rationalise that they must be untrue.
+For having been educated to venerate logic and reason, we can only
+be satisfied with any given conclusion we come to when we feel that
+it is justifiable in the light of logic and reason. But the logic of
+rationalisation is false logic.
+
+For many years, scientific and popular thought denied strenuously the
+possibility of the now universally accepted theory of human evolution;
+and on scientific grounds it was urged, with much plausible reasoning,
+that it was not possible to develop a high type like man from any low
+form of animal. On religious grounds it was argued equally passionately
+that if evolution were true, the Bible was wrong, God disappeared, and
+therefore the theory of evolution was untrue. The real reasons lying
+behind those reasons advanced by both the scientist and the general
+public, however, were not the reasons so carefully thought out by
+them, but consisted largely in the fact that they did not wish to find
+that the body, which they had hitherto thought a special and divine
+creation partaking of the miraculous, to be merely a stage in the
+evolution of life on this planet, and possibly not a final stage at
+that. For in that case, no longer would man be able to flatter himself
+that he was almost divine, he would have to relegate himself to the
+possibility of being in a stage of semi-barbarism; he would no longer
+be a final perfect product, but merely a half-finished article. It was
+this blow to his pride that he could not stand. And it is the same
+to-day. Whenever there is a likelihood that examination, particularly
+through research work, has thrown light on his psychic evolution,
+on the imperfections of his moral laws, or on the crudity of some
+conventional custom, the process which takes place in him is much the
+same.
+
+Firstly, dislike of the idea. Secondly, on further examination of it,
+hatred of the idea. Thirdly, rationalisation directed against the idea.
+Fourthly, contentment, in that he has proved by logic and reason that
+the idea is wrong. Hence, it is that the truth takes long to emerge,
+and that obsessions and hysterias, and even trivial abnormalities are
+difficult to cure, for the cure involves seeing our own imperfections
+naked and undisguised.
+
+In all these cases, we are trying to keep out of consciousness those
+things which will distress us or cause us to have conflicts, or to have
+to readjust our views of ourselves, or in fact cause us unpleasantness
+in any form. It will be noticed that I have mentioned pride in the
+belief that we have reached a condition of final development, and in
+our superiority over the rest of nature, as being one of the important
+factors in preventing our advance. It is to the development of this
+pride, and its ramifications that I am devoting the major portion of
+this book.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE FORCES SHAPING CHARACTER
+
+
+It will be seen from the foregoing that evolution of the individual
+character may be the result of a very large number of forces at
+work, of which many are quite unconscious; and that any considerable
+disturbance or variation of the unconscious factors will considerably
+modify the character of the individual, in spite of conscious desires
+in some other direction. The character of an individual is the sum of
+his thoughts, ideas, capacities, desires, feelings and actions, and the
+general forces moulding it may be briefly summarised as follows:
+
+
+     1. The primitive instincts inherited from his ancestors, and held
+     back in the unconscious mind.
+
+     2. Environment and education.
+
+     3. That pride in his own greatness, to which we referred in
+     the last chapter, which modifies all the other forces at work,
+     according to the direction of its development. This force will
+     henceforth be called by the name of Narcissism, for a reason
+     shortly to be explained.
+
+
+§2
+
+Of the inherited instincts we have already said as much as is necessary
+here. It suffices for us to recognise that they are for the most part
+of a primitive erotic type, and that they are so repressed and modified
+as to be unrecognisable in the normal adult. When they have been
+ineffectually converted by environment and education, we have present
+the basis of many neurotic and functional conditions, and this again is
+a matter which is outside the scope of the present work.
+
+
+§3
+
+Environment and education are extremely comprehensive terms as used
+in psychology. Environment does not merely refer to the home with its
+visible surroundings, nor does education merely refer to the scholastic
+side of it. Environment and education include the treatment of the
+child by the nurse during the first week of life; for instance,
+whether she leaves it alone when it cries, or whether she soothes it
+and rocks it to sleep again. A trivial fact, the reader will think,
+especially in the first week of the child’s life, yet experience
+shows us that this environment and education of the first week is an
+extremely important factor in its after-life. The thousand little
+actions, the trivial chance words of anger or contempt, not merely
+of the parent but of strangers or of other children, all make their
+impressions on the infantile unconscious mind. They all belong, in the
+strictest sense, to what we term its environment and education. Any
+stimulus, in fact, however small, which is capable of reaching the
+brain forms part of this environment and education which is reacting
+on the child. Psychologists are now generally of the opinion that
+the essential elements of the individual character have all been
+definitely formed by the age of five, and that, important as training
+in successive years may be, the environment and education during those
+first five years are more important still.
+
+_It is the object of education and environment to modify and utilise
+the force of the primitive instincts with which the child comes into
+the world in the best possible way._
+
+_Three things may happen to any particular instinct._ Firstly, it may
+remain unchanged and unrepressed, in which case the individual will
+be said, on reaching adult life, to be perverted in some way. Let us
+take as an example that instinct which exists in some animals, and
+which urges them at the mating season to exhibit their genital organs
+to their fellows of the opposite sex, with the perfectly natural and
+proper end in view of propagating the species. We occasionally find
+adult human beings in whom this instinct has remained unchanged and
+uncontrolled, and they generally find their way, sooner or later,
+into prison. The psychological term for the offence they commit is
+“exhibitionism.” In the small child, however, we have often seen this
+instinct at work, without regarding it as objectionable in any way.
+We have laughed at the little child who delights in running about
+naked, or asks us to come and see it being bathed, or on occasion calls
+even more obvious attention to its state of nakedness. It is quite
+unconscious of the primitive instinct which it is displaying, and since
+it is a child and cannot in any way fulfil the sexual objects of the
+instinct, we pass the matter over, without further thought.
+
+Secondly, our primitive instincts may be _displaced_, and the
+displacement must be such as to conceal them from our conscious
+thoughts, in order that they may be tolerated by the conscious mind.
+For instance, the normal adult will not be guilty of exhibiting his
+nakedness in the way above referred to, nor will he display desires of
+sexual exhibitionism in a conscious manner. But he, or more frequently
+she, will _displace_ these ideas, and will only call attention to the
+sex of her body indirectly by exhibiting the neck or arms, or more
+indirectly still through the medium of clothes, designed to suggest,
+(for the most part unconsciously) erotic ideas.
+
+Thirdly, a much higher state may be reached by some people in which the
+primitive instinct has now lost entirely its erotic meaning, instead
+of being merely disguised and displaced as in the last case. The force
+and energy of it has all gone from the personal physical plane to
+serve a useful social purpose of a non-sexual nature. This is known as
+_sublimation_, and instead of the desire of our exhibitionist to show
+himself or herself physically, the person may attain the desire by
+showing a fine character, by designing a fine building, achieving some
+high position, or anything in fact of an ideal or non-erotic nature.
+
+Exactly the same process takes place in the opposite of exhibitionism,
+which in its primitive form we term observationism. “Peeping Tom” is a
+celebrated example of this. We have a _displacement_ of observationism
+in the fairly average young man, who likes to observe all that he can
+of the charms of every woman he comes into contact with, who takes
+an eager interest in her shoulders, breasts, underclothing, and any
+part she may exhibit. And we have the third or _sublimated_ stage in
+the scientist, who has turned most of his primitive sexual instinct
+of “looking” in the sexual sense into looking down the microscope, or
+searching for the secrets of Nature, and delving amidst her hidden
+laws, instead of using the same primitive desire to look in an
+unsublimated and rather more infantile manner.
+
+It is exactly the same with a large number of other primitive
+instincts, which even did I mention them here would not be grasped
+or understood at all by many without very much further explanation.
+Suffice it to say, that many of our higher activities and desires
+are sublimations of lower and more primitive instincts, which we are
+learning to develop and control; _and that education and environment
+have, as their object, the training of the child by turning the forces
+at work in his primitive instincts through the stage of displacement
+into the final one of sublimation_.
+
+It should be clearly grasped that the energy lying behind our primitive
+instincts, whether it be repressed, displaced or sublimated, is a
+very real force, comparable with the physical energy which we are
+accustomed to deal with in everyday life. _And this energy must find
+some outlet for its discharge._ Thus,[2]“We know as regards physical
+energy that there are not several kinds of energy, but merely several
+manifestations of it, and that it may be changed from one form of
+manifestation to another, but that still the sum total of the original
+energy remains without addition or loss.”
+
+Thus there is a given amount of energy stored in a ton of coal. This
+energy can manifest itself as _heat_ in the furnace and boiler. By
+means of an engine we can change the manifestation into that of
+_motion_, then with a dynamo to _electricity_; the electricity we can
+again change into _light_, or back again into _heat_ or _motion_. There
+is _one_ energy, but by suitable means we can turn it to different
+uses, and give different manifestations of it. Owing, however, to the
+imperfection of the boiler, machinery, etc., we never transform the
+_whole_ of our energy into another form. In transforming heat into
+electricity, there is always some heat wasted; it is not destroyed, but
+it remains as heat for a time, and is absorbed by surrounding objects.
+A complete transference of energy does not take place, and the less
+efficient the machinery the less is the transference.
+
+Now evidence tends to show a considerable similarity between psychic
+and physical energy. In all probability there is only one ultimate
+psychic energy which, like physical energy, can be directed into
+different channels. Thus, the energy of erotic desire can be directed
+to a large extent into the energy of desire for music, religion,
+science, or sport; or the energy of the desire for sport may be changed
+into the energy of the desire for mental exercise, such as chess,
+mathematics, or science. For example, an individual feels “restless,”
+he then desires to play tennis; the afternoon is wet: he plays chess
+instead. His psychic energy has been diverted from one channel into
+another with its accompanying excitement and satisfaction of desire:
+with its final feeling of fatigue and repletion.
+
+Psychic energy, like physical energy, can never be entirely diverted
+from one channel to another. There is always some, often a large
+quantity, which is not altered in character. The amount of this depends
+largely on the person concerned, just as the amount of physical energy,
+changed from one form to another depends on the efficiency of the
+engine or machinery.
+
+This possibility of transference of energy of desire from one form
+to another is of the utmost importance to the psycho-analyst. By the
+technique of psycho-analysis the energy of repressed desires is first
+freed from deleterious objectives, and then transferred to legitimate
+ones. The energy behind the conflicts which lead to alcoholism or
+drug-taking may, under suitable conditions, be transferred to energy of
+higher types of desire with more suitable outlets. These processes are
+known as _transference_ and _sublimation_ respectively.
+
+It may be taken that every mind has a given amount of psychic energy
+which _must_ find somewhere its suitable outlet in satisfying desire,
+whether for accomplishment or for enjoyment.
+
+We may here again take the opportunity of stating that the efficiency
+or lack of efficiency demonstrated in different individuals in their
+attempts to transfer the energy of desire from a lower to a higher
+channel depends not only on heredity and constitutional circumstances
+but to an extraordinary degree on the individual’s environment and the
+actions of the parents in the first three or four years of his life.
+The reason why seemingly excellent parents produce sometimes execrable
+progeny becomes clearer under psycho-analysis. The over-strict parent
+produces one type of inefficient children, the parent who spoils
+produces other inefficient types. The nurse, the nursery, the casual
+visitor, the trivial conversations, the unconsidered sights and
+experiences, all have a terrific influence in the first few years
+of the child’s life. Parents do not realise that conventional or
+arbitrary methods of education, whether in one direction or another,
+are not going to effect the results they expected. The primitive
+unconscious mind of the child understands and absorbs in a manner
+that civilised man does not recognise. The bad father may by accident
+or _neglect_ produce an excellent child--the good father with all
+his designs may produce a bad one. This is not an attempt to show
+that as the child grows up _all_ its actions are dependent on the
+early environment; merely that we can never compare the good or bad
+in individuals; that an apparent failure, owing to his inefficiency
+of powers of sublimation, may yet be devoting more energy to ascent
+than the successful saint whose early environment made for efficient
+transference of energy of desire. Some of the commonest of errors made
+by well-meaning parents will come to light at a later period. “_They
+teach their children to repress erotic and other desires but they omit
+at the same time to assist the development of that sublimation of them
+which is absolutely essential._”
+
+
+§4
+
+We now come to the third great factor in character formation, and as
+this particular factor is going to occupy the major portion of this
+book, I will not do more here than indicate briefly the symbolic
+meaning of the term Narcissism; the reason why this term is used in
+connection with our primitive feelings of pride will then gradually
+unfold itself.
+
+Narcissus was the son of the river god, Cephissus. In his mother’s
+eyes he was extremely beautiful, and later in the eyes of all others,
+including himself. It was his wont to walk abroad in solitary places
+lost in admiration of the graceful form which he thought no eyes
+worthy to behold, save his own. On one occasion, he wanted to drink
+from a cool spring and catching sight of his face in the water for
+the first time in his life, at once fell in love with it, not knowing
+it to be his own likeness. On his knees at the edge of the pool, he
+stretched himself, and looked down upon a face and form so entrancingly
+beautiful, that he was ready to leap into the water beside it.
+
+“Who art thou, who hast been made so fair?” cried Narcissus. And the
+lips of the image moved, yet there came no answer. He stretched out his
+hand towards it, and the beautiful form beckoned to him. But when his
+hand touched and broke the surface, it vanished like a dream, only to
+return in all its enchantment when he was content to gaze motionless,
+even then, again, growing dim beneath the tears of vexation he shed
+into the water. Repeatedly, he tried to gather the lovely image in his
+arms, but it always eluded him, but when he entreated and implored, it
+imitated his gestures with unfeeling silence.
+
+Maddened by the strong allurement of his own likeness, he could not
+tear himself away from the mirror which ever mocked his fancy. Hour
+after hour, day after day, he leant over the pool’s brink, crying in
+vain for that imaginary object of adoration. But at last from despair
+his heart ceased to throb, and he lay still among the water-lilies that
+made his shroud.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before proceeding further and examining the development of Narcissism,
+and those factors which come to preserve it, and make it forceful in
+our unconscious mind, we must first briefly consider the subject of
+determinism.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[2] “Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis,” by Paul Bousfield.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DETERMINISM AND WILL POWER
+
+
+Determinism is the doctrine that all things, including the will, are
+determined by causes. It is the antithesis of the doctrine of free
+will. In its complete form, it holds that the individual has no direct
+and voluntary control over his thoughts and actions but that every
+thought and action is inevitably the result of a large number of
+previous thoughts and actions which have gone before.
+
+There is a very large amount of evidence, and indeed, whether we admit
+it or not, the evidence is quite irrefutable, that in regard to the
+majority of our actions the doctrine of determinism holds good. But the
+evidence is by no means sufficient to enable us to conclude that we
+have no free will.
+
+[3]Freud in his book on the “Psychopathology of Everyday Life” and in
+other works gives many convincing examples that much in our character,
+that many of our actions, evil and good, are quite beyond our control
+at any given moment. But there is one thing that appears to have been
+overlooked, and that is, _that in all the examples given one could
+not conceivably utilise free will in any case_. If I ask you to think
+of a number what opportunity do you get of using your will power?
+If you put the wrong latch-key into the door by accident, have you
+made any effort to use will power? When a patient is suffering from
+hysteria due to repressions of various kinds, in that particular matter
+_the will power has already been lost_. When a chronic alcoholic is
+unable to cease from drinking his will power in reference to this has
+disappeared, therefore determinism holds the field completely. The
+will has no opportunity of working then. In all the examples which
+Freud gives one discovers on careful investigation that for some reason
+or another there is no opportunity for the use of free will. Such
+evidence as we have certainly does not prove the nonexistence of free
+will, but merely shows that in a very large number of our thoughts and
+actions we do not use any will at all, and that in other cases we are
+unable to use our will effectively.[4] When determinism does rule we
+may liken it physically to this: a patient sits down and crosses one
+leg over the other and leaves the one leg hanging free. On tapping
+it smartly beneath the patella the foot will kick; the knee jerk has
+been elicited. If this be done fifty times the result will be the
+same fifty times. There is movement of the leg, but this movement is
+predetermined. On the other hand this does not prove that no other
+movement of the leg is possible. Under the conditions just given the
+man’s will, or the freedom of the leg, is merely _eliminated during
+that period_. Or again, we may liken it to a locomotive standing at the
+top of a hill; if the brake be taken off, the locomotive will run down
+the hill, and will do it every time; but this will not prove that did
+somebody happen to put the brake on half-way down the hill the engine
+would still go on running. However, all actions which we may ascribe to
+our will are no doubt strictly limited by other determined conditions.
+The man on the engine may run it backwards or forwards, but only within
+_the very much prescribed limits which the rails allow_. We may safely
+accept this much determinism, that although the will exists, its
+capabilities are strictly circumscribed by determinism.
+
+It is rather in his general direction than in any specific act that
+a man has most control. We certainly have not the amount of free
+will which we like to believe we have. For example, the reader of
+this chapter may have returned home to-night and have said, “I will
+not have a meal to-night, it is too hot.” What are the factors (or
+determinants, as they are called) in this case? Perhaps external heat,
+producing langour by various physiological processes, combined with
+lack of appetite, in its turn produced by several causes, and added to
+this, depression, produced by a bad business deal, and in its turn the
+result of many other determinants outside the reader’s control. There
+is no desire to eat, and these various determinants, added together,
+prove stronger than the habit of eating the evening meal. Having,
+however, read this chapter as far as this point, the reader desiring to
+disprove my unpleasant suggestion, immediately says, “Ah! I will prove
+that I have free will. I will eat my meal in spite of not wanting it.”
+
+Alas! this does not _prove_ free will, new determinants have merely
+been added on the other side, and desire to prove strength of mind has
+now out-weighed accumulated efforts which prevented you from eating.
+
+Since it has been shown that a man’s control is constantly being
+limited by other determinants, it follows that the criminal whose
+environment and determinants, conscious and unconscious, have been
+manufactured for him from evil sources, yet who, on the whole, is
+progressing upwards in spite of these, may be forming a far better
+character than the arch-bishop whose environment from the beginning has
+been such as never to give him criminal characteristics, yet whose
+growth has been, on the whole, towards a more selfish position, even
+though this be not noticeable to the eyes of others.
+
+_Now many of the determinants forming our characters lie in the
+unconscious. They are unknown to us and only the results of their
+activities are visible. Herein lies the difficulty of controlling
+ourselves. How can we efficiently control that of which we do not know
+the existence? Herein, also, lies the value of psycho-analysis, for it
+brings many of these determinants to light, and we are thus able to
+control them consciously._ Only a part of all this can be accomplished
+by such self-analysis as may be indicated in this book. Yet even so, a
+much greater degree of self-control may be obtained.
+
+
+§2
+
+Let us now consider briefly why persons who have not previously been
+irritable, should suddenly become irritable; who have not previously
+been hysterical, should suddenly become hysterical; who have not
+previously been in the habit of weeping, should at some time after
+reaching adult life, revert to that infantile habit.
+
+The explanation of mental troubles of various kinds involves two
+factors. In the first place, any individual is capable of bearing a
+certain amount of conflict and a certain amount of repression. It is
+only when the accumulated force is more than he can control, _that is
+when new determinants are added_, that the symptoms begin to appear. He
+is like a steam engine in which as long as the steam is being used up
+in doing work, or as long as the safety valve is working efficiently
+when work is not being done, the boiler stands a pressure of 100lbs.
+very comfortably. If the safety valve gets jammed, and the energy
+cannot be transferred from the steam to the work, the pressure in the
+boiler rises higher and higher until it bursts from the joints and
+rivet-holes.
+
+The second factor which determines the mode of expression of this
+out-burst of repressed energy is known as the _law of regression_.
+This means that if the adult outlet of energy becomes dammed up or is
+insufficient, _the energy will flow through an earlier channel which
+has once been used_. The individual will, in fact, revert to some
+method which he was wont to use in earlier years, or in infancy. It
+is true that this may be disguised and not recognised as an infantile
+mode of expression until it is looked into more closely. This question
+of regression, however, need not be more than touched upon here. It
+will be much more fully dealt with when we come to actual examples at a
+later stage.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] “The Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis,” by Paul Bousfield.
+
+[4] The doctrines of determinism and free-will respectively can be
+brought entirely into line with one another if we include freewill
+itself as one of the determinants. Thus, if in the formula
+
+    S = a + b + c + d + etc.
+
+where S is the resultant action, and a, b, c, d, etc., are the several
+determinants, it happens that d = 0. The presence of d does not
+invalidate the formula. _But if_ d _does not happen to be zero, the
+absence of_ d _would invalidate the formula_. If d represents the
+“will” component there may be plenty, even a majority of cases in which
+d = 0, but there may be cases in which the omission of d will render
+the result erroneous.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+NARCISSISM
+
+
+The term Narcissism has already been mentioned and some slight
+indication of its importance in character development has been given.
+We have also examined the derivation of the term, and found that it
+implies self-interest, self-importance, self-worship; all of which
+characteristics are in modified degrees possessed by everybody. There
+are, however, many other manifestations of Narcissism, many tricks by
+which it gets past our conscious intentions, many ways in which it
+associates itself with other instincts, and unknown to us works our
+undoing. We shall therefore, in this chapter, examine the development
+of Narcissism from its very earliest stages, and trace out in some
+detail whither it may lead.
+
+Most people were they asked at what moment the child’s mind first
+began to register feelings, thoughts, and emotions, would probably at
+once and without hesitation say, “At the moment of birth.” It seems
+the obvious thing to say, but like many other obvious things such a
+statement appears to have but little evidence in support of it and much
+against it.
+
+The act of birth has performed no sudden or miraculous change upon the
+growth and tissues of the body. It is true that oxygen is now absorbed
+through the lungs instead of as originally through the mother’s blood,
+but the essential tissues, the brain, the muscles and the bones have
+undergone no sudden change. Before birth, they were living tissues,
+and we know that the muscles were at work, for we had felt the baby’s
+movements _in utero_; we know that the heart was at work, driving
+the blood through the child’s arteries. We had learnt this also by
+means of the stethoscope many weeks before the child was born. Why
+then should we assume that the brain had registered nothing at birth?
+We do indeed know that it must have been at work in part, for it was
+learning to regulate the action of the child’s heart and the child’s
+secretions, the blood pressure, and the motions of its limbs. We are
+therefore justified in assuming that it must be capable of registering
+impressions, even though it were incapable of reason or thought.
+
+It is true that at birth it commences to undergo many vivid new
+experiences, but that is no reason for assuming that it has not
+undergone any experiences _in utero_, and that these experiences have
+not made some impressions on the brain. Let us see for a moment what
+impressions it is likely to have received and registered. First of
+all, it would most certainly hear sounds, the sounds of the blood
+rushing through the mother’s arteries and the sounds from the outer
+world, muffled and indistinct when they had penetrated the mother’s
+body. All these sounds would be of a soft crooning nature, and those
+caused by the blood in the mother’s arteries would be of a rhythmic,
+humming, rising and falling nature, a kind of rhythmic lullaby very
+similar in many respects to the lullaby the mother will hum to the
+child when she wishes to put it to sleep at a later period. We should
+expect these sounds to be registered on the child’s brain so that if
+it ever heard their like again, some chord of _feeling-memory_ would
+be struck, and some emotional association brought to mind. In the
+second place, external movements would be registered on the child’s
+mind as the mother walked about. There would be a swaying or swinging
+movement. Again we should expect that when, in after life, the child
+experienced a swaying or swinging movement, a chord of memory would be
+touched again, and these earlier associations would be revived; not as
+a conscious memory or fact, of course, but as a feeling.
+
+Again, conscious movements of its own limbs might be impressed upon it.
+It would find, when it tried to move, that its movements were limited,
+and that it attained more perfect peace by refraining from attempting
+to struggle and change its position. It would be impressed by the
+pleasantness of inertia as opposed to the unpleasantness of making
+an effort. And finally, its general position with the knees drawn up
+and the chin bent down would be firmly registered, so that when in
+after-life it again assumed this position, once more the chord of
+memory would be struck, and the old feeling of repose would be likely
+to return.
+
+Now, we cannot assume that the child has any active mental state before
+its birth, but we know that its condition (taken in conjunction with
+its extremely limited experience) is one as near omnipotence (from its
+standpoint) as may be. It breathes, or rather absorbs oxygen without
+any effort of breathing. It is fed, it is kept warm and comfortable
+without any effort whatsoever. It lives in a world entirely its own,
+where everything works together for its comfort and well-being. It has
+to make no struggle for existence. It has to deal with nothing _real_,
+save perhaps that its voluntary movements are limited, and this perhaps
+is bad for its education, since at that period of its life it learns
+that it can be most comfortable by making least effort! And here we see
+the beginning of that which we all possess in after-life, _inertia_,
+the difficulty of making a beginning at anything, the objection which
+we have to making efforts.
+
+Now let us see what happens to this omnipotent little creature at
+birth. It goes through the probably painful process of having its
+position roughly changed and being thrust into an atmosphere which is
+cold and unusual to it. Moreover it has to make its first struggle for
+breath, its first effort to sustain existence. And in its struggle for
+breath it utters cries, which by experience it very soon finds to be
+magic sounds which enable it to fulfil its wishes. But of this, more
+later.
+
+After its first rude awakening, let us once more see what happens. It
+is wrapped up in something warm; that is, it is returned to a semblance
+of the womb, by having something round it which keeps out the cold. It
+is gently rocked to and fro by the nurse or other attendant, and again
+the semblance of the previous rocking in the womb is returned to it.
+Crooning sounds are murmured over it, and the semblance is still more
+complete. It frequently draws its knees up somewhat if it is placed in
+such a position that it can do so with ease, and falls asleep. It has
+attained as nearly as possible once more the semblance of its pre-birth
+condition, where it has no cares, and is warm and comfortable again.
+And though it has become acquainted with effort, it is quite obvious
+that its feeling of omnipotence, if we may so term it for the moment,
+is hardly yet disturbed, and the world it has come into differs but
+slightly from the world which it has left; it is still a world in which
+the infant is the centre and ruler, in which its every want is attended
+to without an effort on its part, save that it may sometimes have to
+call attention to its wants by means of that magical cry which it soon
+learns how and when to use, and which acts in a truly magical manner in
+accomplishing the fulfilment of all its desires.
+
+During the first few weeks of the infant’s life this delusion on the
+part of the child is largely kept up. Few people think there is any
+harm in attending to all a baby’s wants in the first month of its
+life. They do not think it could possibly be wrong to spoil it at that
+age, because its intellect has not developed. They forget entirely
+that its mental condition and attitude towards life, apart from actual
+thought, may inevitably be affected at this period. Hence, whenever
+the baby cries, it is not uncommonly rocked to sleep, or fed, or if
+it holds out its hand and shows its desire to possess anything, it is
+immediately allowed to possess it, and to play with it. It has to make
+but the faintest attempts to adjust itself to its environment, it has
+to face but the slightest reality; all its desires are immediately
+fulfilled, and kept in a condition of almost continual fulfilment. And
+it may remain for a considerable period as near being an omnipotent
+creature as it is possible for any living thing to be. Its omnipotence,
+however, is really a fallacy, or as I prefer to term it at a slightly
+later stage, a phantasy, for the world in which it lived before birth,
+which seemed to it as a world, was not really a world at all, but a
+very small and a very temporary abode, and the world in which it is
+living for the first few months after birth is again not really a world
+but a combination of extremely limited and carefully selected portions
+of the world, in which every attempt is made to disguise from it the
+realities of the actual world.
+
+Again let us emphasise the fact that the chief effort that the infant
+has to make is the effort of crying. And it may learn very quickly
+that this is so all-powerful as to practically efface the unpleasant
+task of having to adjust itself to the realities of life. This process
+is carried on with slight modifications for many months. The infant has
+but to wave a magic wand, as it were, has but to emit a little magic
+noise from its mouth, and all the world it knows is set in motion to
+give it satisfaction and some semblance of its pre-birth omnipotence.
+
+_This cry which brings it gratification, if it has been really
+effective over a too-prolonged period, will tend to fix permanently
+in the child’s mind the fact that either weeping or making a magic
+noise with the mouth will always attain for it gratification. And
+although at a later stage the conscious mind will be obliged to accept
+a considerable amount of reality and to reject the idea of omnipotence,
+yet the unconscious mind will persist in the struggle and will make
+futile efforts to forget reality, to change reality into phantasy, and
+to regain its omnipotent state._
+
+When a man uses expletives because some task of his has failed to
+result in success, he is really repeating the infant’s cry. He is
+really uttering a magic sound which his unconscious mind hopes may
+somehow remedy the failure. He has not definitely accepted the reality
+of failure as a commonplace hard fact of life at the moment at which he
+utters his expletive.
+
+When a person weeps at some unpleasant happening or in anger at
+something which has touched his pride, exactly the same is taking
+place. He, or she, has failed to make a complete adaptation of
+himself to the facts and realities of life. _He has obeyed the law
+of regression_, to which I referred in a previous chapter, and has
+returned to the infantile method of expression, namely weeping, with
+the unconscious hope that a magic compensation will result; that
+instead of his having to adapt himself to the facts of life, the facts
+of life will somehow adapt themselves to his phantasy.
+
+Hence, the first piece of advice that one must give to parents is
+that they should, from the earliest possible moment, train the
+infant to understand that the magic cries will not at once produce
+their expected result; and the first week in the infant’s life is
+all-important in this matter. The choosing of the nurse who has charge
+during that period should be done with great care, and what is required
+of her should be insisted on. Too great emphasis cannot be laid upon
+these points.
+
+The child should be fed at regular and proper intervals, and should
+be kept warm. But if it cries, as it will do naturally, it should be
+left to itself to cry. It should not be picked up, rocked to sleep,
+given another meal nor petted. If it is left to cry, it will learn very
+rapidly and at the right period of its life that the sounds which it
+emits are not magical, and it will begin to adapt itself to the fact
+that it lives in a real world which has not been built solely and only
+for its own delight.
+
+It is curious to note how regression, this instinct to return to the
+earlier mode of expression, to return apparently even to the pre-birth
+state, persists in the unconscious mind.
+
+During the war, I knew a youth who was intensely agitated by the
+air-raids. He felt perfectly safe, however, if he could crawl under
+the bed or table, where he would curl himself into practically the same
+position as that of a normal baby before birth. When questioned, he had
+not, of course, the slightest conscious knowledge of why he felt safe
+in such curious circumstances. But it does not seem improbable that
+the association of ideas produced by his position and by the confined
+space created a feeling akin to that feeling of safety which has been
+his in his pre-birth omnipotent position where nothing could harm him.
+A similar feeling of security was experienced by many normal persons in
+cellars and other confined spaces and was probably of the same origin;
+for there is no doubt that this safety was felt even though their
+reason told them that a bomb was as likely to reach their confined
+space as any other place in the neighbourhood.
+
+Again, I know of innumerable cases in which soldiers felt very much
+safer from bombs which fell at night when they were under cover of a
+canvas tent. Logically, of course, the thing was absurd; emotionally,
+it was a fact. And all were equally unconscious of any possible
+reasons for the feeling of security produced. An example of this same
+tendency at an earlier age is seen in children who cover their heads
+with the bedclothes when they are frightened.
+
+To return to our Narcissistic infant, we are now impressed with the
+fact that one thing of the utmost importance in the first years of its
+life is that it shall gradually come into contact with reality, shall
+discover that all things do not belong to it, that its omnipotent
+feelings are based purely upon phantasy and not upon reality; and upon
+the method of its disillusionment and the age at which this begins
+largely depend the future powers of adaptation of the child to its
+surroundings. It has now become obvious that the new-born infant lives
+in a world of phantasy, in which, the relative importance of itself to
+things outside itself is not merely distorted but is entirely absent.
+And if we can suppose a child kept artificially in this condition till
+it reached adult life, every wish satisfied instantaneously, every
+force it knows directed entirely towards gratifying its immediate
+desires, we do not require much imagination to understand how
+absolutely helpless and lost this omnipotent creature would be if
+suddenly turned into the world to face life and reality. His one desire
+would be to return to his omnipotent state, his one effort to keep at
+bay reality and turn it into the pleasant phantasy of the previous
+twenty years. For he would surely, before his disillusionment, have
+really come to believe himself omnipotent, the only real thing in a
+phantasy world of his own fashioning and dreaming.
+
+An extreme case of this kind is, of course, an impossibility. But there
+are many and various degrees in which it is approached. Probably the
+nearest approach to it may be found in cases where some sort of moral
+or mental conflict has been too much for an extremely Narcissistic
+mind, which has then completely regressed, refused to recognise the
+outer world, and developed a certain form of insanity; and from this
+stage of complete Narcissistic regression all degrees and kinds of
+manifestations of it may be found, until we reach at the other end of
+our list a person who expects everyone around to consult his wishes
+and peculiarities or who is merely somewhat impatient, or inclined to
+irritability, or merely over-sensitive to either mental or physical
+pain.
+
+There is no more certain fact than that if an infant be allowed to
+postpone its acquaintance with reality too long it becomes fixed in a
+more or less degree in conditions in which phantasy plays too prominent
+a part, and regression of some kind takes place as it meets with real
+difficulties.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+FACT AND PHANTASY
+
+
+In the last chapter we emphasised the fact that one of the first
+products of Narcissism was the infantile difficulty of distinguishing
+between fact and phantasy, of realising the world outside oneself. This
+tendency to mix up fact with phantasy is by no means only to be found
+in an abnormal mind. It is present in some degree in all persons; each
+one feels himself to be the most real thing present, and in feeling
+this he has a tendency to believe that others round him are in some way
+less real, though, fortunately, very few carry it far enough to imagine
+that all the others are merely part of a dream in which the dreamer is
+the only real figure, as the Red King in “Alice Through the Looking
+Glass” is supposed to have done, when the remark is made to Alice,
+“You’re only a sort of thing in his dream! If that there king was to
+wake you would go out bang--just like a candle!”
+
+And yet quite a large number of people find it difficult to realise
+firstly, that they must die, and secondly that the rest of the world
+will not die also when they die. They know, of course, that this
+latter is not the case, yet they cannot look upon it as a commonplace
+fact. Their Narcissism refuses to contemplate their own mortality. It
+represses the fact and leaves the idea vague and unreal to them.
+
+In children, the difficulty of distinguishing between phantasy and
+reality is quite normally much more accentuated than in adults.
+And since they start in a world of phantasy and their training is
+to lead them to a world of reality, it is obvious that the halfway
+stages will be obscured by a strange mixture of the two. All children
+go through the stage in which phantasy and reality are by no means
+clearly differentiated, and most young children succeed, day by day, in
+fulfilling impossible wishes in phantasies in a manner which a properly
+developed adult can never do.
+
+A little boy desires to possess a pony; if this be impossible his
+imagination gives life to a rocking-horse, and failing that he may
+tie a piece of string to a chair, and with great pleasure and much
+emotion urge on his fiery untamed steed across mountain and desert.
+He fulfils his wishes immediately by means of a phantasy, which, for
+the time being, successfully replaces reality. If this child grows up
+normally, this possibility of phantastic fulfilment should gradually
+disappear. How many adults, for instance, could take a bath-tub into
+their dining-room, sit in it, and with the aid of a vivid imagination
+thoroughly enjoy a pleasant sail at sea? We trust no one, at any
+rate of our readers, for they would be of that type which has no
+perspective, and they would most certainly fail in their vocation as
+practical men and women. Yet remnants of phantasy thinking remain with
+everyone, and in a moderate degree, so far as we know, such remnants do
+but little harm if they are present in small measure only, and kept in
+water-tight compartments.
+
+Adult phantasy thinking very largely consists in what is known as
+identification, which may be either conscious or unconscious. Of this,
+we shall have more to say shortly. At the moment let us trace out what
+should happen to the normal child as it grows older. Education and
+environment should be gradually convincing the child of the unreality
+of its phantastic thoughts and of its early world, should be inducing
+it to think in terms of facts and to adjust himself to these facts,
+instead of attempting the impossible task of adjusting these facts to
+suit his own phantastic conceptions of them. The method of thought
+which he should develop in order thus to fit himself to meet the
+world adequately has been conveniently termed “directive thinking.”
+Directive thinking is controlled thought based upon facts seen in their
+true perspective, and with a purpose in view which is both definite
+and possible. It is the very opposite of phantasy thinking, which is
+generally indefinite, based upon a lack of perspective, and attempts
+continually to obtain the fulfilment of wishes impossible of fulfilment.
+
+In directive thinking, the purpose in view must be purposive to the
+thinker, a change to be produced in the world, either in its happiness,
+its morals, its commercial prosperity or in other forms of progress
+or even of deterioration; or the purpose may be to effect changes in
+the individual’s own happiness or prosperity, or it may be directed
+towards a mental change in the thinker himself with no immediate idea
+of changes in his external surroundings.
+
+Thus a man may wish to improve his own character by eradicating a bad
+habit. He may do this by thinking carefully about it, by analysing the
+causes of the habit, by giving himself auto-suggestion in opposition to
+the habit. All this, even if the habit may not in the end be eradicated
+must be classed as directive thinking. _Directive thinking is thus
+obviously, controlled thinking requiring an effort of attention and
+concentration as opposed to phantasy thinking which knows but little
+control save that of desire, and little effort or concentration._
+
+In all the business of everyday life, directive thinking must be
+employed; whether we are merely using our minds to decide the most
+trivial problem, such as the best way of eradicating weeds from the
+garden, or whether we are deciding upon a policy to be pursued in some
+great commercial or political enterprise. Every time we use our brains
+in directive thinking we are establishing a habit which gradually gives
+us power to produce changes in our environment and in the world in
+general. Every time we indulge in phantasy thinking we encourage the
+habit of living in a world of our own ideas, and we are destroying the
+habit which enables us to create in reality.
+
+The two forms of thinking may, of course, overlap considerably. The
+novelist or playwright, for instance, is very largely a phantasy
+thinker. He may feel the emotions of the various phantasy characters
+which he evolves, but in order to arrange the words and sentences,
+and furthermore in having an idea to portray or in drawing attention
+to evils which he thinks should be remedied, he is using considerable
+energy in directive thought. So that it becomes obvious that directive
+thought need not merely apply to the things of the immediate present
+nor even the near future, and in trying to draw distinction between
+the two, one is often confronted with a superficial criticism, that
+certain ideas must pertain to phantasy thinking, because they can never
+come to pass. That, however, is quite incorrect. The possibility that
+an idea may come to fruition in two or three hundred years time, and
+that the thoughts which have been given to the idea must assist its
+growth and ripening, is sufficient to constitute these thoughts as
+directive.
+
+We must now look at the second important element in the child’s early
+education, which would follow logically upon the first one that it
+should be made to face the facts around it; and that is, that in its
+games and occupations it should be encouraged, as far as possible, to
+take lines of directive thought, and not obtain its pleasures through
+phantasies only.
+
+Thus, it would be much better to give him bricks to play with, so that
+he may use directive thought in designing and building a house, than
+to give him a ready-made toy, such as an engine wherewith he will
+merely carry out the phantasy of being a driver or a passenger and of
+travelling wheresoever he wishes. A toy wheel-barrow which he can take
+into the garden and fill with real stones and earth is far better than
+a doll which he will merely imagine to be something to be brought up
+like himself, which he will endow with phantastic life and feelings
+which are quite unreal. In fact, as far as possible, the child’s games
+and occupations should involve his _doing_ something, rather than
+merely imagining something. Of course, imagination and phantasy will
+come into its games, and are bound to do so, but as much directive
+thought as possible should be added.
+
+The ordinary fairy-tale should be swept from the nursery; here the
+child does nothing but identify himself with the hero or heroine in
+the most impossible of situations of a purely phantastic type. There
+is plenty of scope for giving a child an interest in stories from the
+fairy-land of science, or from the lives of famous persons in the
+centuries that have passed; all of which, if properly selected and
+dressed up, will assist the child’s directive thought. For though
+the facts with which the stories may deal are as wonderful as any of
+Grimm’s fairy-tales, _they are facts of which the child will never
+have to be undeceived, and he will never have to have his faith shaken
+in the stories which he has learnt_; thus the child will learn from the
+outset to think directively.
+
+I know that many mothers, when they read this, will be inclined to
+shake their heads and say to themselves, “Poor little darling, I could
+never treat it so.” And that they will be inclined, as is shown very
+early in this book, to say “These things cannot be true,” for they are
+not the ideas they are accustomed to. Yet I can assure them that by
+means of carrying out many of those actions and teachings which they
+think are pleasant and harmless, they are really damning the child,
+while many of these ideas which they might term cruel are really of
+the greatest value and kindness to it. Moreover, experience has shown
+that if diplomacy be used, the child will be as equally interested in
+wonderful facts as in wonderful phantasies. The only difference is
+that it is more trouble to the parent or educator to search out and
+deal with facts himself. It is quite true that the child’s imagination
+requires training, as part of its intellectual education. But there
+is vast difference between encouraging it to imagine the possibility
+of impossible things, and encouraging it to exercise its imagination
+in realisation of facts, however far they may be removed from the
+experience of everyday life. Many people have the idea that a child
+should be encouraged to use its imagination; whereas in fact the
+child’s imagination requires curbing, training, sublimating. Such
+people do not realise that the early life of a child is lived almost
+entirely in imagination, that it has no difficulty whatsoever in using
+its imagination, and that the real difficulty is in preventing it from
+using too much imagination directed into false channels and by-paths of
+permanent unreality.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+IDENTIFICATION
+
+
+We must now traverse another path through which Narcissism wanders. We
+have emphasised the fact that when a child comes into the world, he is
+to himself the only real thing; the rest of the world is merely seen
+from his phantastic view point, and at this stage he accepts himself as
+the one all-powerful centre of everything. Another important fact which
+arises from this, however, we have not dealt with, and that is, that he
+does not separate the outer world from himself as a separate entity.
+His unconscious view point is that the world is subordinate to himself,
+beneath his omnipotent control, if you like, that it is a dream of his
+own imagining, that it is something which belongs to him in every sense
+of the word. This, summed up, means that it is part of himself, that
+his identity and the identity of the dream-world around him are part of
+the same thing.
+
+Thus, the infant does not at first distinguish between himself and his
+mother. When he is hungry, he cries, and he probably has almost as
+ready access to his mother’s breasts as if they were part of his own
+body. And such imagination is more than encouraged when he is allowed
+the use of a rubber teat to suck in the intervals between his meals.
+
+It is generally a comparatively slow process through which the infant
+passes, this one of separating himself in thought and feeling from
+objects surrounding him. It is one which is hardly ever completely
+accomplished. We have already mentioned the fairy-tale which encourages
+the child’s phantasy thought. Let us now see how he really obtains
+pleasure from that fairy-tale. It is by identification. In imagination
+he is a fairy prince or princess, as the case may be; his pleasure in
+the triumphs and progress of the central figure of the story is that
+of performing his prodigious deeds by proxy; and if he thus identifies
+himself with the hero of the story, he is also encouraged to believe
+that he possesses the power and qualities of that hero. He is less able
+to realise that he, unlike the hero, cannot perform magic deeds with a
+mere wave of a wand. Indeed, when the story is over, he will probably
+play at being a fairy, and in phantasy perform the magic deeds again.
+
+This demonstrates the force of his identification with the hero of the
+story. _And it must be remembered that sooner or later the child will
+have to wake up, will have to realise that it possesses no magic power,
+and the struggle within it will be great._ It is obviously a mistaken
+form of kindness to enhance such pleasures of the moment, when you are
+merely accentuating the struggle which the child will have to make at
+a later period to overcome his Narcissism. In passing, I may mention
+that you have probably already done the child considerable damage by
+allowing him to have his rubber teat at the beginning of this period of
+identification, since he identifies it with the mother’s breast, and is
+thus encouraged to think that the breast is always with him.
+
+Let us now see where this Narcissistic identification may come out
+later in life.
+
+First of all, it is this which enables us to enjoy novels, just as
+we enjoyed fairy-tales as children. We identify ourselves with the
+hero or heroine of the book, and in phantasy perform their various
+wonderful feats. Thus we satisfy our Narcissistic desire to be great
+and powerful. If we lack cleverness, and the hero is clever, by
+identification and imputation we may attain the pleasures of feeling
+clever and superior. If the heroine is beautiful and everyone falls in
+love with her, we may by proxy be the same. If the hero is a sailor,
+and we have always desired to sail, yet have never been on the sea,
+our ambition is now attained--and see how easily attained--in a truly
+omnipotent fashion, without effort on our part, just by reading
+about it. Exactly the same thing takes place at theatres, where the
+Narcissist identifies himself with the actors on the stage. So far
+so good; if a person can content himself with an occasional theatre
+or occasional novel, wherewith to take a restful regression to an
+infantile outlet of energy, no harm is done. There are times when we
+must rest, and there are times when we must sleep, which also appears
+to be Narcissistic regression to a condition somewhat resembling
+our pre-birth state. But there are many who cannot control their
+identification in this way, who cannot confine it to the stage and the
+novel, who bring it into the affairs of life continuously. They may
+unconsciously identify themselves with their father or mother, their
+relations or friends, or even their enemies, and perhaps, in turn, with
+everyone with whom they come into contact. Like a looking-glass, they
+reflect everything that goes on around them. They feel the pleasures of
+their friends, they also feel their pains. They are called sympathetic,
+they are often ultra-sympathetic--they are a nuisance.
+
+I remember on one occasion I had asked a woman of strong Narcissistic
+temperament to take a fly out of the corner of my eye. She absolutely
+refused to do so under any consideration, as she was sure she would
+hurt me too much. Inquiry showed that Narcissism had exaggerated her
+own feelings, so that a speck of dust in her own eye was torture. Yet
+her eye was so tender and important to herself that she could not bear
+anyone to touch it even in order to get something out. _And she could
+not imagine that anybody else could have feelings that differed from
+hers_; and since she identified herself so much with other people, I
+have no doubt it would have been a real agony to her, had she attempted
+to extract the fly from my eye.
+
+Such people are by no means uncommon. We all know the person who cannot
+bear to hurt us, even for our good. For instance, some cannot bear to
+bandage a wound for us since they cannot bear to see pain in any form.
+They state that it is almost as if they felt it themselves, and they
+call themselves “sympathetic.” But in spite of popular belief to the
+contrary, such sympathy is not a virtue, there is nothing altruistic
+about it; it is an inconvenient fault of an entirely selfish kind. In
+order to help one’s friend, one does not need to feel his feelings and
+suffer his pains, one wants to understand them; the more one enters
+into his feelings, the more one’s judgment is biased, and the less one
+is able, as a rule, to be of assistance. Worse still, in connection
+with these people, they not only pour out sympathy in this way,
+but attribute it to themselves as a virtue, and they cannot bring
+themselves to believe their friends to be really good, unless their
+friends also can react in a similar way towards them. They call a
+normal person unsympathetic, perhaps exaggerate the term and call him
+brutal, wishing indeed that their friends who have climbed higher from
+Narcissism should regress to their lower stand-point.
+
+I have given here but one type of Narcissistic identification with
+other persons; it seems to me unnecessary to carry it further since
+any reader who chooses to think the matter out for himself will find
+endless modifications of such identifications. We all possess it in
+part, and on the whole women are more Narcissistic than men. Let it
+not be thought, however, that this is a reflection on women; it is a
+reflection on the way they have been brought up, for from the earliest
+times environment impresses them with the idea that “little boys are
+made of slugs and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails, and little girls are
+made of sugar and spice and all things nice!” And hence on such lines
+as these, their Narcissism is encouraged, and their capabilities of
+facing fact and reality discouraged from the very outset, until
+differences of temperament are produced in the adults of the two sexes,
+which in no way belong to Nature, but purely to our conventional and
+somewhat barbaric stand-point.
+
+There are yet more important results of Narcissistic identification
+than those already mentioned; Narcissism leads, in many instances, to
+the choice of a particular love-object. Narcissism is, of course, by no
+means the only or chief factor in the choice of love-objects, as anyone
+who has studied psycho-analysis will at once realise. It is, however,
+the only one I intend to touch on in this particular work.
+
+Just as the mythical Narcissus himself fell in love with his
+reflection, so does his prototype of to-day. An infant is not only
+the omnipotent centre of all, he is also the only interesting portion
+of the universe in his early days. His interests are entirely
+self-centred, and his joys and pleasures belong to himself alone; and
+as he grows older, everything that is like him is identified with
+himself. In the worst form of Narcissism in the adult, the individual
+remains entirely selfish, and is incapable of loving anybody outside
+himself at all.
+
+_By identification, however, he can love in a sense those attributes of
+his own personality which he sees in other persons._ Thus, he may love
+somebody for a facial similarity, for a voice which is like his, or for
+tastes which are like his own, but most commonly he loves them for a
+body like his own. And from this we see that he may fall in love with
+somebody of his own sex. Hence, homo-sexuality,[5] as it is called,
+is frequently one of the distressing results of an early Narcissistic
+upbringing. But it need not be necessary for such homo-sexuality to
+be of a grossly erotic type; such desires may be for the most part
+repressed in the unconscious, or appear only in minor ways such as
+the desire to kiss, fondle or touch favoured persons of the same sex.
+On the other hand, frequently the early education and environment of
+the Narcissistic person has been such as to leave him quite incapable
+of complete repression; and we then have expressed more or less
+open erotic desires and actions for persons of the same sex. Such
+persons, however, should not be treated as criminals in this particular
+matter; they are by this time as hopelessly incompetent to deal with
+themselves, as is the kleptomaniac or a person having any other form
+of so-called degenerate mentality. Here again, we see the reason why
+homo-sexuality is so much more rife amongst women than amongst men. The
+minor details of their early environment tend so much more to confirm
+them in Narcissism. It is partially repressed and partially displaced
+homo-sexuality which causes some women to kiss one another, to call one
+another by affectionate names and so forth, to delight in taking hold
+of one another’s hands on occasion; actions which normally, between
+persons of opposite sex, would at once be taken to indicate some sort
+of erotic affection, but which we are so used to seeing amongst women
+that we do not realise their repressed and unconscious significance.
+
+Let it not be thought, however, that this subject of homo-sexuality is
+based on this one simple problem; there are many other early infantile
+fixations, which play a very large part in causing persons to become
+homo-sexual. I only mention this one Narcissistic complex as being
+another example of how identification takes place as one of the chief
+results of the Narcissistic temperament, and to what lengths such
+identification may, on occasion, lead. Of course, all degrees of such
+identifications may be met with, and it is quite common to find persons
+who can love hetero-sexually as well as homo-sexually; that is to say,
+who can love persons of the opposite sex in the usual way, as well as
+persons of their own sex. But such people, even in their hetero-sexual
+love, tend to choose a love-object which resembles themselves in some
+manner or the other. However, a certain amount of Narcissism (which
+fortunately everyone still possesses), may be of value in this way,
+for it is certainly good for a man and woman to have similar interests
+when they marry; it is excessive Narcissism, excessive identification,
+excessive sympathy, which is deleterious, just as in other
+manifestations of Narcissism, with which we are going to deal shortly,
+it is excessive impatience, excessive anger, excessive tears which are
+really harmful, and lead to the greatest unhappiness. Although perhaps
+in these latter instances, to be without impatience, anger, or tears
+would be better still.
+
+Thirdly, there is yet another method of Narcissistic identification.
+Just as a child identifies itself with its living surroundings, so
+does it identify itself with its inanimate surroundings. As its mother
+and nurse are treated as part of it in the early stages, so also are
+its rubber teat, feeding bottle and toys treated. If you take away
+the baby’s rattle, it will cry or stamp or weep with as much vigour
+and display of emotion as if you had caused it bodily pain by means
+of rigorous physical punishment. You have in fact taken away part
+of itself from the little omnipotent person. In later stages in his
+career, if his Narcissism has been allowed to remain, the adult will
+still identify himself with his belongings. He will be absurdly upset
+at the breaking of a tea-cup which belongs to him, at the theft of
+some jewelry, at damage done to his clothing or property in some way,
+however trifling. He cannot realise that these things which belong to
+him are more or less unimportant trifles, which can be replaced, or
+if they cannot be replaced, can be equally well done without, if he
+has attained that philosophical attitude of mind which belongs to the
+person who has thrown off this uncomfortable spirit of Narcissistic
+identification. Moreover, the Narcissist who thinks himself to be the
+best and most important of beings, will attach similar importance to
+his property. If he drives an inferior motor-car, which breaks down on
+every journey he makes, he will excuse it in all sorts of irrational
+ways, he will praise it on every possible occasion as “the best car
+on the market,” and what seems more absurd still, he will very likely
+think it the best car on the market. It is the same with his house,
+his books, with his relations, with everything that is even distantly
+connected with him. He will speak in high praise of them all, and be
+anxious, at all times, to show them off, and to uphold their virtues
+to all comers. The Narcissist, indeed, rationalises about things in
+general considerably more than most people. The fuller meaning of
+rationalization and its methods of working, however, we shall leave
+till later on.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[5] Homo-sexuality--sensual love for a person of the same sex as
+oneself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE IRRITABLE TEMPERAMENT
+
+
+Irritability is not merely that quality in a person which makes his
+friends carefully guard their every word, lest inadvertently they
+should cause an outburst of temper, in its fullest sense it means
+over-sensitiveness to unpleasant stimuli, followed by over-reaction of
+any kind whatsoever. Thus, if a person by accident damage his clothing,
+his over-sensitiveness and over-reaction might result in an oath, in
+abusing the nail which tore his clothing or in abusing the workman who
+put the nail in place originally. It might again result in a feeling of
+depression, with anger displaced on to anyone who was present during
+the next hour, on the smallest pretext; or in an over-sensitive woman,
+it might result in an outburst of tears, or perhaps merely in volubly
+deploring the accident for half-an-hour with the next visitor who
+called; or she might merely “worry” about it, and keep turning the
+memory of it over and over in her mind, refusing to allow the fact to
+separate itself from her fancy.
+
+All these various results, with many others which may be imagined,
+can be gathered together under the one term “irritability,” or the
+term “over-sensitiveness” would do equally well. This irritability or
+over-sensitiveness may apply to material things or to purely mental
+ones. Narcissism may lead to an irritability of the body, and again it
+may lead to irritability merely of the mind. When Narcissism leads to
+an extremely sensitive body, it reacts to pain of every sort, however
+mild, as though it were acute. The omnipotent mind cannot bear to have
+its body disturbed. I gave an example a short while back of the lady
+who could not take a fly out of my eye, because her own eyes were so
+sensitive. Not only was this particular lady sensitive as regards her
+eyes, but at that period she was as afraid of the dentist touching a
+tooth as if it had been a serious abdominal operation. Pain of any sort
+or even slight accidents involving practically no pain, were reacted
+to as though they had been overwhelming misfortunes. Here we had
+an excellent example of one in whom Narcissism had produced extreme
+irritability of a physical nature.[6]
+
+On the other hand, one finds a mental sensitivity equally pronounced.
+People who are always in fear lest somebody should find fault with
+them, with their mode of behaviour, with their manner of dress, even
+with their habit of thought. Unconsciously, to themselves they are the
+acme of perfection, they are the centre of importance, and they are
+inclined to think that people are paying very much more attention to
+them than is actually the case. They may consciously realise that they
+are not important at all, that other people do not give them a thought;
+but their unconscious Narcissism will not accept this slight upon their
+importance, and they remain miserably self-conscious in all their acts,
+reacting with exaggerated feeling whenever some slight criticism of
+their thoughts and actions appear even to be implied.
+
+Pride, vanity, and self importance are other manifestations of this
+temperament. The person who feels slighted, or whose feelings are hurt
+when other persons think too little of his opinions, or pay too little
+attention to his actions, or, in fact, whose feelings are hurt easily
+by anything whatsoever, is for the most part a Narcissist, in whom once
+again the infantile omnipotence has been disturbed.
+
+Jealousy very often represents the Narcissistic idea. The
+“dog-in-the-manger” attitude, which finding it cannot possess for
+itself, cannot bear anybody else to possess, is largely the attitude
+of unconscious phantasy, in which the individual cannot relinquish the
+idea that somehow he will succeed by means of his omnipotent mind in
+possessing the desired object, and his unconscious mind retains this
+idea so long as the object has not become the property of somebody else
+in such a definite and irrefutable manner as to prove in spite of his
+unconscious phantasy that he cannot possibly possess it himself.
+
+The “dog-in-the-manger” attitude is one which simply refuses to
+recognise the impossibility of possessing something, although the
+desire for possession in any particular case may unconsciously mean
+nothing except the desire to prove to oneself one’s own omnipotence.
+And many a case of jealousy in love-affairs is nothing but this
+unconscious desire to prove to oneself the possession of power; it is
+the hatred of acknowledging the fact that one has not control where
+one desires to have it most. Curious as it may seem jealousy is bred
+mostly out of self-love rather than out of love for the other person,
+although, of course, except in extreme cases, love for the other person
+may also exist.
+
+The reaction which takes place whenever the Narcissistic element
+is hurt, almost always takes the form of a regression. It will be
+remembered that a regression implies a return to an infantile method
+of expression. The Narcissist unfailingly hopes, in his unconscious
+that his omnipotence will enable him to avoid an unpleasant fact, and
+to controvert it magically. He therefore falls back on those acts of
+infancy, which he found useful at that early period of his life as
+magical means of attaining his ends. Let us assume, for example, that
+our Narcissist has entered quietly into an argument with a friend, with
+full faith in himself and his argument that he will convert his friend
+to his own point of view. He finds, however, that he is getting the
+worst of the argument. This is unbelievable to him, he cannot realise
+it; his friend must be pig-headed. Rapidly his unconscious mind says to
+itself, “What methods did I employ in my childhood, what magic formula
+did I use then to obtain what I wished?” “Ah!” says the unconscious, “I
+remember; I used abusive terms to my nurse, and the dear thing did what
+I wanted at once.” Very soon he is using abusive terms to his friend,
+who, however does not later on remark, “Oh! that man is a Narcissist.”
+He merely says, “You know, So-and-So never can keep his temper in an
+argument.” And the poor Narcissist all the time feels and thinks that
+he has been hardly dealt with, that people do not understand him, that
+they deliberately will not follow his arguments.
+
+Of course, the last is very likely to be right, for in argument there
+is generally more rationalization than there is about most things in
+life. Nevertheless, the fact remains that it is not really important
+that his friend should understand either him or his argument as a
+rule, and if he were not Narcissistic he would not over-react to this
+stimulus.
+
+Other methods of reaction in a like manner are all regressions to
+infancy. Some Narcissists, when they ask their unconscious memory,
+“What magic did I employ as a child?” find that it was the magic of
+words, and they use expletives of various kinds, which correspond
+in every way to the magic words which a conjuror whispers over his
+tricks when he performs the apparently impossible. Others remember in
+their unconscious mind that they wept copiously, that when they wept
+the feeding bottle was returned to their lips, or the toy to their
+hands. Others go back a stage further. They withdraw in to themselves,
+they refuse to speak, or they say, “I am so upset, I must go and lie
+down.” They attempt to return, in fact, to the condition of isolation
+and rest, if not of pre-birth, at least of that period immediately
+following birth, when if they cried, they were rocked and crooned over
+and put to sleep.
+
+Another form of regression largely due to Narcissism is that of
+alcoholism. Here again, there are other causes at work in the
+unconscious, but Narcissism is one of the most important of them.
+The Narcissist does not like real responsibility; he certainly
+thinks that he is always desiring responsible posts and positions,
+but this is merely because to hold a responsible position or to have
+responsibility signifies importance and power. As a matter of fact,
+when responsibility is thrust upon him, he often has a strong tendency
+to avoid it, because responsibility entails dealing with facts as
+they are, and not with phantasies; and the responsibility which the
+Narcissist seeks is largely that of phantasy. In spite, therefore, of
+his statements to the contrary, we know that he wishes to run away from
+responsible positions, and alcohol has a peculiar power of enabling
+one to forget the responsibilities of the moment, and at the same time
+to give one a feeling of potency and well-being. Consequently, when
+the Narcissist comes up against an unpleasant fact, a responsibility
+which he does not wish to take, anything in fact which disturbs his
+sense of well-being, alcohol serves the purpose of allowing regression
+to infancy. It returns him very swiftly to that early period when he
+had no responsibility, when he need take no thought of the facts around
+him, when he had a sense of well-being and omnipotence. This potency
+is increased by the fact that it also removes, simultaneously, other
+repressions, that is, it allows other forms of infantile energy to be
+expressed without conscious criticism or hindrance.
+
+Exactly the same thing may be said of drug-taking. The drug-taker is
+simply habitually seeking something to remove his responsibilities, to
+lead him away from his conflicts which he does not wish to face, away
+from the world of reality into an infantile world, where whatever his
+surroundings, whatever the facts that exist, he is able to ignore them,
+and feel himself in phantasy their master.
+
+But the curious thing about all these regressions is that, in a sense,
+they serve to satisfy the individual. They comfort him with the
+unconscious assurance at the moment they are performed, that all will,
+somehow, be well, that these reactions will somehow bring about the
+desired end, that the abuse will succeed where the argument did not,
+that the tears will somehow perform their magic act, that a rest in bed
+will bring about new life, and that the new life will succeed where the
+old life failed.
+
+Never does the Narcissist realise facts as they are, deal with them as
+facts, see them in their proper proportions, and leave them alone when
+he cannot use them.
+
+Impatience of a different kind is also one of the common reactions. A
+man may go into a restaurant; he finds it is full, and quite naturally
+he is kept waiting a few minutes before the busy waiter can bring him
+the menu. He refuses to recognise the fact that he is only one of a
+hundred persons present, that the restaurant has to be run at a profit
+to the proprietor, that innumerable waiters cannot therefore be kept
+to serve his high omnipotence; he frets with impatience and he cannot
+resign himself to the inevitable waiting. He will not understand that
+_time_ is one of the factors over which he has no power. In fact,
+this difficulty to realise the _factor of time_ is an extremely common
+one with Narcissists. No sooner has a project entered their heads than
+they expect to see it fulfilled. Such fulfilment can only take place in
+phantasy, just as they did indeed attain their wishes in childhood. As
+children they could instantaneously create a chariot and horses from an
+arm-chair with complete neglect of the time-factor, and now as adults,
+they hope instantaneously to create an omelet without waiting for it to
+be cooked, to create a business or a character, or fame or happiness
+in the same instantaneous way, without reference to time. They are
+quite unable to see, completely and wholly, any difference between the
+phantasy of childhood and facts of adult life; and one of the most
+essential differences between the two is this _time factor_.
+
+It takes minutes for an omelet to be cooked, it takes years for a
+business to be created, it takes a lifetime for a character to be
+formed, fame they may never attain, but happiness lies within their
+grasp at once, if only they could relinquish their Narcissism.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[6] It may be of interest to readers to know that this physical
+over-sensitiveness has very largely disappeared from this particular
+lady as the result of partial psycho-analysis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+RATIONALIZATION
+
+
+Having now briefly sketched the birth and some of the possible
+developments of Narcissism, it may be well to revert to the subject
+of rationalization, on which I have already touched briefly, before I
+deal with some of the methods with which we may combat our Narcissistic
+tendencies. The reason for reverting here to rationalization is this.
+Already I know that there are few readers who will not have discovered
+some material in this book which will have touched a tender spot in
+themselves. And since we know that the great effort of Narcissism is
+to cover up those tender spots, and to deceive ourselves in thinking
+that either they are not there, or better still, that they are virtues
+and really particularly healthy spots, it is as well to examine these
+tendencies and observe one of the chief methods by which we do produce
+such disguises successfully. Of these methods of disguise, our greatest
+comforter, yet our worst enemy, is rationalization. The term means
+“_finding apparently adequate reasons for things_.”
+
+One of the qualities which we highly cultured animals possess is that
+of reason. We have discovered that logic is one of the essential
+factors of law and order, and that the highest form of intellect
+possesses reason in a large measure. Among our gods, the god of reason
+and logic stands high, and our very Narcissism will not permit us to
+do and accept things which are contrary to logical reasoning. For that
+means in the first place, that they are contrary to what we have been
+taught to revere highly as a good quality, and yet more still it means
+that they are contrary to the magic of WORDS, for logic means words;
+logic is words which follow one another in irrefutable sequence. And
+we have already learnt that _the infant has early associated words and
+sounds with magic, since by the persistent use of these he has got what
+he wanted_. So that doubly are logic and reason revered.
+
+Now, the unhappy thing about life is that we are continually wishing
+to do things or feel things or believe things which do not follow
+logically upon other things which we have also had to feel or think or
+believe at some time. Some of our wishes are logically incompatible
+with other of our wishes. More over, we very often do not wish to
+believe or think things which do follow logically on actual facts which
+have gone before. How are we then, as reasonable people, to deal with
+the situation? By rationalization, by finding a reason which suits our
+purpose; and this can only be done, as a rule, by leaving out some
+important factor, by ignoring some truth, and by arguing from false
+premises. We do not do this consciously, that would be unworthy. Our
+unconscious censor manages to delete from consciousness the unpleasant
+truth, as we have already pointed out, and brings forth an array of
+facts which appear irrefutable, and he succeeds in giving us most
+plausible reasons so that we may believe that which is most convenient
+to us.
+
+Let us consider for a moment such a subject as religion. The Roman
+Catholic will adduce evidences of various kinds to show that his is
+the only right and proper form of religion to be accepted by any
+intellectual person. The Baptist will likewise do the same, and will
+probably hold that Papal institutions, in many instances, spring not
+from Heaven but from Hell. If you discuss it with either of them, you
+may be flooded with reasons, logical evidences of the correctness of
+their views. Obviously, they cannot both be right in so exclusive a
+manner, and a very little insight will show that the reasons they
+adduce have really very little to do with their beliefs, although they
+think they have. Reverence for their parents, early environment, and
+other factors of this kind, have really induced their present beliefs,
+but these would not appear to them as logical reasons and so they
+select others.
+
+So it is with any unpleasant theory which comes into being. At the
+time of Darwin, a large number of facts were discovered which led
+unbiassed persons to believe in the theory of evolution. This appeared
+contrary to many religious beliefs, and the general public did not
+want to accept such a theory. They could not, however, shut their
+eyes to facts; what were they to do? By carefully leaving out some of
+the facts, and introducing speculative material, which they called
+facts, but which were not facts, they succeeded in producing excellent
+reasons, or what seemed excellent reasons to them, for refuting the
+theory of evolution and retaining their old beliefs. In other words,
+they went through a process of rationalization.
+
+The same thing was taking place a few years ago with reference to
+psycho-analysis. People did not like their omnipotent feelings
+disturbed, did not like to find that the superior bricks of which
+their edifice had been built were originally made from clay, and they
+found excellent reasons for not believing it. This, fortunately for
+progress, is gradually passing away, just as the opposition to the idea
+of the evolution of the body passed away. But rationalization is a
+process which has been and is still going on continuously. When Harvey
+discovered the circulation of the blood, when Galileo discovered that
+the earth went round the sun, when psycho-analysts discovered that
+much which mothers thought kind was really cruel, and when you read a
+book which tends to point out that some of your cherished virtues may
+possibly be faults, the same tendency is at work. Your mind sorts out
+some of the reasons, refuses to look at others of them, and by such
+careful selection, by this unconscious process of rationalization,
+supports your belief in yourself, holds fast to that which has been,
+and attempts continuously to prevent further changes and disturbances.
+This rationalization, however, is much more widely distributed than
+I have so far indicated; in order that one fact may be justified by
+reason, all the lesser facts which come before it must be similarly
+justified, until even into the trivial details of everyday life the
+leaven of rationalization has penetrated. Examples of it may be seen
+every day in the newspapers, in politics, in even trifling arguments.
+Take for instance the subject of woman’s suffrage. One half of the
+country produced irrefutable arguments to prove how bad it was, the
+other half to prove how good it was. In both cases, the arguments were
+but straws in the wind, they were quite unnecessary, they were only
+rationalization. Long before the argument on either side came into
+being, the feelings were there, the desires were there; and desires
+must somehow be proved right with the magic of words, before we feel at
+liberty to fulfil them. In neither case in this argument was the root
+of the matter touched. If some philosopher had come forward and said,
+“The first question we have to ask before thinking about suffrage,
+is should a woman wear a skirt?” or some such similar fundamental
+question, it would probably have been said that it had nothing to
+do with matter, and yet this question of _artificial_ difference
+between the sexes is really fundamental to the whole subject. But the
+rationalist will find that he will not meet me in this statement. The
+woman who wishes to retain certain privileges, and yet accept certain
+other privileges, will at once find reasons why she should wear a skirt
+and yet have the vote. She will tell me all sorts of things about her
+physical disabilities, things which she believes to be fundamental
+truths, many of which, in fact, are fundamentally wrong, but accepted
+as truths because they lead to rationalization being able to support
+her wishes.
+
+In a similar way, on the much discussed subject of “prohibition” the
+prohibitionist will rationalise on a certain few facts, in order to
+support his emotions and desires. A moderate drinker will do exactly
+the same, in the opposite direction. Neither of them will have the
+courage to ignore his personal feelings, nor may he have the power
+to do so, and to take all the facts into consideration and come to a
+conclusion, irrespective of his wishes on the subject.[7]
+
+Of course, one of the other difficulties in the way of coming to
+correct conclusions in all these things is that people will insist on
+arguing upon subjects, when the amount of real scientific knowledge
+they have on the subjects is extremely small. The newspaper editor will
+quote a few popular facts, in order to support some theory of his own,
+having but a limited knowledge of psychology, physiology, anatomy, or
+of some other science which has considerable bearing on the subject,
+he will end by producing a series of conclusions probably entirely
+wrong. This, of course, is inevitable in our limited circumstances;
+but it should not be equally inevitable that we should hold firmly
+to our beliefs, when we realise how limited is our knowledge of
+any one subject. And in order to examine facts and to get rid of
+rationalization as far as possible, we must try, with the utmost power
+at our command to refuse that reaction of self-defence and self-pride,
+which prevents us from looking at ourselves and from realising that
+most of our opinions about ourselves may be completely erroneous. We
+must be prepared to accept temporary, not fixed, judgments, based
+upon the evidence which we have. We must be prepared to reverse those
+judgments in the light of new evidence. We must be careful not to
+reject this evidence merely because we do not like it.
+
+It will now be seen how very necessary it is, in dealing with
+Narcissism in particular, to understand something of rationalization,
+so that we may be on our guard in examining ourselves, against
+allowing this to play too great a part in our conclusions. Otherwise,
+with all the goodwill in the world, we may never succeed in making
+any improvement whatsoever, in ourselves. The greatest scientists
+themselves have been amongst those who realised this.
+
+It was Darwin who wrote, as we have quoted in the earlier part of this
+book, “I had, during many years, followed a golden rule, namely, that
+whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across
+me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of
+it without fail and at once, for I had found by experience that such
+facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than
+favourable ones.”
+
+And it was the great scientist, Helmholtz, who said, “It is better to
+be in actual doubt, than to rock oneself in dogmatic ignorance.”
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[7] Of course this does not imply that no one is ever capable of
+putting his conscious feelings on one side, and examining a subject
+in spite of pre-conceived ideas and desires, but that this is the
+exception rather than the rule.
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+SELF ANALYSIS
+
+
+In attempting to cure ourselves of hyper-Narcissistic characteristics,
+there are several lines of treatment which may be followed, some of
+which depend upon the particular manifestation of Narcissism with
+which we have to deal. One, however, which should be followed in
+every case, we borrow from the methods of psycho-analysis. We cannot
+call it psycho-analysis because the technique employed by an amateur
+in examining himself must be vastly different from the technique
+employed by a psycho-analyst in dealing with his patient. But it is a
+modification of one detail of the technique of psycho-analysis which,
+if properly applied, may have far-reaching results. It is on the lines
+of that phenomenon which is known generally as ab-reaction, and is as
+follows.
+
+When an individual has come to the conclusion that he is suffering from
+some characteristic of Narcissistic nature, which he would rather
+be without, he should, first of all, carefully call to mind, and if
+possible make historical notes of the situations which stimulate the
+particular temperamental reaction to which he objects. If he can, he
+should go further than this, and recall as many as possible of the
+actual situations of recent date, when this particular reaction has
+been called forth.
+
+If he have an ungovernable temper, for example, he should, in detail,
+go first into the type of situations which call forth that temper, and
+secondly, he should revise in detail the recent occasions upon which he
+has lost his temper, and thirdly, _he should attempt to find out the
+particular moment, the particular words, the particular occasion which
+first began to stir feelings of temper within him before he actually
+began to show violent manifestations of it_.
+
+Having all these things set forth satisfactorily, it would be well
+if he spent half-an-hour every day, for a considerable period, in
+performing the next part of the treatment. He should go into a room
+by himself, where he will not be disturbed, recline on a couch or
+a comfortable chair, and allow his mind to drift backwards, year by
+year, remembering as far as possible, every instance on which the
+unfavourable symptom has been called forth. He will find that if he
+does not concentrate too hard, but merely keeps in mind the various
+causes of his temper and recent manifestations of it, other times
+and instances will come into his mind unbidden. He will, in fact, be
+surprised at the amount of detail which he can remember concerning
+the matter. Things which he had not thought of for years, happenings
+which he had passed over as trivial, will come into his mind, and be
+found to have stimulated, in some way or the other, the ill-temper (or
+other Narcissistic trouble) which he is endeavouring to get rid of. He
+must take himself, as far as possible, right into childhood. He will
+not necessarily of course, go back as far as this on the first few
+occasions, but after he has been at work on himself in this way for
+some days, he should have no trouble whatever in beginning to recall
+some of the infantile occasions upon which his Narcissism called forth
+temper.
+
+In all the instances which he brings up into his conscious mind, he
+should write down and study not only the facts remembered, but also the
+emotions which he felt. These he should examine from every possible
+point of view, and see what Narcissistic element appears to be present
+in them. Many memories will come into his mind of an infantile nature
+which do not express the particular symptom from which he now suffers,
+but will obviously have some bearing on it. These he should examine in
+the same way, because it is important for him to get into his conscious
+mind as much as possible of the various occasions in his life on which
+Narcissism acted, when he was not conscious of it. Not only must he
+see how these various occasions were exhibitions of Narcissism, but he
+must try and trace them back, and must compare them with his typical
+infantile methods of expression. These may be represented by shouting,
+crying, stamping, weeping or any other infantile manifestations
+of those omnipotent phantasies which now seem to him to be the
+starting-point of his more recent expression of them. He has, in fact,
+to lay bare before himself, as much as possible of his previously
+unconscious Narcissistic life; its beginnings, its evolution, and its
+ultimate form. This making conscious of what was previously unconscious
+or but partly conscious, is, in itself, a most potent factor in
+improvement, if he will have the patience to steadily persevere and to
+go over daily, for a considerable period, the material he has brought
+to the surface. If he does not do this regularly, it is liable to sink
+back, and become once again an unconscious factor and a determinant to
+his actions over which he has no control.
+
+This bringing into consciousness the unconscious causes and motives
+under-lying behaviour is, in psycho-analysis, one of the powerful
+factors at work producing cures of neurotic obsessions and so forth,
+and it is equally potent with the minor temperamental abnormalities
+with which we are dealing here. For it means that previous mental
+conflicts which were either wholly or partially unconscious, are now
+rendered conscious habitually; and a conscious conflict, or rather a
+conflict in which the forces at work become conscious, is far easier
+to direct than one in which the very forces themselves are hidden and
+unknown. Let us take a more material example for comparison. Suppose an
+officer to be in command of a company of soldiers out in the desert,
+and attacked on a dark night by savages. It might very well be that he
+was well armed, that his machine guns were efficient, but that he would
+be quite overwhelmed because he could neither see the savages nor know
+their numbers, their whereabouts nor their armaments. But supposing
+that the War Office had thoughtfully equipped him with one or two good
+search-lights, which he could direct upon the savages so that the
+number of savages, their armaments, position, and so forth, could be
+brought into his consciousness, he would be in a far better position,
+for he could direct his machine-guns at the threatened points, instead
+of being forced to fire them wildly and as likely as not miss his
+targets altogether.
+
+Exactly the same happens with these manifold feelings to which I
+have just been referring. The more one can see of them, their
+histories, their evolution, their beginnings, the more one holds them
+in consciousness, the easier does the conflict between good and evil
+become in the individual. Again, this method of self-help which I have
+given here, differs considerably from that pursued in psycho-analysis,
+in that it is following up only one unconscious factor, albeit, one
+of the most important factors; but in psycho-analysis we follow up in
+turn all the unconscious forces at work, great and small, and in any
+temperamental abnormality there are certainly many more unconscious
+factors than Narcissism concerned, although Narcissism may be the
+predominant one. Thus, for instance, alcoholism, though always
+possessing a Narcissistic element, frequently has other determinants
+present of an exceptionally strong[8] nature. So that while an
+analysis of Narcissism only, may be of the greatest value in some
+cases, in others, where Narcissism does not occupy so great a field,
+the other unconscious factors are too potent to allow much benefit to
+accrue from a partial self-analysis of this kind.
+
+In drug-taking, however, there is a slight difference from alcoholism,
+for, as a rule, Narcissism is nearly always the essential factor. It
+will be understood that Narcissism links itself to almost any other
+characteristic, influencing it for the worse by fixing it more deeply,
+and holding it back from becoming conscious more strongly than would
+otherwise be the case.
+
+The patient will find himself, during this self-examination, repeatedly
+trying to excuse himself. He will find himself saying, “I remember on
+such an such an occasion losing my temper, but on that occasion I was
+perfectly justified.” Or in another instance, he may say, “I remember
+weeping (or I remember being depressed or angry, or impatient), but
+circumstances then existed which seem to me proper occasions for such a
+manifestation to have taken place.”
+
+Let me emphasise at the outset, that any such excuses will be
+rationalizing; that he must say to himself, “Whether they appear normal
+or abnormal, according to accepted standards, those occurrences most
+certainly had their Narcissistic factor.” For it must be understood
+that although there are many occasions when impatience or weeping may
+be looked upon, conventionally, as normal occurrences, that is only
+because everybody possesses certain imperfections due to Narcissism;
+and if one is going to attempt to improve one’s temperament in this
+way, every occasion must be examined without excuse or rationalization,
+otherwise the individual who is thus at work upon himself will only
+succeed in defeating himself to his own detriment, by putting up
+a resistance to his cure or improvement. And, indeed, one of the
+important factors in this work, just as in psycho-analysis itself, is
+the factor which comes into play in overcoming these resistances of
+seeing ourselves as we are, of seeing the evolution and beginnings of
+our temperament as it really was.
+
+This is bound to reveal in all of us without exception much that is
+unpleasant, and that we would rather not see. Resistance to seeing such
+material is inevitable, if the examination is sufficiently thorough. If
+no resistance has to be overcome, the individual may be certain that he
+is shirking the facts.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[8] Alcoholism is further complicated by the fact that a habit of
+_physical_ craving is formed, which as a rule cannot be overcome
+by mental treatment alone. This craving, fortunately, can now be
+eradicated by medicinal means. Indeed, patients of mine have been cured
+of all desire for alcohol in about one week as a rule. The patient
+is then in somewhat the same condition as a man who has never tasted
+alcohol, and he will have no craving for alcohol thereafter, unless he
+deliberately drinks it again. Herein, however, we see the importance of
+the psychic factor, for should the cured alcoholic begin again to take
+alcohol, either because he thinks that he has attained self control
+and can do so, or because he finds abstinence difficult on social
+grounds, he will almost inevitably regress to his old condition of
+uncontrolled desire, no matter how long has elapsed since he was cured
+of it. _The same causes which originally led him to excess, viz., his
+mental complexes, are still present and again produce similar results._
+Of course, a very large proportion of those who have been cured by
+medicinal treatment do not relapse, because they have sufficient common
+sense not to experiment with themselves. In the other cases, however,
+the only hope of a permanent cure consists in following up the physical
+treatment with mental treatment, i.e., analysis.
+
+On the other hand, in most cases of drug taking a medicinal cure is
+generally sufficient, for there is no “social urge” to taking drugs as
+there is in the case of alcohol, and once the craving has been cured,
+the tendency to experiment again is the exception rather than the rule.
+But even here it is found that any indulgence in the drug, however
+slight, will again produce in the individual his old craving. _He has
+found a previous path of narcissistic regression and will inevitably
+follow it, for though the craving had been eradicated the complexes
+remain._ There are many potential alcoholics and potential drug-takers
+in the world, but they will never know it unless unfortunate chance
+induces them to open that particular channel of regression.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+READJUSTMENT OF OBJECTIVES
+
+
+In the last chapter we described a process of self-assistance of
+the kind which should be applied by any person, to any Narcissistic
+manifestation he may desire to improve. In the present chapter we are
+going to deal with a method of treatment which is by no means necessary
+in all cases, but is very necessary in a large proportion of them.
+
+We must bear in mind that the Narcissist’s inability to realise
+distinctly the difference between phantasy and fact will often lead
+him to suppose possible that which is impossible in the ordinary
+affairs of everyday life, and to ignore difficulties which may really
+be insuperable, which stand in the way of his aims and projects. He
+will thus be continually finding himself at a disadvantage, continually
+failing, from apparently trivial reasons, to accomplish an end, and
+as a result he may become depressed, nervous, worried, and subject
+to that lassitude accompanied by headaches, which so frequently comes
+to the Narcissist when he struggles unavailingly with the ordinary
+aims and tasks of everyday life. Moreover, not only does he fail to
+recognise the difficulties in the way of any particular task, but he
+fails to recognise the fact that two projects which he has in his mind
+may be incompatible with one another; or he fails to recognise that
+great “_Time-factor_,” which I have mentioned before, and tries to
+condense more work and more visible results into a given period than is
+humanly possible.
+
+This type of Narcissist is always considerably addicted to day-dreams,
+with which, however, we shall deal in a further chapter. For the
+present, we are going to restrict ourselves to the question of
+arranging his aims and wishes on a sound and possible basis. In the
+first place, let it be understood that although the method of treatment
+so far carried out may have made clear to the patient the origin and
+development of his phantasy thought and phantastic aims, there yet
+remains the breaking of the habit, and this is rendered far more easy
+if we attempt to substitute another habit of a different nature. Let
+us further impress upon him the fact that a frequent examination of
+his aims in a directive manner by the method about to be discussed is
+in itself an exercise in directive thinking, helping to form a habit
+opposed to a former habit of phantasy thinking. And, lastly, let it be
+remembered that Narcissists are generally very averse from making real
+personal sacrifices which have no glamour attached to them; that they
+object to adapting themselves to reality which may be unpleasant, and
+that by the method I am about to describe, they will have to deal in
+trivial things, and the conscious adjustment which they will thus make
+towards reality will gradually become habitual.
+
+What we are attempting to do now is to substitute directive thought
+and directive aims, aims possible of attainment, for phantasy thoughts
+and impossible aims. Most people will find on self-examination that
+their aims are by no means clearly defined; they have an object in
+life, but it is vague in outline, and ill-defined; it is often only
+a question of getting somehow through life, with enough food to eat,
+and sufficient phantasy thought to keep them from boredom. This again,
+is especially the case with some women, whose household duties require
+but little directive thought, since they are daily repetitions of the
+same thing. Dusting a room is a habit which becomes pleasanter if
+accompanied by phantasy thinking; whereas, had that woman some definite
+aim, apart from the habit of house-cleaning, it would be possible to
+accompany the room-dusting with directive thought which revolved round
+the aim in question, and this would very much add to the pleasure and
+efficiency of the individual’s life. If a person, on self-examination,
+finds that his aims are not clearly defined, or are in conflict with
+one another, or, on the other hand, that his aims or thoughts are in
+part phantasy and impossible of fulfilment, that person should at once
+deliberately remould and re-state his aims, so that they become:
+
+(a) clearly defined,
+
+(b) clearly possible.
+
+Moreover, the aims should be of two kinds:
+
+(1) immediate,
+
+(2) remote.
+
+The remote aim is the ideal for which he is striving; and however high
+that ideal be, it should be of a kind possible of fulfilment, not
+necessarily in the lifetime of the individual, in all cases, for he may
+be working for something of which he does not expect fulfilment for
+even hundreds of years, yet it may be perfectly legitimately termed a
+real aim, as opposed to a phantastic one.
+
+_Now, the first thing which the individual should bear in mind is that
+an immediate aim should always be in harmony with the remote aim._ Let
+it also be borne in mind that when we state that the aim should be
+clearly possible, we do not only mean that the aims should be possible
+from a point of view of external environment and circumstances, but
+also having regard to the patient’s own intelligence, will-power,
+education, and physical health--in other words possible in the case of
+this particular individual.
+
+Now let us consider in detail the further course to be pursued by the
+person who proposes to treat himself on these lines. Let him take
+pencil and paper and write out in the fullest of details a list of
+his aims, great and small, in the first place, without any reference
+to their bearing upon one another, or any attempt at classification,
+keeping in mind that by aims in life, we mean wishes which he hopes
+will be fulfilled. Let him think of every conceivable wish in his mind,
+and write it down, whether phantastic in nature, or trivial, or whether
+both possible and important.
+
+In the next place, let him see that this list is written so clearly
+and accurately, that each of the aims is well defined and without
+ambiguity. Now let him run through the list again, and see whether
+any of the aims are in conflict with one another, and whether any of
+them are inconsistent from the view point of his, and are therefore
+impossible of fulfilment. Let him put his pencil definitely through
+such impossible aims, and cut them out of his life, with as full a
+realisation as possible of the fact that they are nothing but dreams,
+that he need never consider them again, that he must not regret them,
+for that is mere infantile crying after the impossible. He must
+replace them in due course with others possible of fulfilment.
+
+Now let him take the revised list and separate it into two divisions,
+writing the aims down again under the two headings, (1) immediate aims,
+and (2) remote aims. Here, he will have to bear in mind one of his
+chief faults, if he be strongly Narcissistic. Such persons in their
+phantasy carry their aims to completion long before reality can permit
+of it. The time-factor is not realised, and hence they have a great
+tendency to confuse remote aims with the immediate aims, in their
+desire to see immediate results; hence, also, because they cannot soon
+see such results, they give way to despair, become depressed, and have
+the tendency to regress to the infantile characteristics to which I
+have already referred. Here lies the importance of dividing the aims
+into immediate and remote. For as soon as the individual’s mind has
+grasped the fact that an aim is necessarily remote, and therefore
+impossible of immediate fulfilment, he is much more able to adjust
+himself to these facts, and to pay real and undivided attention to
+the immediate present. Apart from the fact that sorting and adjusting
+of the aims relieves the mind of many previous conflicts, it acts as
+a stimulus to a considerable amount of directive thinking. And the
+patient will be surprised at first to find the amount of time it is
+possible to spend in a really useful recasting of his life interests.
+
+It was not until the author, himself, took pencil and paper, and
+classified his own aims, and put down the points for and against each,
+and attempted to see the disharmonies existing amongst them, that he
+realised the full value of this procedure. It might be thought that in
+a very short period any person could put down all his aims, and that
+but little modification would take place in them from day to day. This,
+however, is very far from being true, as will be seen by anyone who
+carries out this method fully.
+
+Perhaps at this point the details taken from a case of a woman
+suffering from a “nervous breakdown” in which I used this method as a
+subsidiary form of treatment, may not only be of interest, but will
+also throw some light on the practical working of the method. I may
+mention that her chief troubles were insomnia, constant worrying, great
+depression, and inability to settle down to work of any kind.
+
+In the first place, this patient commenced by stating that she had no
+aim in life at all. She had to admit, however, immediately after, that
+she had at least the aim of wishing to get well, or otherwise she would
+not have come to me. On being asked why she wished to get well, several
+subsidiary aims appeared. For the most part, they were rationalization,
+and I knew these aims would be thrown over in due course, but that, for
+the purpose in view, did not matter. I told her to go home, and write
+down her aims, in the manner I have just indicated.
+
+The following was the list brought to me on the next day.
+
+
+     (1) To be well.
+
+     (2) To be married.
+
+     (3) To become a doctor.
+
+     (4) And if I cannot do that, to become a masseuse.
+
+     (5) Or a psycho-analyst.
+
+     (6) Or a private secretary.
+
+     (7) And I should like to have two children.
+
+
+With this rather pathetic list in front of me, I asked her to give as
+far as possible the reasons she had for these various wishes, and to
+examine these on the lines I had indicated, with the following results.
+
+(1) _To get well._ “The reason for this aim is obvious; it is necessary
+in order to obtain the others,” said she.
+
+(2) _To get married._ “This aim has three subsidiary immediate aims,”
+she replied, “and there may be others. (a) I want a comfortable home of
+my own, (b) I want satisfaction of my natural instincts in accordance
+with the custom of ordinary adult life, (c) I could attain the later
+aim of having two children.” She immediately added, “In that case, the
+aim of having two children is a remote aim, and if I follow your advice
+I must no longer have day-dreams about them, I must put them out of my
+thoughts, I must not waste time on anything connected with them, until
+I am married.”
+
+(3) _To become a doctor._ “Concerning this,” she added, “I have
+always liked studying Zoology, and microscopic work, and diseases.
+Moreover, it is the only way in which one can make money in a really
+interesting manner.” She then stated that she realised this to be
+a double aim, and to consist, firstly, of the aim of earning a
+livelihood, and secondly, of that of having an interesting occupation.
+This aim was soon discovered to be phantastic, however, for she had to
+admit that her financial position would not permit of the necessary
+study, and that there was no prospect of any improvement in this. She
+therefore realised that although she had had it at the back of her
+mind for several months that somehow such an aim might be possible of
+fulfilment, she now clearly saw that it was not. She at once removed
+it from the list, and realised that neither regrets nor phantasy in
+connection with it would be of any avail, and again, that she must bear
+in mind possibilities and realities.
+
+(4) _To become a masseuse._ She at once stated her thoughts on this
+subject. “I have known one or two masseuses, who seem to make money,
+and who are very happy. Moreover, it is an occupation that a lady can
+take up.” She then discovered that this involved three aims: (a) to
+make money, (b) to be happy, (c) to remain genteel. On the opposite
+side, however, she added that she was not sufficiently physically
+strong for the work, and was afraid she would soon tire of it, because
+as an occupation itself, it did not appeal to her. This aim, also,
+immediately disappeared from the list.
+
+(5) _To become a psycho-analyst._ This, said she, was a very
+interesting subject, and she thought she could do much good by means of
+it. Moreover, she thought she would like psychology though she had not
+studied it much as yet. “Moreover,” said she, “psycho-analysts probably
+make a lot of money. And further, it would be very nice to sit at
+home in an arm-chair to do one’s work, and to let other people do the
+talking.” She at once recognised this latter idea to be a thoroughly
+Narcissistic regression. And then she found that all the other ideas
+contained multiple aims in themselves, each of which had to be thought
+out and classified, and into the details of which I need not go. Except
+to say that when she considered the matter from a practical point of
+view, the difficulties of training, the time it would take, and more
+especially the fact that she feared that psycho-analysis might not be
+popular by the time she was ready, she determined that it was only a
+phantasy aim, upon which she had been wasting phantasy thought, and she
+ruled it out.
+
+(6) _To become a private secretary._ On this point, she considered that
+her personal appearance and general education would help her, and was
+quite compatible with the aim. But she knew no shorthand, book-keeping,
+nor typewriting. She, however, realised at once that the immediate aim
+in this case should be the shorthand, book-keeping, and typewriting,
+and she said, “I will go to-morrow and see where I can learn these
+things.” I pointed out to her that she might very possibly change
+her mind, when she considered things further, but that even if she
+did so, the mastery of shorthand, typewriting and book-keeping might
+stand her in good stead, and in any case that she would be working for
+an immediate object, in turning some of her phantasy into directive
+thought. And on the morrow, she actually did commence her studies on
+these subjects.
+
+(7) _The desire to have two children._ This was at once classified, as
+I have already said, as a remote aim; though, as a matter of fact, she
+got married shortly afterwards, and the remote aim is now on the way to
+being fulfilled, as she has one child.
+
+I have shown by this example the ill-considered, phantastic, and
+conflicting aims, which some persons may at first produce when they
+attempt deliberately to classify them. But it must be remembered that
+each of the subsidiary aims which she had discovered her primary aims
+to be divided into were, in turn, again capable of being divided into
+further subsidiary aims. And the next stage of this form of technique
+is to discover these. Day by day, the pencil and paper must be
+brought out, and a list of aims and wishes for that day compiled and
+considered. They must be in turn examined to show (1) whether they are
+compatible with one another, (2) whether they are compatible with other
+immediate aims, (3) whether they are compatible with the remote aims.
+
+A strong attempt must then be made to eradicate any aims or wishes
+which are antagonistic to one another, or to the primary aims of the
+individual, which have already been passed as real. As progress is
+made, definite and personal aims will be developed day by day, many of
+these, no doubt, apparently trivial, others at least important for the
+day in question, all important from the point of view of developing the
+habit of thinking in terms of reality.
+
+For instance, on one occasion, the lady above mentioned wrote on her
+list in the morning that she wished to work hard at her shorthand
+in the early part of the day, to go to a matinée in the afternoon,
+and to a dance in the evening. On consideration, however, she came
+to the conclusion that the dance in the evening, following after
+the day’s work and entertainment, would probably interfere with her
+next morning’s work, and it was not, moreover, compatible with that
+immediate aim of regaining complete health at the earliest possible
+moment. It was, therefore, rejected; the lesser aim was recast, and
+a quiet dinner with a friend substituted. Only by such rigorous and
+possibly painful self-treatment can the Narcissist’s conflicts be
+regulated and viewed in a proper perspective.
+
+Every daily aim has a further subsidiary aim appertaining to it. For
+instance, a man may have made up his mind to devote a certain part
+of the day to studying; the lesser aim includes the subject to be
+studied, the amount to be done, and the time to be occupied. It is
+important that he should not over-estimate the amount he can get done
+in a given time. One reason why so much detail should be considered,
+is that it is astounding how excessively a person, with a tendency to
+phantasy thought, over-estimates the amount of work it is possible
+to get through in a given time. No sooner is a task commenced than
+he expects it to be almost finished. The daily programme frequently
+includes far more than is possible, and he forms a habit of being late
+for everything; all this being merely the ordinary omnipotent idea of
+childhood, which fulfils a wish in phantasy as readily as it is formed.
+
+I must now give a warning, that those who follow this method are, at
+first, nearly always extremely impatient for results, for this very
+reason that they do not realise the time-factor; and they must realise,
+and consciously and patiently accept inevitable delay, with the
+assurance that if they can overcome their Narcissism sufficiently to
+persist in the method they will steadily and gradually develop a habit,
+an attitude of mind which devotes its energy to directive thought, to
+real aims, and to displacing from themselves the phantastic medley
+which was there before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+READJUSTMENT OF THOUGHT
+
+
+We have seen in an earlier chapter how one of the ways in which
+Narcissism manifests itself is in day-dreams. We saw how a child would
+substitute a phantasy or day-dream for a reality, and so fulfil its
+wishes and desires in this unreal manner. And we saw how, if this were
+persisted in to excess, the same or a modified method of fulfilling
+one’s wishes in realms of phantasy would remain even in adult life.
+I may here remark that even _very little_ day-dreaming constitutes
+excess, and is bound to have a deleterious effect upon the efficiency
+and happiness of the individual’s life; unless, perhaps, that
+individual is mixing sufficient directive thought with his phantasies
+as in the case of a novelist or artist, for instance. In realising
+this, it must be borne in mind, that time and energy spent in phantasy
+thinking are time and energy lost to reality and fact; that the
+encouragement of the habit of phantasy thinking destroys the ability
+to think directively, or rather renders the full development of it
+impossible. Moreover, by encouraging day-dreams, we are simultaneously
+holding on to our Narcissism, and making it more likely that it
+will also find outlets in other deleterious ways. For instance, the
+“worrying nature” which is constantly thinking of possible troubles to
+come, and of how past troubles might have been avoided is indulging in
+a form of phantasy thinking. If the habit of phantasy thinking has been
+cultivated for pleasurable purposes, a channel has been opened which
+will be used without conscious intention for other kinds of phantasy
+as well. The habit of worrying to which we have just referred, is an
+example of this.
+
+Worry consists in weaving phantasies about something which cannot at
+the moment be influenced directively. It may be about something which
+_has_ happened and therefore cannot be influenced at all by thinking
+about it, or about something which _may_ happen but over which the
+thinker has no immediate control; and it consists in going over all
+the “mays” and “mights” connected with the case, and experiencing
+the unpleasant emotions belonging to each phantasied situation. In
+order to get rid of this worrying habit, to close the channel which
+permits of it, a person must simultaneously cut out pleasurable
+day-dreams also, and thus close the channel entirely. Therefore, let
+us recommend the individual who indulges largely in day-dreams, to get
+rid of the habit as soon as possible. Those who have other abnormal
+characteristics which they wish to eradicate, should understand that
+they must, simultaneously, get rid of their day-dreams. And this means
+pulling oneself up, not merely when one discovers oneself imagining
+some glorious vista in which one occupies a principle but impossible
+part, it means similarly pulling oneself up in a thousand little ways;
+it means catching oneself whenever one wanders from a type of directive
+thought to a type of phantastic thought.
+
+For instance, in the examination of one’s aims, one is thinking
+directively, and one comes to the conclusion that, say, a course
+of shorthand and typewriting shall be taken at once, that the aim
+of being a secretary is one suitable and compatible with one’s
+attainments. At this point, it is very easy for the individual to
+suddenly find that he or she has become, in day-dreams, the secretary
+of a duke or American millionaire. And if he does not pull himself up
+at this stage, he will find that the duke’s money has been left him,
+or she will find that she has married the American millionaire. And
+so the phantasy goes on. It starts in reality, but the Narcissistic
+temperament takes it right away from this. It must be nipped in the
+bud at the very beginning, if the habit of directive thought is to be
+established. As soon as the individual finds himself drifting in this
+way, wasting energy, fulfilling wishes by mere dreams, he must pull
+himself up short, and say to himself, “Here the real ends, there the
+phantasy begins. This is the point I must come back to, I must deal
+with this matter from the real point of view only, without allowing
+this phantasy to intrude itself.”
+
+And here again, much patience will be needed, for if the habit has
+already been cultivated, he will soon be back in phantasy again,
+probably in less than five minutes. But phantasy thought does not only
+mean day-dreams in the sense in which we have spoken of them here. It
+may take all sort of disguises, and what would be phantasy thought in
+one person, would be directive thought in another. In one case, the
+environment and education and inherent ability would not be of that
+order which could make the thoughts come to be facts; in the other case
+the abilities of the person might be sufficient to do so. Thus, were an
+ordinary person to sit in his arm-chair, and phantasy a wonderful plan
+for the conquest of Europe, without having either the will or the means
+of carrying out his ambition, that would constitute phantasy thinking
+pure and simple. If, however, a Napoleon did the same, with the will
+and the possible means, with the near aim at hand in the conquest of
+a small country, and the subsequent conquest of Europe as an ultimate
+one, his method of thought would have to be described as directive
+thinking. So that similar thinking in two different individuals may
+really be classified as two different principles of thinking.
+
+I have no doubt that many readers will be saying to themselves now,
+“But my greatest pleasure is to be found in day-dreams. I find in
+directive thinking nothing but hard work.”
+
+In such a case, if the individual cannot enjoy his directive
+thinking, and he gets no emotional discharge by means of it, it is
+possible that his aims in life are unsuited to him, or that he has
+not sufficient aims in life, that his time is not as fully occupied
+with interesting _acts_ as it should be. In such a case, subsidiary
+aims should be formed deliberately, wherein he could take an interest
+in directive thinking. _For it may be accepted as a fact that, with
+proper cultivation and education, more real pleasure can be found in
+suitable directive thinking than in any amount of day-dreams._ It is
+also a further fact that the individual’s energy is not then wasted,
+but is more or less efficiently utilised. Moreover, instead of losing
+strength of character, he is now gaining it. Let it be borne in mind,
+always, that continual indulgence of phantasy thought, from its very
+ease, breeds the habit of inertia, for the individual’s aims and wishes
+attain fulfilment without any need for activity on his part; and here
+a vicious circle is produced, because the inertia, which he has thus
+encouraged, now in its turn tends to make him resort to phantasy the
+more.
+
+It is easy, of course, to say, “I will cut myself off from phantasy
+thought, I will pull myself up whenever this occurs, and leave it
+alone.” But it is by no means easy to act up to this resolution. If,
+however, another kind of directive thought is deliberately substituted
+for the phantasy, the task is made very much easier. If the water in
+the bath is too hot, and we want it to cool rapidly, we do not merely
+turn off the hot tap, we simultaneously turn on the cold.
+
+The task will be rendered more easy still, if the individual selects
+his subject of directive thought to replace phantasy beforehand, not
+waiting until the time comes. For instance, we will suppose that,
+as one subsidiary aim with which to fill in his time, a person has
+selected the collection of postage stamps. He will each day have in
+front of him some page which he wishes to arrange in chronological
+order, to consider from the point of view of water-marks and
+perforations; and he may make up his mind that as soon as he finds
+himself dealing in phantasy thought he will not only cut out the
+phantasy thought but will at once start arranging, in his mind, the
+stamps which he was shortly going to arrange in his book. It matters
+not in the least what form the substitute thought takes, so long as it
+possesses two qualities, (1) it is directive, _i.e._, it is going to
+lead to some sort of actual change or action, and (2) that it bears
+a pleasurable interest. And for that reason, I have selected a very
+trivial form of directive thought as an example. The point is that
+the individual should select some subject in which he has a personal
+and active interest, as a subject with which he may replace phantasy
+thought, whenever the latter comes into his mind.
+
+Phantasy thought may, further, not be of necessity thoughts impossible
+of fulfilment, except in the immediate present. Thoughts of erotic
+or other desires which intrude themselves at untimely moments, are
+phantasy thoughts, and some people frequently complain that they are
+annoyed by them, especially when they have no intention of actually
+fulfilling them in fact, or when the means of fulfilling them are
+not present. Here again, to have a subject ready at hand, or to
+have a substitute thought for the undesired thoughts is a very real
+assistance. Even a sentence thought out beforehand or a good maxim
+which can be repeated several times and considered, forms an excellent
+substitute thought with which to replace the unwanted phantasy.
+
+Let us now consider a few other examples. The majority of educated
+people, of a so-called normal type, when they have completed their
+day’s work, and are fatigued, require some sort of mental rest, and as
+a rule some kind of phantasy thought is resorted to in the evening.
+Also, when this fatigue is cumulative, they say, “We have worked
+eleven months, and now require one month’s holiday.” This is really an
+unconscious phantasy requiring a regressive reward. They are not really
+tired out, physically or mentally, but they have accumulated, after
+a series of postponements, a large number of Narcissistic efforts at
+phantasy; and the holiday which they now require is really to satisfy
+this. It is a return to childhood and the time of irresponsibility,
+and their occupations on the holiday may very likely be, to a large
+extent, similar to those with which they occupied themselves in
+childhood. They throw off their adult status and responsibility, and
+deliberately take this regressive reward. Even with normal people
+the idea of _rest_ in the form of a holiday, often means nothing but
+phantasy thought, time disregarded, no effort of any sort to be made.
+
+But in the less Narcissistic type of person who still retains directive
+thought even on a holiday--a holiday means merely change in immediate
+aim, change in occupation, rather than rest from aim and occupation.
+
+Phantasy thinking may take many quite surreptitious forms. In old age,
+for instance, we know that type of person, who is quietly slipping
+into helpless imbecility. He is the same man, who, at an earlier age,
+lacked the habit of directive thought. On the other hand, there is
+our intellectual old man or woman, still full of the day’s problems
+or politics, who indulged, in early life, but little in phantasies.
+Experience shows us that the influence of directive or undirective
+thought in youth may not only determine our happiness in declining
+years, but may even determine the actual age to which we live. For,
+paradoxically, it is the Narcissist, who of all people desires a long
+life, and who is, of all people, the least likely to attain old age. He
+frequently “worries himself into the grave.”
+
+We have not yet exhausted the forms of phantasy thought. A casual
+conversation between acquaintances in which no information of value
+is imparted, in which merely some emotional material is brought to
+the surface and thrown out, is undirective thought. The first person,
+interested in some emotional experience, recounts to the second the
+facts of that experience, often without arousing any emotional feeling
+in the second person. Such is the type of conversation which takes
+place over a vast majority of tea-tables. It is wasted energy.
+
+Another example is that of conventional letter-writing, in certain
+cases. The duty letter which one person writes to another person is
+of the same type. The writer who deals with his or her experiences
+on a shopping expedition, who states a series of things which have
+happened, merely in order to enjoy them once again in phantasy, is
+performing the same waste of energy. There is no return for this
+expended energy, the rush of ideas produces no result. Perhaps the
+time is due for a letter to be written, and it is the turn of this
+person to write a letter. As a result of this conventional attitude,
+the writer has to resort to phantasy thought to satisfy the needs of
+the moment. We have pointed out that reading a novel is a form of
+phantasy thinking, in which we identify ourselves with the hero. The
+same occurs in our cinemas. Here, the pleasure of phantasy thinking is
+enhanced by the fact that the visual impression is produced direct,
+whereas in reading a novel the visual impression is by words only,
+and a certain amount of effort is needed to translate it in the mind
+into its pictorial form; and thus the cinematograph induces a form of
+phantasy thinking which needs the least effort of all to realise. It
+is within the reach of anyone possessing a few pence, and although the
+average person may regard it as educative and useful to the community,
+the magistrate who is dealing with the youthful delinquent knows the
+cinematograph to be very harmful to the child’s mind. And there is no
+doubt that the unconscious effect of such mental stimuli is excessively
+deleterious to the race in general. The indulgence in it encourages
+the habit of phantasy thinking at a small cost, and such a habit soon
+becomes established as part of the individual’s make-up. Nor does the
+evil stay itself here. For the phantasy in the cinematograph consists
+usually in the fulfilment of impossible wishes, and in this, as in
+other cases, the emotional output is increased out of all proportion
+to the real exciting causes. This results in a misplacement in the
+emotional output in the unconscious mind, which in its turn is the
+basis of many neurotic conditions which may even require a physician’s
+aid to eradicate. And one must remember that a neurotic condition need
+not merely be the illness of an individual, it may be, and often is,
+the disease of a nation. Hence, like the fairy-tale, the cinema, as it
+is at present, should not be used as a child’s pastime.
+
+
+§2
+
+In other forms of Narcissism also, we shall find it easier to break
+away from phantasy if we substitute a reality; that is, if we turn our
+flow of energy into a real, instead of an imaginary channel, instead of
+merely trying to dam the flow in the original channel. In cases where
+this Narcissism involves a bad habit, such as irritability, impatience,
+weeping, etc., the line that should be followed differs rather from
+that suggested in the case of day-dreams. In the first place, not only
+should we pull ourselves up short, but we should also bear in mind,
+immediately, the first part of the technique which we suggested in
+a previous chapter. That is to say, we should call to mind what our
+abnormal act really means, and having done this, having realised it in
+consciousness, _we should then endeavour to use the same energy which
+we should have used for this abnormal act in an immediate and useful
+manner_. Now, in all these cases, our abnormal reaction takes place
+because our omnipotence or sense of perfection is disturbed; and since
+this sense of perfection is not real, the easiest and most convenient
+channel for us to turn our energy into is one which still satisfies the
+sense of perfection, that is to say, one in which we may feel that _we
+are, by our act, becoming more perfect in reality, instead of clinging
+to our perfection in phantasy_. It is impossible to give examples to
+cover the very many reactions which may take place, but one actual
+example, given in detail, should be sufficient to enable the individual
+to invent others to suit his own case. Let us again take the case
+of the impatient man, in which the Time-factor has never been fully
+realised.
+
+Let us say that he has entered a restaurant for lunch, and that
+having glanced down the menu, he then has to wait ten minutes before
+the waiter attends to him. Probably, after the first minute of that
+time, he has begun to get impatient; at the end of ten minutes he is
+either making up his mind to go without his lunch, so great is his
+irritability, or else he is, with great emotion, explaining to his
+neighbour how extremely inefficient this restaurant is, as regards
+management, service, and, in fact, everything connected with it. He is
+utterly unable to realise the facts of the case. Let us again refer
+to the facts for a moment. The restaurant is a business, and must make
+a profit; in order to do this, only a limited number of waiters can
+possibly be kept, and the number of these has to be regulated by the
+_average_ number of customers, by the profit which it is possible to
+make in the neighbourhood, and other factors. In the second place, the
+luncheon hour is one at which the number of customers is well above
+the average, and therefore in which the service is bound to be the
+slowest; however good the management, however skilful the waiters, they
+are obliged to devote a certain number of minutes to each customer;
+and the probability is that our Narcissistic individual is being as
+well attended to as anybody else. He does not realise this however, he
+is not dealing with the facts at all. He merely knows that he wishes
+for an immediate meal, that his sense of perfection is thoroughly
+disturbed, and his unconscious idea is that if he is sufficiently
+impatient, what he wants will come to him immediately, just as it did
+in childhood.
+
+Now let us see how he may deal with himself. We will suppose that
+he has read this chapter before his next visit to the restaurant in
+question. Once again he sits down, once again he finds he is kept
+waiting. His impatience begins to manifest itself in its early stages.
+He pulls himself up, and the first thing that he does is to realise the
+causes of his impatience, as set out in the last paragraph. He must go
+quickly over the original causes of his Narcissism in infancy, and of
+how he obtained means of satisfaction, and so developed his present
+habit of thought. He must run over the facts concerning the restaurant,
+and realise that it is a business place, and that it is at its busiest
+hour. In other words, he must get into full consciousness the various
+factors associated with this Narcissistic outburst of impatience. Then,
+let him realise as a kind of summary, “What I am actually objecting
+to is the disturbance of my unconscious feeling of omnipotence and
+perfection. Let me, however, turn this energy, utilise this time
+during which I am waiting in attaining a step nearer real perfection
+instead of bemoaning the loss of my imaginary perfection. Now, a step
+towards real perfection will be attained, if I overcome this habit
+of impatience. Let me, therefore, utilise this time in sitting here
+patiently, in worrying no longer about the time the waiter is taking,
+in being actually pleased with the fact that I am becoming more
+patient, and that my time is being usefully filled with a directive
+aim, which has as its object the same ultimate idea as the original
+phantastic one, namely, that of perfection.”
+
+Critics may here suggest that this long monologue on the part of the
+impatient individual might have been cut short by allowing him to say,
+“Obviously, the waiters are busy, it is no use being impatient, let me
+be patient.” I must point out, however, that the result would probably
+not have been the same. The longer method has its value in the fact
+that he brings into consciousness the two ideas of perfection, the
+Narcissistic idea which is being hurt, and the real idea which he is
+desiring consciously to obtain. _And it is very much easier to turn
+energy from one channel to another, if there are lines of similarity
+between the two channels._
+
+Hence, when one’s sense of perfection is assailed, let one turn
+one’s energy into some form of thought which still satisfies the idea
+of perfection attained or attainable. A similar process can be gone
+through with any other Narcissistic form of trouble, and consists in
+recapitulating the causes, and in reaching a determined effort to
+deflect consciously the energy from the phantastic into the real. The
+same principle holds good for all temperamental troubles of this sort,
+but the individual will have to devise for himself a suitable formula
+to use to suit the needs of his own case.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+AUTO-SUGGESTION
+
+
+Suggestion, in one form or another, plays an extremely important
+part in the life of everyone. Suggestion consists in impressing upon
+the unconscious mind some idea or thought in such a way that the
+unconscious mind will take it and absorb it as part of itself, and
+utilise it unconsciously and instinctively. Quite unconsciously,
+throughout childhood and adult life, we are receiving suggestions from
+the actions of those around us.
+
+For example, I remember as a boy going repeatedly with a relative
+to a friend’s house. At the time, I did not notice that my relative
+invariably used the knocker, and never rang the bell, or rather I did
+not consciously notice it. On one occasion I, myself, was sent with
+a message to this house, and although I was in the habit of ringing
+bells whenever I went to other houses, at this particular one, I
+instinctively knocked only. The suggestion that I should knock upon
+that particular door had been implanted in me by the fact that I had
+repeatedly seen the same action take place, although I had paid no
+conscious attention to it. It had impressed itself upon my mind as
+the right action to take place, under the particular circumstances
+attending a visit to this house, so that I performed the action itself
+automatically, without any further thought in the matter.
+
+The example impressed itself upon my mind, because while I was in the
+house, on this occasion, a man came to mend the bell, which had been
+out of order for many months. Hence, the reason my relative invariably
+knocked.
+
+Suggestion of various kinds is a very powerful factor, and as in
+the example given above, it is for the most part an unconscious
+factor in determining our actions. But it is possible for us to give
+ourselves _conscious_ suggestions which will afterwards cause us to
+act automatically, in accordance with the suggestion. A great deal too
+much, however, has been claimed for suggestion in recent months. There
+are many circumstances in which suggestion is not likely to be any
+good at all, there are also circumstances when it may arouse an actual
+opposition in the unconscious mind, where a counter-suggestion is set
+at work immediately, and the condition of the individual may actually
+be worse than before he started giving himself suggestions.
+
+Apart from other things, one factor may be mentioned which is very
+antagonistic to suggestion, and that is _fear_, possibly fear which
+is for the most part unconscious. Thus, supposing that the alcoholic
+gives himself the suggestion that he shall pass a public-house without
+going into it, and he has a definite fear of the wish to go in; he
+will probably find that in suggesting that he shall not have the wish,
+he is actually re-enforcing the strength of the wish which is there.
+His unconscious counter-will is at work, and turning the force of the
+suggestion in the wrong direction, and he will very likely succumb
+to temptation more readily than before. Hence, in a subject where we
+have acute fear of failure, suggestion must be very carefully dealt
+with. Moreover, suggestion, to be efficient, must have other things in
+its favour, some knowledge, in fact, of the underlying causes of the
+deleterious action which we wish to eradicate. It is not impossible to
+improve oneself by suggestion, even though one may be ignorant of the
+cause of one’s trouble, but I have found that it is infinitely more
+easy to obtain this improvement if one has previously brought into
+consciousness the underlying cause, and can therefore direct one’s
+suggestion to this rather than merely to the effect or symptom. I have
+myself devised a method for the use of certain of my patients by means
+of which suggestion may be directed to both the cause and result,
+as indicated shortly. Ordinary methods of suggestion are frequently
+merely directed to the cure of the symptom rather than the disease; in
+fact, such auto-suggestion, popular as it has become, may frequently
+be likened to a doctor who treats small-pox by putting ointment on the
+spots, or appendicitis by giving morphia. It will be successful in
+those cases where the manifestations of the disease are worse than the
+disease itself; but when the causes are strong and virile, suggestion
+directed towards the symptom will not avail.
+
+In an earlier chapter, we described how the individual suffering
+from deleterious abnormalities of temperament could, to some extent,
+trace the cause of this back to infancy. We told how this, in itself,
+would, if repeatedly brought to mind on succeeding occasions, produce
+considerable improvement. We have further discussed how he could
+consciously turn the energy from one form of reaction into another
+and more suitable form. All these methods, however, may be made
+considerably more efficient by the active use of auto-suggestion, as I
+have indicated, directed partially to the cause and partially to the
+result desired. Thus, the form which suggestion should take in the case
+of the man, whom we quoted in the last chapter as being over-impatient
+in the restaurant, would be somewhat as follows:
+
+He would have to impress upon himself several suggestions; and in the
+case of each of these suggestions he would be required to form a mental
+picture of himself in the conditions to which the suggestions referred.
+Firstly, “In circumstances in which I have been accustomed to react
+with impatience, I will no longer act as I did when I was a little
+child.” (In repeating this to himself in the manner to be referred to
+shortly, he should hold a picture of himself reacting impatiently when
+a child, and contrast it with the manner in which he ought to have
+acted.) Secondly, “Under conditions which have previously caused me to
+react with impatience, I will in future, at once think out the _real_
+circumstances of the case.” (And another suitable mental picture should
+be visualised here, as also in each of the following suggestions.)
+Thirdly, “Under conditions which previously caused me to react with
+impatience, I will no longer be impatient.” Fourthly, “Under conditions
+to which I have been accustomed to react with impatience, I shall now
+devote my energy to perfecting myself, in reality.” Thus, he is taking
+himself through the stages from childhood onward, and re-educating
+himself in each stage by means of a forced education in which the
+individual “grows up” in reality from the point at which he stopped in
+childhood.
+
+Not one, but all these thoughts, and possibly even intermediate ones
+that may develop, should be impressed upon the unconscious mind, so
+that they may act automatically. As to the method which should be
+adopted by the patient in giving himself suggestions, I recommend the
+following. That he first of all write down briefly the results of his
+self-examination, that he should take those results in chronological
+order, and write down from them suitable suggestions dealing with
+the various stages, such as I have just written with regard to the
+impatient man. That every night and morning, or at any other time
+during the day, he should for five or ten minutes lie down, relax
+himself, and close his eyes; that he should then repeat to himself
+fifteen or twenty times each of the suggestions, taking the earliest
+first, then the next, and so on. They need not be repeated out loud,
+but if repeated under the breath and accompanied by a suitable movement
+of the lips, it will suffice. Effort should be avoided; suggestion
+is not an effort of will so much as an impression effected by the
+imagination. When an individual is giving himself suggestion, he is not
+fighting an active battle, he is merely allowing ideas to sink into his
+mind; and if they are repeated often enough, like drops of water which
+in time wear a channel in the stone, they will make their mark and
+produce their effects in due course.
+
+Suggestion, in fact, minimises the need for the use of will-power,
+at any given moment in a difficult situation. If the battle has been
+fought out beforehand in imagination, it will automatically succeed
+when the time comes. The will has played its part previously when
+adopting the method of suggestion.
+
+This is not a text-book on suggestion, and I do not propose to go
+further into the method here. I merely wish to point out the practical
+efficiency of the use of a certain amount of auto-suggestion when
+applied in conjunction with the other methods of combating Narcissism
+already outlined, and when applied in an intelligent manner, so that
+not merely the symptoms, but the original causes themselves shall be
+affected by it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+The previous portion of this book has been devoted to showing how
+Narcissism may be harmful, and how in its endeavour to obtain
+satisfaction it may render the individual unhappy in the utmost
+degree. It is possible that the reader will have gathered that the
+author regards Narcissism as wholly and completely a useless and
+detrimental element in life; the more so, since at various points
+we have had to emphasise that in one form or another very little of
+it persisting in adult life may be a great deal too much. It should
+be realised, however, that Narcissism to a slight extent, and at
+certain periods, plays an important and also necessary part in the
+individual’s life. We mentioned at one place that a certain amount of
+identification was beneficial in choosing one’s life partner. Whereas
+too much identification might lead to one’s choosing a sexual partner
+of the same sex, a small amount of identification might lead to one’s
+choosing a partner with the same tastes, and would further lead to a
+tendency to enjoy whatsoever the other one enjoyed, and to dislike what
+the other one disliked, and this similarity would lead to a certain
+harmony in life. _Narcissism is a normal thing in the new-born infant,
+and Narcissism is the root of many virtues; but its final adult form
+must be sublimated and very much attenuated._ It is like the salt in
+cooking; a little is essential to bring out the flavour, but a very
+little more spoils the whole dish.
+
+A certain amount of self-love, self-appreciation, self-importance, and
+self-consciousness of one’s own capacities is necessary in every one;
+without it he would be ill prepared to cope with men and circumstances.
+But this necessary self-importance and self-appreciation is not, as
+many might think, due to Narcissism alone. It has a slight Narcissistic
+element, but it is largely a resultant of other unconscious instincts,
+which we have not attempted to deal with here; and we only mention
+it, lest the reader should draw the conclusion that these necessary
+elements in our character are drawn purely from a Narcissistic
+basis, and that he should therefore be left puzzled as to how, if he
+should eradicate Narcissism, he would be able to retain necessary
+characteristics which apparently belong to this same instinct. It is
+also very necessary for the reader to bear in mind that much which
+may be developed from Narcissism is useful; even though the original
+from which it came may be dangerous and harmful. Moreover, a certain
+amount of enjoyment of phantasy such as is obtained from novels or
+theatres may be in many people quite a useful and adequate form of
+relaxation. With them it may be strictly cut off from real life, may
+be strictly limited as regards time and place, and, in fact, entirely
+under their control. In such persons it forms a useful element in their
+lives. I do not say that if their early education and environment had
+been different they might not possibly possess an even better form of
+recreation, but merely that, taking facts as they are, in certain cases
+it forms a useful factor in the working scheme of life.
+
+In others, however, in those where it has exceeded the limits of
+absolute control, it is necessary, for the time being at least, to
+attempt to cut it out as completely as possible, because where it is
+allowed slight free play, it is liable to get out of hand, unless it
+can be dealt with absolutely at the will of the individual. Hence the
+necessity for such stringent treatment as I have laid down in the
+previous chapters of this book.
+
+I have attempted to show that happiness is, for the most part,
+within the individual’s own grasp. Happiness comes from within the
+individual and not from without. Unhappiness must not be confused
+with pain, either mental or physical, for pain is a normal reaction,
+to a harmful stimulus which all are liable to feel; it is for the
+most part beyond the individual’s control so long as the stimulus
+persists; but the peace of mind, the absence of worry, of irritability,
+of perpetual uneasiness, which we call unhappiness, lies within the
+control of everybody. It largely consists in continually recognising
+what facts are unchangeable, and ceasing to bemoan or phantasy about
+these unchangeable facts. It is true that the road to happiness may
+be difficult if we have long been accustomed to tread the path of
+Narcissism, but it is equally true that if the advice laid down in this
+book be followed patiently and systematically, a very much happier
+frame of mind will be attained as a result. In a few cases, Narcissism
+is not a predominant factor causing the temperamental disturbance
+although superficially it may appear to be so. In such cases (where
+other primitive instincts are really of paramount importance) the same
+degree of improvement will not be attained by this method of self
+treatment and only a more prolonged course of regular psycho-analysis
+is likely to produce the desired result.
+
+Happiness is not to be found by seeking happiness in the direct sense.
+This, I am aware, sounds very much like a mere high-sounding thought
+of a writer. It is the sort of phrase that people dismiss with the
+remark, “That is all very well in theory.” This statement, however,
+is not made from any moral or sentimental point of view, nor on any
+purely theoretical grounds, but as a scientific fact, which has been
+demonstrated as the result of psychological research. It may be
+interesting to note here how much the psychology of happiness is in
+agreement with many of the teachings of the New Testament, although a
+different terminology and mode of expression may be used.
+
+It was pointed out earlier how the individual who employed too much
+phantasy thought in youth might worry himself into an early grave,
+although he was the same individual who most desired a long life. It
+has now been shown that happiness does not come to those who seek
+happiness, but to those who can adapt themselves to realities, that
+is, to those who can control their Narcissism. Narcissism is not so
+very different from the word “self,” as used in Christian teachings,
+and any who are interested enough to compare them will find that there
+is considerable parallelism between Christian teaching and certain
+psychological observations.
+
+I must emphasise the fact once more that patience, that is a
+realization of the time factor, is very necessary for those who attempt
+self-treatment on the lines indicated in this book. For since lack of
+this is often one of their faults to start with, they may otherwise
+involve themselves in a vicious circle, from which they do not
+escape. Patience and attention to detail will, however, enable them to
+accomplish that improvement which they have set out to achieve. In the
+words of Horace, “Happiness is here, happiness is everywhere, if only a
+well-regulated mind does not fail you.”
+
+
+THE END
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 66496 ***
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-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OMNIPOTENT SELF, A STUDY IN SELF-DECEPTION AND SELF-CURE ***</div>
-
-<div class="mynote"><p class="center">Transcriber&#8217;s Note:<br /><br />
-Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.<br /></p></div>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p>
-
-<h1>THE OMNIPOTENT SELF </h1>
-
-<hr />
-
-<div class="center"><img src="images/title.jpg" alt="title page" /></div>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p>
-
-<p class="bold2">THE OMNIPOTENT<br /> SELF</p>
-
-<p class="bold">A Study in Self-Deception and Self-Cure</p>
-
-<p class="bold space-above">BY</p>
-
-<p class="bold2">PAUL BOUSFIELD</p>
-
-<p class="bold">M.R.C.S. (<span class="smcap">Eng.</span>), L.R.C.P. (<span class="smcap">Lond.</span>)</p>
-
-<p class="bold"><i>Physician to the London Neurological Clinic (Ministry of Pensions),<br />
-Late Demonstrator of Morbid Anatomy, St. George&#8217;s Hospital, Late<br />
-M.O. American Women&#8217;s Hospital for Officers, etc., etc.</i></p>
-
-<p class="bold">Author of <i>The Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis</i>.</p>
-
-<p class="bold space-above">LONDON<br />
-KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER &amp; CO., <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span>,<br />
-BROADWAY HOUSE, 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.C.<br />1923</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p>
-
-<p class="center">PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE DEVONSHIRE PRESS, TORQUAY.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2>PREFACE</h2>
-
-<p class="center">&#8220;<i>Nature has granted to all to be happy if we but knew how to use her
-gifts.</i>&#8221;&mdash;<span class="smcap">Claudius.</span></p>
-
-<p>Many people, while not considering themselves as suffering from any
-nervous ailment, nor desiring the services of a physician, are yet far
-from being perfectly happy in their mental outlook and temperament.
-Either their feelings are too easily roused, or they are inclined to
-worry, to be depressed, irritable, nervous, or over-sensitive. Trifles
-which to them seem no trifles interfere with the smooth course of their
-daily lives, or this slight abnormality may manifest itself in an
-over-sensitiveness to physical pain or to mental or moral difficulties
-and conflicts. It is with the hope of helping a few such individuals
-to a better understanding of themselves, and through this to a more
-equable temperament and greater happiness, that this little book is
-written.</p>
-
-<p>There is no hard and fast line between the normal and the abnormal
-person, and indeed a very real difficulty exists in even defining a
-normal person. If we take our definition of normal as being &#8220;average
-or conforming to type or standard,&#8221; then the majority of people
-are normal. If, on the other hand, we take its other meaning, that
-of &#8220;performing the proper functions,&#8221; then there are few people
-approaching the normal under modern civilized conditions. A tendency
-to undue irritability or depression is a mild and very common form of
-abnormality. Hysterias, obsessions, and unreasonable fears are greater
-abnormalities, and fortunately of less frequent occurrence, while
-certain forms of insanity are still greater deviations from the normal.
-A similar combination of causes, however, may form the basis of all
-these abnormalities,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> and these various deviations from the normal are
-more of degree than of kind. But whereas in cases of obsessions and
-unreasonable fears or in such other abnormalities as homo-sexuality or
-sexual impotence, etc., the causes are deeply hidden and the forces at
-work somewhat complicated, in the lesser abnormalities there are causes
-frequently lying less deeply.</p>
-
-<p>In the case of obsessions, phobias, hysterias, sexual abnormalities,
-and so forth, we can only hope to effect an improvement by a thorough
-analysis of the unconscious causes and conflicts by a competent
-psycho-analyst. In the lesser troubles of the mind, however,
-considerable improvement can often be effected by means of a somewhat
-superficial self-analysis. This will be directed towards investigating
-one in particular of the primary causes which play an important part in
-all the minor unpleasant temperamental faults.</p>
-
-<p>In order to teach the patient to help himself, it will first of all be
-necessary to enlighten him to a considerable extent as to the general
-evolution of his character; at any rate in as far as one important
-mental complex known as &#8220;Narcissism&#8221; is concerned. In doing this, many
-other mental complexes will have to be superficially touched upon; but
-in order to simplify the work for the uninitiated, they will not be
-specifically named when they appear; for, although this would make the
-work more technically accurate, it would, at the same time, make it
-less clear, and in a book of this type this would be very undesirable.
-The first object I have in mind is that the work shall be lucid,
-concise, and readily understood by any person of ordinary education,
-so that he may gain an insight into the essential causes and growth
-of some of his abnormal characteristics without undue complication
-of ideas. It is further hoped that this small work may be of some
-assistance in suggesting to parents a few of the many things to be
-avoided in the early training of the child.</p>
-
-<p class="right">PAUL BOUSFIELD</p>
-
-<p><i>7, Harley Street, W.</i></p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
-
-<table summary="CONTENTS">
-  <tr>
-    <td colspan="3" class="center">PART I: THE OMNIPOTENT SELF</td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td colspan="2" class="left"><span class="smaller">CHAP.</span></td>
-    <td><span class="smaller">PAGE</span></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td>I&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
-    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Unconscious Mind</span></td>
-    <td><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td>II&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
-    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Repression</span></td>
-    <td><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td>III&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
-    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Forces Shaping Character</span></td>
-    <td><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td>IV&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
-    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Determinism and Will Power</span></td>
-    <td><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td>V&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
-    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Narcissism</span></td>
-    <td><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td>VI&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
-    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Fact and Phantasy</span></td>
-    <td><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td>VII&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
-    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Identification</span></td>
-    <td><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td>VIII&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
-    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Irritable Temperament</span></td>
-    <td><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td>IX&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
-    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Rationalization</span></td>
-    <td><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td colspan="3" class="center">PART II: PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS</td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td>X&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
-    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Self Analysis</span></td>
-    <td><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td>XI&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
-    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Readjustment of Objectives</span></td>
-    <td><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td>XII&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
-    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Readjustment of Thought</span></td>
-    <td><a href="#Page_138">138</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td>XIII&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
-    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Auto-Suggestion</span></td>
-    <td><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td>
-  </tr>
-  <tr>
-    <td>XIV&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
-    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Conclusion</span></td>
-    <td><a href="#Page_165">165</a></td>
-  </tr>
-</table>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2>PART I</h2>
-
-<p class="bold2">THE OMNIPOTENT SELF </p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2><span>CHAPTER I</span> <span class="smaller">THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND</span></h2>
-
-<h3>§1</h3>
-
-<p>In considering the question of character, with its various
-irregularities and idiosyncracies, we shall have to accustom ourselves
-to dealing with factors which do not exist in consciousness at all.
-Strange as it may seem to the uninitiated, many of our thoughts, ideas,
-and motives are quite outside our normal consciousness, and of them
-only the resulting emotions and actions appear on the surface. This
-may be taken as an absolute and indisputable fact, and one which the
-reader should try to appreciate at the outset, although it is somewhat
-difficult to realise, for we always find it hard to apprehend and
-understand something which we can neither see nor touch.</p>
-
-<p>If one were to tell the ordinary labourer that water is composed of
-two gases which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> when combined form a liquid, he would probably be
-quite incredulous, and possibly in his ignorance might even deny
-emphatically any such possibility, on the grounds that it was against
-all common-sense and experience; he failing to realise, of course, how
-very limited were both his sense and his experience. In spite of his
-feelings of absolute certainty, and in spite of complete faith in the
-unshakable logic behind his belief, he would be wrong.</p>
-
-<p>While it is not to be expected that many readers of this book will deny
-the existence of the unconscious part of the mind, it may well be that
-many will fail to realise that it is of more than theoretical value.
-It therefore becomes necessary for us to examine the matter somewhat
-carefully, and to familiarise ourselves with the ideas of the working
-of this unconscious mind.</p>
-
-<p>Without going into the further sub-divisions recognised in psychology,
-we will confine ourselves to dividing the mind into two parts&mdash;the
-conscious and the unconscious. <i>And of these, at any given moment, the
-conscious is by far the smaller part.</i> We are actually <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>conscious at
-any moment of but very few things, such as the book we are reading,
-the chair we are sitting on, and dimly of our immediate surroundings.
-A thousand memories which we might conjure up of our childhood and
-our past are, for the time being, far from consciousness. Yet these
-matters exist somewhere in the mind, for we are able, if we choose,
-to search about in it, and bring them into consciousness, even though
-we may not have thought of them for many years. This leads us at once
-to a striking fact, namely, that while many things can be remembered
-at will, others which we feel we ought to remember, cannot be brought
-to mind at all. It is an extremely common experience to find that one
-has forgotten a name completely, and that no effort will bring it into
-consciousness, yet later on, apparently without effort, the name will
-&#8220;come back to us,&#8221; as we say. In fact, the very phrase we use&mdash;&#8220;come
-back to us&#8221;&mdash;implies that it has been somewhere away from us, that it
-has been lodged in some place that is foreign and unknown to us, yet
-which we are aware is somewhere within us.</p>
-
-<p>It is also common knowledge that a great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> many events and scenes of
-considerable importance to us at the time of action are forgotten, and
-that they can only be recollected if some sort of stimulus or reminder
-be given. For instance, a person may have forgotten completely where
-and how he spent a holiday ten years ago. No amount of racking his
-brain brings anything to light. But having been reminded of a single
-incident that occurred during that holiday, the whole of the rest may
-come up from the unconscious in full detail.</p>
-
-<p>There is a third kind of memory more important still, if one may
-be permitted to call it memory, and that is the memory of facts
-which no <i>ordinary</i> stimulus of this sort will ever bring up into
-consciousness again. The term &#8220;memory&#8221; is used here because we have
-every reason to believe that somewhere in the unconscious all facts
-have been registered, and in many cases may be partially brought into
-consciousness again by suitable means, such for instance, as hypnotism
-or psycho-analysis, (two very different methods, by the way). Yet,
-though these impressions have been made on the mind, and though there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
-is this unconscious memory still in existence, in the ordinary course
-of events we should never again be conscious of them.</p>
-
-<p><i>We may, however, be very conscious of actions and emotions emanating
-from the unconscious memory.</i> Thus, suppose that as a child one had
-lived in the country, and on several very happy occasions a bonfire
-had been lighted at a picnic, and that later on one lived in a town,
-and that this picnic which happened at the age of three or four years
-had become completely forgotten, so much so that even photographs of
-the scenes or conversations on the subject carried on by other people
-brought no memory to light and seemed to touch no chord; it would still
-be quite likely that the mere smell of a bon-fire in the distance or
-any smell resembling this would be enough to cause a considerable
-feeling of elation and happiness in the person, a feeling that
-something pleasant was taking place, an idea that if only one could
-remember, a pleasant picture could be called up. This is because it is
-associated in the unconscious mind with these previous happy occasions.</p>
-
-<p>Or again, suppose a child at the age of two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> or three years has been
-dropped into a pond and nearly drowned. Although the incident may
-in later years be completely forgotten, the horror of deep water
-and all its associations may vividly persist. It seems probable,
-and a considerable amount of work has been done on this subject in
-psycho-analysis, that every action, thought, or idea that has ever
-been registered in the mind, even to some extent before birth, is
-permanently fixed; and that although much of this cannot be brought
-into consciousness by present methods, yet all the feelings and
-emotions, however slight, which attended these thoughts, ideas, and
-actions are perpetually being called forth by slight stimuli of which
-we are unaware, and these are playing their part in moulding our
-thoughts, feelings and actions in the present time.</p>
-
-<p>I had an interesting patient a short time ago who, owing to certain
-experiences in the war, was suffering from complete loss of memory; so
-complete that he did not know his own wife nor even his parents. Under
-hypnosis, the whole of his memory was rapidly brought back; and when it
-appeared to be normal and both he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> and his parents were quite confident
-that it was as good as it had ever been, I suggested that we might try
-an experiment to see if we could improve it still further. I asked him,
-amongst other things, if he could voluntarily remember the first time
-he wore knickerbockers. He had not the faintest recollection of the
-matter. I then hypnotised him, and told him to give me the details. He
-described the knickerbockers minutely, the number of buttons on them,
-the fact that he wore them on his third birthday, that his father had
-given him a penny, and told him that &#8220;now he was a little man, he must
-have money in his pocket,&#8221; together with a very large number of other
-details. I enquired of his father and mother and sisters, and they
-corroborated the details in every particular.</p>
-
-<p>I have tried several similar experiments with him and with one or two
-other patients under hypnosis with considerable success, and have even
-tried to take them back to the memory of their own birth. They have
-frequently produced many memories of events that occurred before the
-age of one year, but previous to that could only give reproductions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> of
-movements and pleasant and unpleasant emotions. Whether these latter
-are memories or not one has unfortunately no means of proving. But the
-fact that under hypnosis both educated and uneducated people alike
-exhibit extremely similar ideas as to types of movements, expressions,
-and feelings at the various stages of their very early life, inclines
-one to think that these reproductions may be memories. One has,
-however, to beware of the fact that observation and knowledge acquired
-in later periods of their lives might be the real factor underlying
-their apparent reproductions. Further evidence of a different nature
-will be given on this point, however, at a later stage in the book.</p>
-
-<h3>§2</h3>
-
-<p>So far, we have shown that there is an unconscious part of the mind
-which acts as a store-house for memories, ideas, and emotions of the
-past. We have not, however, shown that it is anything more than a
-store-house. But if we look into it from other points of view, we
-shall see that it is a great deal more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> than a mere store-house, for
-it thinks, reasons, comes to conclusions, and in fact assists in
-controlling our acts at every turn; indeed this unconscious part of our
-mind wields driving forces of the utmost potency in moulding our lives.</p>
-
-<p>Let us examine first the <i>reasoning</i> faculty of the unconscious mind.</p>
-
-<p>Maeder gives a good example of this. A house-surgeon at a hospital
-wished particularly to keep a certain appointment, but he was not
-allowed to leave the hospital until his chief, who was out, should
-return later in the evening. As his appointment was of considerable
-importance, he decided to brave the anger of his chief. He therefore
-kept his appointment, but when he returned later, he found to his
-astonishment that he had left a light in his room, a thing he had
-never done before, although he had occupied that room for two years.
-He thought the matter over, and soon realised why he had done this.
-The chief, on going to his own house, would pass the window and would
-see the light burning within, and imagine that his house-surgeon was
-at home. The unconscious mind had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> rapidly reasoned this out and had
-determined that the conscious mind should forget to turn off the light.</p>
-
-<p>Another illustration of the persistent way in which the unconscious
-mind will reason and act can be given from my own experience. I had to
-attend a lecture given by a man, with whose views I totally disagreed.
-I had no wish to attend the lecture, but felt compelled to do so in
-an official capacity. Consciously, I determined to go; unconsciously
-when I made the note of the lecture, I wrote down the time of it in
-my engagement-book a week late. On discovering this, I consciously
-endeavoured to rectify the matter, but my unconscious mind wrote
-Tuesday instead of Thursday in my engagement-book, so it went down
-wrong once again. Later, having been forced to see my mistake by a
-friend mentioning the matter, I omitted for a short time to rectify it
-in my engagement-book, feeling sure that I should remember to do so a
-little later. But alas! for the determination of my conscious mind. I
-forthwith made an appointment for a patient at the real time appointed
-for the lecture, and so could not in the end<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> attend it. Now, these
-lectures were held regularly on a particular day of the week, and I
-had generally looked forward to them, and attended them without any
-difficulty. It was only in this one case that I did not wish to go. My
-conscious mind decided to attend; but my unconscious mind played trick
-after trick in order that my real desires should be satisfied. Such
-examples could be multiplied indefinitely. It is possible that many
-would say that they do not actually prove unconscious reasoning nor
-power of thought. Let me, therefore, give one or two simple examples of
-a different nature.</p>
-
-<p>A friend of mine once told me that he had spent several days in trying
-to work out a chess problem without success. One morning, he woke
-up with a picture in his mind of the exact moves that he must make.
-The problem had been solved in his sleep unconsciously, and with no
-recollection on waking of any conscious effort at reaching the solution.</p>
-
-<p>In my own experience, as a school-boy, I failed to solve a problem in
-Euclid during an examination. On the morning afterwards, the solution
-flashed through my brain <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>suddenly, as I lay in bed. Whether I had
-solved it in my sleep, or whether it was solved in bed as I lay awake,
-I am not prepared to say. Of this much, however, I am certain. I made
-no conscious effort; my mind merely wandered lazily in the direction
-of the previous day&#8217;s failure, and almost instantaneously the right
-solution appeared without effort.</p>
-
-<p>Let us now take another example of work which the unconscious mind is
-called upon to perform; an example which we are accustomed to view
-without question or thought, which is comparatively commonplace,
-and which we dismiss summarily by referring to it as &#8220;habit.&#8221; The
-accomplished pianist reads the music in front of him consciously, but
-he is not conscious of the extremely rapid translation which takes
-place from the brain to the fingers, so as to produce complicated
-movements on the key-board. And if we examine it carefully, we shall
-find that something very wonderful has actually taken place outside
-his consciousness. When he was first learning to play, he looked at
-the note on his music, and said to himself &#8220;That is C.&#8221; He looked at
-the key on the piano,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> and repeated &#8220;That is C.&#8221; He was taught that a
-particular finger must be placed on that particular note when playing
-in a certain key. He was taught that it had to be hit in a particular
-way and held down for a particular time, according to the size and
-shape of the note he was reading on the sheet of music in front of him.
-He was further taught that in order to modify any sound in a particular
-manner, he could use his feet on one or other of the pedals, and must
-be extremely careful to put his feet down and lift his feet up again
-at exactly the right moment. He was taught that when certain symbols,
-known as sharps and flats, preceded the notes at the beginning of his
-piece of music, the whole scheme of fingering would be different. And,
-at first, he had laboriously to go through the process of watching
-first the music and then the key-board, and of <i>thinking</i> at each
-point what he should do with his fingers and with his feet, and how he
-should do it, and for what period he should keep on doing it. Now, the
-whole process is gone through with half-a-million notes which he has
-never seen before, many of them played simultaneously, and with an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
-exactitude which he never attained when he was consciously thinking.
-Whatever may be the nature of the unconscious action which is taking
-place, all he has in consciousness is the music in front of him, and
-the final sound that he is producing, together with the emotions which
-these called forth in him as a result of the whole.</p>
-
-<p>Can there be any doubt left that a complicated unconscious process of
-the same kind is taking place?</p>
-
-<p>Or again, let us examine our own personal likes and dislikes.
-Frequently one can assign no reason whatsoever for these. They may
-exist, in fact, against what we call our better judgment. We may
-love a person in spite of certain faults, or dislike him in spite
-of his virtues. If the matter be examined further, however, we not
-infrequently find the reasons for our emotions towards him. Either
-his manner, dress, or tone of voice, or some other trivial feature
-may resemble someone we have liked before, or on the contrary, some
-mannerism may call to mind a similar mannerism which we associate
-either in ourselves or in some other person, with unpleasant
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>characteristics. Our unconscious mind has rapidly sized up all these
-points, appraised them, and presented our conscious mind with the
-resulting emotions alone.</p>
-
-<p>So-called intuition is, to a large extent, merely rapid unconscious
-reasoning, in which minute details are taken into consideration by the
-unconscious, and only the final opinion presented to consciousness.
-One should beware of trusting intuition too much, however, in spite of
-popular prejudice to the contrary, for unconscious reasoning is just
-as liable to be wrong in its conclusions as is conscious reasoning;
-and it is just as liable to reach the conclusion which best serves its
-immediate purpose, and to suppress truth where it is unpleasant.<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" >[1]</a></p>
-
-<p>Some psychologists think that the unconscious mind is <i>infallible</i>
-in purely <i>deductive</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> reasoning from the <i>premises</i> from which it
-starts. But it provides its own premises from a secret store and also
-accepts any suggested premises which are not repugnant. The premises
-may therefore be wrong but the deductive reasoning is accurate. In this
-case the conclusions will only be wrong because the premises are wrong.</p>
-
-<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1">[1]</a> Unconscious reasoning or intuition is found chiefly in
-those who have not been trained in subjects which induce and train
-logical conscious reasoning. It is not a prerogative of sex, but on
-the whole is found more amongst women, merely because of their method
-of training from childhood upwards. In children and savages intuition
-is found equally present in both sexes. The loss of intuition merely
-means that the training of the conscious mind has caused us to mistrust
-conclusions for which we cannot consciously see the reasons.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2><span>CHAPTER II</span> <span class="smaller">REPRESSION</span></h2>
-
-<h3>§1</h3>
-
-<p>One other faculty of the unconscious mind requires special mention, and
-that is its power of obliterating memories from the conscious mind,
-or as it is better termed, of <i>repressing</i>, since this word not only
-implies pushing out of consciousness, but also preventing from coming
-into consciousness. It is found that all persons have formed a regular
-habit of forgetting or partially forgetting, (and so disguising),
-things which are unpleasant to them. This especially refers to those
-things which are unpleasant to their self-respect, their moral beliefs
-and ideas, and their general pride in themselves. The primitive
-immoralities and thoughts and actions of early childhood which would
-now offend their æsthetic and moral susceptibilities, are, more or
-less, completely put out of sight, together with a host of unpleasant
-ideas and thoughts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> which have cropped up from childhood onwards.
-Indeed, there is a general tendency for anything of an unpleasant
-nature to be pushed out of sight.</p>
-
-<p>Darwin, in his autobiography, states, &#8220;I had, during many years,
-followed a golden rule, namely that whenever a published fact, a new
-observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general
-results, to make a memorandum of it without fail, and at once, for I
-had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt
-to escape from the memory than favourable ones.&#8221;</p>
-
-<p>We had a further example in the case of the house-surgeon who &#8220;forgot&#8221;
-to put out his light, and examples are extremely common in everyday
-life. We forget to post letters entrusted to us against our will, but
-we do not forget to post our own love-letters. We mislay bills very
-readily, but rarely do we mislay a cheque.</p>
-
-<p>Amongst my patients suffering from shell-shock, I have had very many
-hundreds who have completely forgotten some of the most unpleasant
-and terrifying experiences which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> occurred to them out at the front.
-Others unconsciously had found the easiest method of dealing with
-the unpleasant past to be that of blotting the whole of it out,
-dissociating it completely from their conscious mind, and then stating
-that they remembered nothing of their lives until they woke up in
-hospital. It is not only memories, however, which are repressed and
-remain dormant in the unconscious mind. Most of our primitive instincts
-handed on from our savage forefathers before even the evolution of man
-in his present form, lie similarly buried in this unconscious part of
-the mind, and we are wont to deny emphatically that we possess these
-unpleasant instincts. Nevertheless, just as <i>in utero</i> we repeat more
-or less in detail the history of our physical evolution, so do we at
-that period and in childhood repeat to a great extent the history of
-our psychic evolution; and just as during this early period we possess
-the physical attributes of many of our ancestors, such as the gills
-of the fish or the tail of the lower vertebrates, so psychically do
-we at a somewhat later period, possess the instincts and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> desires of
-our progenitors, and utilise them as the hidden foundation stones
-in building our adult mental constitution. These various primitive
-instincts include all kinds of desires which would consciously be
-regarded as sexual perversions and moral crimes of different kinds, and
-they are present in all of us without exception. Our upbringing and
-conscious outlook upon them, however, causes them to be so abhorrent to
-us, that we successfully keep the majority of such ideas and feelings
-<i>from ever coming out of the unconscious in their primitive form</i>.
-In other words, we repress them. Occasionally, however, there is a
-tendency for these ancestral instincts to become conscious, and in
-our further efforts to prevent this we may develop instead hysterias,
-obsessions and unreasonable fears, together with many other nervous
-and abnormal signs and symptoms, into the nature of which it is not
-my intention to inquire further in this present volume. Those who
-are interested in pursuing this line of investigation will find an
-elementary account of it in a previous work of mine, &#8220;The Elements
-of Practical Psycho-Analysis.&#8221; All that I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> wish to emphasise here
-is that we do push out from the conscious mind unpleasant thoughts
-and memories, that we do repress and keep in the unconscious mind
-unpleasant desires and instincts, and that we do, as a result of this,
-have many unconscious or semi-conscious conflicts within ourselves,
-which may lead to unpleasant feelings of depression, irritability,
-fear, or in more pronounced cases hysterias, obsessions, and even
-permanent mental derangement.</p>
-
-<h3>§2</h3>
-
-<p>A further and somewhat important result of our possessing so much
-which is unconscious and of having so many feelings and ideas in
-consciousness of which we do not know the origin, or of whose
-origins we have but the vaguest and haziest notion is known as
-<i>rationalization</i>. This word signifies that we find reasons for doing
-or believing things which are of a pleasant nature and agreeable to us,
-and <i>vice versa</i>.</p>
-
-<p>Following on this rationalisation comes also a certain conservatism,
-which tends to retard progress of any sort, which dislikes looking at
-new ideas, and this for a very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> obvious reason. Looking at new ideas,
-examining ourselves or our work very closely, has a tendency to bring
-to light, from time to time, the very primitive instincts and feelings
-which we have been at so much pains to repress. And rather than submit
-to the indignity of discovering how really imperfect we are, and having
-our pride in our divinely constituted natures shaken, we have acquired
-a habit of denying and fighting strenuously against discovering truths
-connected with either our moral or physical evolution which would be
-unpleasant to us. In the light of our upbringing, such new truths are
-often unpleasant, therefore we rationalise that they must be untrue.
-For having been educated to venerate logic and reason, we can only
-be satisfied with any given conclusion we come to when we feel that
-it is justifiable in the light of logic and reason. But the logic of
-rationalisation is false logic.</p>
-
-<p>For many years, scientific and popular thought denied strenuously the
-possibility of the now universally accepted theory of human evolution;
-and on scientific grounds it was urged, with much plausible reasoning,
-that it was not possible to develop a high type<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> like man from any low
-form of animal. On religious grounds it was argued equally passionately
-that if evolution were true, the Bible was wrong, God disappeared, and
-therefore the theory of evolution was untrue. The real reasons lying
-behind those reasons advanced by both the scientist and the general
-public, however, were not the reasons so carefully thought out by
-them, but consisted largely in the fact that they did not wish to find
-that the body, which they had hitherto thought a special and divine
-creation partaking of the miraculous, to be merely a stage in the
-evolution of life on this planet, and possibly not a final stage at
-that. For in that case, no longer would man be able to flatter himself
-that he was almost divine, he would have to relegate himself to the
-possibility of being in a stage of semi-barbarism; he would no longer
-be a final perfect product, but merely a half-finished article. It was
-this blow to his pride that he could not stand. And it is the same
-to-day. Whenever there is a likelihood that examination, particularly
-through research work, has thrown light on his psychic evolution,
-on the imperfections of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> his moral laws, or on the crudity of some
-conventional custom, the process which takes place in him is much the
-same.</p>
-
-<p>Firstly, dislike of the idea. Secondly, on further examination of it,
-hatred of the idea. Thirdly, rationalisation directed against the idea.
-Fourthly, contentment, in that he has proved by logic and reason that
-the idea is wrong. Hence, it is that the truth takes long to emerge,
-and that obsessions and hysterias, and even trivial abnormalities are
-difficult to cure, for the cure involves seeing our own imperfections
-naked and undisguised.</p>
-
-<p>In all these cases, we are trying to keep out of consciousness those
-things which will distress us or cause us to have conflicts, or to have
-to readjust our views of ourselves, or in fact cause us unpleasantness
-in any form. It will be noticed that I have mentioned pride in the
-belief that we have reached a condition of final development, and in
-our superiority over the rest of nature, as being one of the important
-factors in preventing our advance. It is to the development of this
-pride, and its ramifications that I am devoting the major portion of
-this book.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2><span>CHAPTER III</span> <span class="smaller">THE FORCES SHAPING CHARACTER</span></h2>
-
-<p>It will be seen from the foregoing that evolution of the individual
-character may be the result of a very large number of forces at
-work, of which many are quite unconscious; and that any considerable
-disturbance or variation of the unconscious factors will considerably
-modify the character of the individual, in spite of conscious desires
-in some other direction. The character of an individual is the sum of
-his thoughts, ideas, capacities, desires, feelings and actions, and the
-general forces moulding it may be briefly summarised as follows:</p>
-
-<blockquote><p>1. The primitive instincts inherited from his ancestors, and held
-back in the unconscious mind.</p>
-
-<p>2. Environment and education.</p>
-
-<p>3. That pride in his own greatness, to which we referred in
-the last chapter, which modifies all the other forces at work,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>according to the direction of its development. This force will
-henceforth be called by the name of Narcissism, for a reason
-shortly to be explained.</p></blockquote>
-
-<h3>§2</h3>
-
-<p>Of the inherited instincts we have already said as much as is necessary
-here. It suffices for us to recognise that they are for the most part
-of a primitive erotic type, and that they are so repressed and modified
-as to be unrecognisable in the normal adult. When they have been
-ineffectually converted by environment and education, we have present
-the basis of many neurotic and functional conditions, and this again is
-a matter which is outside the scope of the present work.</p>
-
-<h3>§3</h3>
-
-<p>Environment and education are extremely comprehensive terms as used
-in psychology. Environment does not merely refer to the home with its
-visible surroundings, nor does education merely refer to the scholastic
-side of it. Environment and education include the treatment of the
-child by the nurse during<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> the first week of life; for instance,
-whether she leaves it alone when it cries, or whether she soothes it
-and rocks it to sleep again. A trivial fact, the reader will think,
-especially in the first week of the child&#8217;s life, yet experience
-shows us that this environment and education of the first week is an
-extremely important factor in its after-life. The thousand little
-actions, the trivial chance words of anger or contempt, not merely
-of the parent but of strangers or of other children, all make their
-impressions on the infantile unconscious mind. They all belong, in the
-strictest sense, to what we term its environment and education. Any
-stimulus, in fact, however small, which is capable of reaching the
-brain forms part of this environment and education which is reacting
-on the child. Psychologists are now generally of the opinion that
-the essential elements of the individual character have all been
-definitely formed by the age of five, and that, important as training
-in successive years may be, the environment and education during those
-first five years are more important still.</p>
-
-<p><i>It is the object of education and</i> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span><i>environment to modify and utilise
-the force of the primitive instincts with which the child comes into
-the world in the best possible way.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>Three things may happen to any particular instinct.</i> Firstly, it may
-remain unchanged and unrepressed, in which case the individual will
-be said, on reaching adult life, to be perverted in some way. Let us
-take as an example that instinct which exists in some animals, and
-which urges them at the mating season to exhibit their genital organs
-to their fellows of the opposite sex, with the perfectly natural and
-proper end in view of propagating the species. We occasionally find
-adult human beings in whom this instinct has remained unchanged and
-uncontrolled, and they generally find their way, sooner or later,
-into prison. The psychological term for the offence they commit is
-&#8220;exhibitionism.&#8221; In the small child, however, we have often seen this
-instinct at work, without regarding it as objectionable in any way.
-We have laughed at the little child who delights in running about
-naked, or asks us to come and see it being bathed, or on occasion calls
-even more obvious attention to its state<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> of nakedness. It is quite
-unconscious of the primitive instinct which it is displaying, and since
-it is a child and cannot in any way fulfil the sexual objects of the
-instinct, we pass the matter over, without further thought.</p>
-
-<p>Secondly, our primitive instincts may be <i>displaced</i>, and the
-displacement must be such as to conceal them from our conscious
-thoughts, in order that they may be tolerated by the conscious mind.
-For instance, the normal adult will not be guilty of exhibiting his
-nakedness in the way above referred to, nor will he display desires of
-sexual exhibitionism in a conscious manner. But he, or more frequently
-she, will <i>displace</i> these ideas, and will only call attention to the
-sex of her body indirectly by exhibiting the neck or arms, or more
-indirectly still through the medium of clothes, designed to suggest,
-(for the most part unconsciously) erotic ideas.</p>
-
-<p>Thirdly, a much higher state may be reached by some people in which the
-primitive instinct has now lost entirely its erotic meaning, instead
-of being merely disguised and displaced as in the last case. The force
-and energy of it has all gone from the personal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> physical plane to
-serve a useful social purpose of a non-sexual nature. This is known as
-<i>sublimation</i>, and instead of the desire of our exhibitionist to show
-himself or herself physically, the person may attain the desire by
-showing a fine character, by designing a fine building, achieving some
-high position, or anything in fact of an ideal or non-erotic nature.</p>
-
-<p>Exactly the same process takes place in the opposite of exhibitionism,
-which in its primitive form we term observationism. &#8220;Peeping Tom&#8221; is a
-celebrated example of this. We have a <i>displacement</i> of observationism
-in the fairly average young man, who likes to observe all that he can
-of the charms of every woman he comes into contact with, who takes
-an eager interest in her shoulders, breasts, underclothing, and any
-part she may exhibit. And we have the third or <i>sublimated</i> stage in
-the scientist, who has turned most of his primitive sexual instinct
-of &#8220;looking&#8221; in the sexual sense into looking down the microscope, or
-searching for the secrets of Nature, and delving amidst her hidden
-laws, instead of using the same <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>primitive desire to look in an
-unsublimated and rather more infantile manner.</p>
-
-<p>It is exactly the same with a large number of other primitive
-instincts, which even did I mention them here would not be grasped
-or understood at all by many without very much further explanation.
-Suffice it to say, that many of our higher activities and desires
-are sublimations of lower and more primitive instincts, which we are
-learning to develop and control; <i>and that education and environment
-have, as their object, the training of the child by turning the forces
-at work in his primitive instincts through the stage of displacement
-into the final one of sublimation</i>.</p>
-
-<p>It should be clearly grasped that the energy lying behind our primitive
-instincts, whether it be repressed, displaced or sublimated, is a
-very real force, comparable with the physical energy which we are
-accustomed to deal with in everyday life. <i>And this energy must find
-some outlet for its discharge.</i> Thus,<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" >[2]</a>&#8220;We know as regards physical
-energy that there are not several kinds of energy, but merely several
-manifestations of it, and that it may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> be changed from one form of
-manifestation to another, but that still the sum total of the original
-energy remains without addition or loss.&#8221;</p>
-
-<p>Thus there is a given amount of energy stored in a ton of coal. This
-energy can manifest itself as <i>heat</i> in the furnace and boiler. By
-means of an engine we can change the manifestation into that of
-<i>motion</i>, then with a dynamo to <i>electricity</i>; the electricity we can
-again change into <i>light</i>, or back again into <i>heat</i> or <i>motion</i>. There
-is <i>one</i> energy, but by suitable means we can turn it to different
-uses, and give different manifestations of it. Owing, however, to the
-imperfection of the boiler, machinery, etc., we never transform the
-<i>whole</i> of our energy into another form. In transforming heat into
-electricity, there is always some heat wasted; it is not destroyed, but
-it remains as heat for a time, and is absorbed by surrounding objects.
-A complete transference of energy does not take place, and the less
-efficient the machinery the less is the transference.</p>
-
-<p>Now evidence tends to show a considerable similarity between psychic
-and physical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> energy. In all probability there is only one ultimate
-psychic energy which, like physical energy, can be directed into
-different channels. Thus, the energy of erotic desire can be directed
-to a large extent into the energy of desire for music, religion,
-science, or sport; or the energy of the desire for sport may be changed
-into the energy of the desire for mental exercise, such as chess,
-mathematics, or science. For example, an individual feels &#8220;restless,&#8221;
-he then desires to play tennis; the afternoon is wet: he plays chess
-instead. His psychic energy has been diverted from one channel into
-another with its accompanying excitement and satisfaction of desire:
-with its final feeling of fatigue and repletion.</p>
-
-<p>Psychic energy, like physical energy, can never be entirely diverted
-from one channel to another. There is always some, often a large
-quantity, which is not altered in character. The amount of this depends
-largely on the person concerned, just as the amount of physical energy,
-changed from one form to another depends on the efficiency of the
-engine or machinery.</p>
-
-<p>This possibility of transference of energy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> of desire from one form
-to another is of the utmost importance to the psycho-analyst. By the
-technique of psycho-analysis the energy of repressed desires is first
-freed from deleterious objectives, and then transferred to legitimate
-ones. The energy behind the conflicts which lead to alcoholism or
-drug-taking may, under suitable conditions, be transferred to energy of
-higher types of desire with more suitable outlets. These processes are
-known as <i>transference</i> and <i>sublimation</i> respectively.</p>
-
-<p>It may be taken that every mind has a given amount of psychic energy
-which <i>must</i> find somewhere its suitable outlet in satisfying desire,
-whether for accomplishment or for enjoyment.</p>
-
-<p>We may here again take the opportunity of stating that the efficiency
-or lack of efficiency demonstrated in different individuals in their
-attempts to transfer the energy of desire from a lower to a higher
-channel depends not only on heredity and constitutional circumstances
-but to an extraordinary degree on the individual&#8217;s environment and the
-actions of the parents in the first three or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> four years of his life.
-The reason why seemingly excellent parents produce sometimes execrable
-progeny becomes clearer under psycho-analysis. The over-strict parent
-produces one type of inefficient children, the parent who spoils
-produces other inefficient types. The nurse, the nursery, the casual
-visitor, the trivial conversations, the unconsidered sights and
-experiences, all have a terrific influence in the first few years
-of the child&#8217;s life. Parents do not realise that conventional or
-arbitrary methods of education, whether in one direction or another,
-are not going to effect the results they expected. The primitive
-unconscious mind of the child understands and absorbs in a manner
-that civilised man does not recognise. The bad father may by accident
-or <i>neglect</i> produce an excellent child&mdash;the good father with all
-his designs may produce a bad one. This is not an attempt to show
-that as the child grows up <i>all</i> its actions are dependent on the
-early environment; merely that we can never compare the good or bad
-in individuals; that an apparent failure, owing to his inefficiency
-of powers of sublimation, may yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> be devoting more energy to ascent
-than the successful saint whose early environment made for efficient
-transference of energy of desire. Some of the commonest of errors made
-by well-meaning parents will come to light at a later period. &#8220;<i>They
-teach their children to repress erotic and other desires but they omit
-at the same time to assist the development of that sublimation of them
-which is absolutely essential.</i>&#8221;</p>
-
-<h3>§4</h3>
-
-<p>We now come to the third great factor in character formation, and as
-this particular factor is going to occupy the major portion of this
-book, I will not do more here than indicate briefly the symbolic
-meaning of the term Narcissism; the reason why this term is used in
-connection with our primitive feelings of pride will then gradually
-unfold itself.</p>
-
-<p>Narcissus was the son of the river god, Cephissus. In his mother&#8217;s
-eyes he was extremely beautiful, and later in the eyes of all others,
-including himself. It was his wont to walk abroad in solitary places
-lost in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> admiration of the graceful form which he thought no eyes
-worthy to behold, save his own. On one occasion, he wanted to drink
-from a cool spring and catching sight of his face in the water for
-the first time in his life, at once fell in love with it, not knowing
-it to be his own likeness. On his knees at the edge of the pool, he
-stretched himself, and looked down upon a face and form so entrancingly
-beautiful, that he was ready to leap into the water beside it.</p>
-
-<p>&#8220;Who art thou, who hast been made so fair?&#8221; cried Narcissus. And the
-lips of the image moved, yet there came no answer. He stretched out his
-hand towards it, and the beautiful form beckoned to him. But when his
-hand touched and broke the surface, it vanished like a dream, only to
-return in all its enchantment when he was content to gaze motionless,
-even then, again, growing dim beneath the tears of vexation he shed
-into the water. Repeatedly, he tried to gather the lovely image in his
-arms, but it always eluded him, but when he entreated and implored, it
-imitated his gestures with unfeeling silence. </p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Maddened by the strong allurement of his own likeness, he could not
-tear himself away from the mirror which ever mocked his fancy. Hour
-after hour, day after day, he leant over the pool&#8217;s brink, crying in
-vain for that imaginary object of adoration. But at last from despair
-his heart ceased to throb, and he lay still among the water-lilies that
-made his shroud.</p>
-
-<p class="center">*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*</p>
-
-<p>Before proceeding further and examining the development of Narcissism,
-and those factors which come to preserve it, and make it forceful in
-our unconscious mind, we must first briefly consider the subject of
-determinism.</p>
-
-<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2">[2]</a> &#8220;Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis,&#8221; by Paul
-Bousfield.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2><span>CHAPTER IV</span> <span class="smaller">DETERMINISM AND WILL POWER</span></h2>
-
-<p>Determinism is the doctrine that all things, including the will, are
-determined by causes. It is the antithesis of the doctrine of free
-will. In its complete form, it holds that the individual has no direct
-and voluntary control over his thoughts and actions but that every
-thought and action is inevitably the result of a large number of
-previous thoughts and actions which have gone before.</p>
-
-<p>There is a very large amount of evidence, and indeed, whether we admit
-it or not, the evidence is quite irrefutable, that in regard to the
-majority of our actions the doctrine of determinism holds good. But the
-evidence is by no means sufficient to enable us to conclude that we
-have no free will.</p>
-
-<p><a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" >[3]</a>Freud in his book on the &#8220;Psychopathology of Everyday Life&#8221; and in
-other works gives many convincing examples that much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> in our character,
-that many of our actions, evil and good, are quite beyond our control
-at any given moment. But there is one thing that appears to have been
-overlooked, and that is, <i>that in all the examples given one could
-not conceivably utilise free will in any case</i>. If I ask you to think
-of a number what opportunity do you get of using your will power?
-If you put the wrong latch-key into the door by accident, have you
-made any effort to use will power? When a patient is suffering from
-hysteria due to repressions of various kinds, in that particular matter
-<i>the will power has already been lost</i>. When a chronic alcoholic is
-unable to cease from drinking his will power in reference to this has
-disappeared, therefore determinism holds the field completely. The
-will has no opportunity of working then. In all the examples which
-Freud gives one discovers on careful investigation that for some reason
-or another there is no opportunity for the use of free will. Such
-evidence as we have certainly does not prove the nonexistence of free
-will, but merely shows that in a very large number of our thoughts and
-actions we do not use any will at all, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> that in other cases we are
-unable to use our will effectively.<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4" >[4]</a> When determinism does rule we
-may liken it physically to this: a patient sits down and crosses one
-leg over the other and leaves the one leg hanging free. On tapping
-it smartly beneath the patella the foot will kick; the knee jerk has
-been elicited. If this be done fifty times the result will be the
-same fifty times. There is movement of the leg, but this movement is
-predetermined. On the other hand this does not prove that no other
-movement of the leg is possible. Under the conditions just given the
-man&#8217;s will, or the freedom of the leg, is merely <i>eliminated during
-that period</i>. Or again, we may liken it to a locomotive standing at the
-top of a hill; if the brake be taken off, the locomotive will run down
-the hill, and will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> do it every time; but this will not prove that did
-somebody happen to put the brake on half-way down the hill the engine
-would still go on running. However, all actions which we may ascribe to
-our will are no doubt strictly limited by other determined conditions.
-The man on the engine may run it backwards or forwards, but only within
-<i>the very much prescribed limits which the rails allow</i>. We may safely
-accept this much determinism, that although the will exists, its
-capabilities are strictly circumscribed by determinism.</p>
-
-<p>It is rather in his general direction than in any specific act that
-a man has most control. We certainly have not the amount of free
-will which we like to believe we have. For example, the reader of
-this chapter may have returned home to-night and have said, &#8220;I will
-not have a meal to-night, it is too hot.&#8221; What are the factors (or
-determinants, as they are called) in this case? Perhaps external heat,
-producing langour by various physiological processes, combined with
-lack of appetite, in its turn produced by several causes, and added to
-this, depression, produced by a bad business deal, and in its turn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> the
-result of many other determinants outside the reader&#8217;s control. There
-is no desire to eat, and these various determinants, added together,
-prove stronger than the habit of eating the evening meal. Having,
-however, read this chapter as far as this point, the reader desiring to
-disprove my unpleasant suggestion, immediately says, &#8220;Ah! I will prove
-that I have free will. I will eat my meal in spite of not wanting it.&#8221;</p>
-
-<p>Alas! this does not <i>prove</i> free will, new determinants have merely
-been added on the other side, and desire to prove strength of mind has
-now out-weighed accumulated efforts which prevented you from eating.</p>
-
-<p>Since it has been shown that a man&#8217;s control is constantly being
-limited by other determinants, it follows that the criminal whose
-environment and determinants, conscious and unconscious, have been
-manufactured for him from evil sources, yet who, on the whole, is
-progressing upwards in spite of these, may be forming a far better
-character than the arch-bishop whose environment from the beginning has
-been such as never to give him criminal characteristics,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> yet whose
-growth has been, on the whole, towards a more selfish position, even
-though this be not noticeable to the eyes of others.</p>
-
-<p><i>Now many of the determinants forming our characters lie in the
-unconscious. They are unknown to us and only the results of their
-activities are visible. Herein lies the difficulty of controlling
-ourselves. How can we efficiently control that of which we do not know
-the existence? Herein, also, lies the value of psycho-analysis, for it
-brings many of these determinants to light, and we are thus able to
-control them consciously.</i> Only a part of all this can be accomplished
-by such self-analysis as may be indicated in this book. Yet even so, a
-much greater degree of self-control may be obtained.</p>
-
-<h3>§2</h3>
-
-<p>Let us now consider briefly why persons who have not previously been
-irritable, should suddenly become irritable; who have not previously
-been hysterical, should suddenly become hysterical; who have not
-previously been in the habit of weeping, should at some time after
-reaching adult life, revert to that infantile habit. </p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>The explanation of mental troubles of various kinds involves two
-factors. In the first place, any individual is capable of bearing a
-certain amount of conflict and a certain amount of repression. It is
-only when the accumulated force is more than he can control, <i>that is
-when new determinants are added</i>, that the symptoms begin to appear. He
-is like a steam engine in which as long as the steam is being used up
-in doing work, or as long as the safety valve is working efficiently
-when work is not being done, the boiler stands a pressure of 100lbs.
-very comfortably. If the safety valve gets jammed, and the energy
-cannot be transferred from the steam to the work, the pressure in the
-boiler rises higher and higher until it bursts from the joints and
-rivet-holes.</p>
-
-<p>The second factor which determines the mode of expression of this
-out-burst of repressed energy is known as the <i>law of regression</i>.
-This means that if the adult outlet of energy becomes dammed up or is
-insufficient, <i>the energy will flow through an earlier channel which
-has once been used</i>. The individual will, in fact, revert to some
-method which he was wont to use in earlier years,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> or in infancy. It
-is true that this may be disguised and not recognised as an infantile
-mode of expression until it is looked into more closely. This question
-of regression, however, need not be more than touched upon here. It
-will be much more fully dealt with when we come to actual examples at a
-later stage.</p>
-
-<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3">[3]</a> &#8220;The Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis,&#8221; by Paul
-Bousfield.</p>
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4">[4]</a> The doctrines of determinism and free-will respectively
-can be brought entirely into line with one another if we include
-freewill itself as one of the determinants. Thus, if in the formula</p>
-
-<p class="center">S = a + b + c + d + etc.</p>
-
-<p>where S is the resultant action, and a, b, c, d, etc., are the several
-determinants, it happens that d = 0. The presence of d does not
-invalidate the formula. <i>But if</i> d <i>does not happen to be zero, the
-absence of</i> d <i>would invalidate the formula</i>. If d represents the
-&#8220;will&#8221; component there may be plenty, even a majority of cases in which
-d = 0, but there may be cases in which the omission of d will render
-the result erroneous.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2><span>CHAPTER V</span> <span class="smaller">NARCISSISM</span></h2>
-
-<p>The term Narcissism has already been mentioned and some slight
-indication of its importance in character development has been given.
-We have also examined the derivation of the term, and found that it
-implies self-interest, self-importance, self-worship; all of which
-characteristics are in modified degrees possessed by everybody. There
-are, however, many other manifestations of Narcissism, many tricks by
-which it gets past our conscious intentions, many ways in which it
-associates itself with other instincts, and unknown to us works our
-undoing. We shall therefore, in this chapter, examine the development
-of Narcissism from its very earliest stages, and trace out in some
-detail whither it may lead.</p>
-
-<p>Most people were they asked at what moment the child&#8217;s mind first
-began to register feelings, thoughts, and emotions, would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> probably at
-once and without hesitation say, &#8220;At the moment of birth.&#8221; It seems
-the obvious thing to say, but like many other obvious things such a
-statement appears to have but little evidence in support of it and much
-against it.</p>
-
-<p>The act of birth has performed no sudden or miraculous change upon the
-growth and tissues of the body. It is true that oxygen is now absorbed
-through the lungs instead of as originally through the mother&#8217;s blood,
-but the essential tissues, the brain, the muscles and the bones have
-undergone no sudden change. Before birth, they were living tissues,
-and we know that the muscles were at work, for we had felt the baby&#8217;s
-movements <i>in utero</i>; we know that the heart was at work, driving
-the blood through the child&#8217;s arteries. We had learnt this also by
-means of the stethoscope many weeks before the child was born. Why
-then should we assume that the brain had registered nothing at birth?
-We do indeed know that it must have been at work in part, for it was
-learning to regulate the action of the child&#8217;s heart and the child&#8217;s
-secretions, the blood pressure, and the motions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> of its limbs. We are
-therefore justified in assuming that it must be capable of registering
-impressions, even though it were incapable of reason or thought.</p>
-
-<p>It is true that at birth it commences to undergo many vivid new
-experiences, but that is no reason for assuming that it has not
-undergone any experiences <i>in utero</i>, and that these experiences have
-not made some impressions on the brain. Let us see for a moment what
-impressions it is likely to have received and registered. First of
-all, it would most certainly hear sounds, the sounds of the blood
-rushing through the mother&#8217;s arteries and the sounds from the outer
-world, muffled and indistinct when they had penetrated the mother&#8217;s
-body. All these sounds would be of a soft crooning nature, and those
-caused by the blood in the mother&#8217;s arteries would be of a rhythmic,
-humming, rising and falling nature, a kind of rhythmic lullaby very
-similar in many respects to the lullaby the mother will hum to the
-child when she wishes to put it to sleep at a later period. We should
-expect these sounds to be registered on the child&#8217;s brain so that if
-it ever heard their like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> again, some chord of <i>feeling-memory</i> would
-be struck, and some emotional association brought to mind. In the
-second place, external movements would be registered on the child&#8217;s
-mind as the mother walked about. There would be a swaying or swinging
-movement. Again we should expect that when, in after life, the child
-experienced a swaying or swinging movement, a chord of memory would be
-touched again, and these earlier associations would be revived; not as
-a conscious memory or fact, of course, but as a feeling.</p>
-
-<p>Again, conscious movements of its own limbs might be impressed upon it.
-It would find, when it tried to move, that its movements were limited,
-and that it attained more perfect peace by refraining from attempting
-to struggle and change its position. It would be impressed by the
-pleasantness of inertia as opposed to the unpleasantness of making
-an effort. And finally, its general position with the knees drawn up
-and the chin bent down would be firmly registered, so that when in
-after-life it again assumed this position, once more the chord of
-memory<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> would be struck, and the old feeling of repose would be likely
-to return.</p>
-
-<p>Now, we cannot assume that the child has any active mental state before
-its birth, but we know that its condition (taken in conjunction with
-its extremely limited experience) is one as near omnipotence (from its
-standpoint) as may be. It breathes, or rather absorbs oxygen without
-any effort of breathing. It is fed, it is kept warm and comfortable
-without any effort whatsoever. It lives in a world entirely its own,
-where everything works together for its comfort and well-being. It has
-to make no struggle for existence. It has to deal with nothing <i>real</i>,
-save perhaps that its voluntary movements are limited, and this perhaps
-is bad for its education, since at that period of its life it learns
-that it can be most comfortable by making least effort! And here we see
-the beginning of that which we all possess in after-life, <i>inertia</i>,
-the difficulty of making a beginning at anything, the objection which
-we have to making efforts.</p>
-
-<p>Now let us see what happens to this omnipotent little creature at
-birth. It goes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> through the probably painful process of having its
-position roughly changed and being thrust into an atmosphere which is
-cold and unusual to it. Moreover it has to make its first struggle for
-breath, its first effort to sustain existence. And in its struggle for
-breath it utters cries, which by experience it very soon finds to be
-magic sounds which enable it to fulfil its wishes. But of this, more
-later.</p>
-
-<p>After its first rude awakening, let us once more see what happens. It
-is wrapped up in something warm; that is, it is returned to a semblance
-of the womb, by having something round it which keeps out the cold. It
-is gently rocked to and fro by the nurse or other attendant, and again
-the semblance of the previous rocking in the womb is returned to it.
-Crooning sounds are murmured over it, and the semblance is still more
-complete. It frequently draws its knees up somewhat if it is placed in
-such a position that it can do so with ease, and falls asleep. It has
-attained as nearly as possible once more the semblance of its pre-birth
-condition, where it has no cares, and is warm and comfortable again.
-And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> though it has become acquainted with effort, it is quite obvious
-that its feeling of omnipotence, if we may so term it for the moment,
-is hardly yet disturbed, and the world it has come into differs but
-slightly from the world which it has left; it is still a world in which
-the infant is the centre and ruler, in which its every want is attended
-to without an effort on its part, save that it may sometimes have to
-call attention to its wants by means of that magical cry which it soon
-learns how and when to use, and which acts in a truly magical manner in
-accomplishing the fulfilment of all its desires.</p>
-
-<p>During the first few weeks of the infant&#8217;s life this delusion on the
-part of the child is largely kept up. Few people think there is any
-harm in attending to all a baby&#8217;s wants in the first month of its
-life. They do not think it could possibly be wrong to spoil it at that
-age, because its intellect has not developed. They forget entirely
-that its mental condition and attitude towards life, apart from actual
-thought, may inevitably be affected at this period. Hence, whenever
-the baby cries, it is not uncommonly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> rocked to sleep, or fed, or if
-it holds out its hand and shows its desire to possess anything, it is
-immediately allowed to possess it, and to play with it. It has to make
-but the faintest attempts to adjust itself to its environment, it has
-to face but the slightest reality; all its desires are immediately
-fulfilled, and kept in a condition of almost continual fulfilment. And
-it may remain for a considerable period as near being an omnipotent
-creature as it is possible for any living thing to be. Its omnipotence,
-however, is really a fallacy, or as I prefer to term it at a slightly
-later stage, a phantasy, for the world in which it lived before birth,
-which seemed to it as a world, was not really a world at all, but a
-very small and a very temporary abode, and the world in which it is
-living for the first few months after birth is again not really a world
-but a combination of extremely limited and carefully selected portions
-of the world, in which every attempt is made to disguise from it the
-realities of the actual world.</p>
-
-<p>Again let us emphasise the fact that the chief effort that the infant
-has to make is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> the effort of crying. And it may learn very quickly
-that this is so all-powerful as to practically efface the unpleasant
-task of having to adjust itself to the realities of life. This process
-is carried on with slight modifications for many months. The infant has
-but to wave a magic wand, as it were, has but to emit a little magic
-noise from its mouth, and all the world it knows is set in motion to
-give it satisfaction and some semblance of its pre-birth omnipotence.</p>
-
-<p><i>This cry which brings it gratification, if it has been really
-effective over a too-prolonged period, will tend to fix permanently
-in the child&#8217;s mind the fact that either weeping or making a magic
-noise with the mouth will always attain for it gratification. And
-although at a later stage the conscious mind will be obliged to accept
-a considerable amount of reality and to reject the idea of omnipotence,
-yet the unconscious mind will persist in the struggle and will make
-futile efforts to forget reality, to change reality into phantasy, and
-to regain its omnipotent state.</i></p>
-
-<p>When a man uses expletives because some task of his has failed to
-result in success, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> is really repeating the infant&#8217;s cry. He is
-really uttering a magic sound which his unconscious mind hopes may
-somehow remedy the failure. He has not definitely accepted the reality
-of failure as a commonplace hard fact of life at the moment at which he
-utters his expletive.</p>
-
-<p>When a person weeps at some unpleasant happening or in anger at
-something which has touched his pride, exactly the same is taking
-place. He, or she, has failed to make a complete adaptation of
-himself to the facts and realities of life. <i>He has obeyed the law
-of regression</i>, to which I referred in a previous chapter, and has
-returned to the infantile method of expression, namely weeping, with
-the unconscious hope that a magic compensation will result; that
-instead of his having to adapt himself to the facts of life, the facts
-of life will somehow adapt themselves to his phantasy.</p>
-
-<p>Hence, the first piece of advice that one must give to parents is
-that they should, from the earliest possible moment, train the
-infant to understand that the magic cries will not at once produce
-their expected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> result; and the first week in the infant&#8217;s life is
-all-important in this matter. The choosing of the nurse who has charge
-during that period should be done with great care, and what is required
-of her should be insisted on. Too great emphasis cannot be laid upon
-these points.</p>
-
-<p>The child should be fed at regular and proper intervals, and should
-be kept warm. But if it cries, as it will do naturally, it should be
-left to itself to cry. It should not be picked up, rocked to sleep,
-given another meal nor petted. If it is left to cry, it will learn very
-rapidly and at the right period of its life that the sounds which it
-emits are not magical, and it will begin to adapt itself to the fact
-that it lives in a real world which has not been built solely and only
-for its own delight.</p>
-
-<p>It is curious to note how regression, this instinct to return to the
-earlier mode of expression, to return apparently even to the pre-birth
-state, persists in the unconscious mind.</p>
-
-<p>During the war, I knew a youth who was intensely agitated by the
-air-raids. He felt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> perfectly safe, however, if he could crawl under
-the bed or table, where he would curl himself into practically the same
-position as that of a normal baby before birth. When questioned, he had
-not, of course, the slightest conscious knowledge of why he felt safe
-in such curious circumstances. But it does not seem improbable that
-the association of ideas produced by his position and by the confined
-space created a feeling akin to that feeling of safety which has been
-his in his pre-birth omnipotent position where nothing could harm him.
-A similar feeling of security was experienced by many normal persons in
-cellars and other confined spaces and was probably of the same origin;
-for there is no doubt that this safety was felt even though their
-reason told them that a bomb was as likely to reach their confined
-space as any other place in the neighbourhood.</p>
-
-<p>Again, I know of innumerable cases in which soldiers felt very much
-safer from bombs which fell at night when they were under cover of a
-canvas tent. Logically, of course, the thing was absurd; emotionally,
-it was a fact. And all were equally unconscious of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> any possible
-reasons for the feeling of security produced. An example of this same
-tendency at an earlier age is seen in children who cover their heads
-with the bedclothes when they are frightened.</p>
-
-<p>To return to our Narcissistic infant, we are now impressed with the
-fact that one thing of the utmost importance in the first years of its
-life is that it shall gradually come into contact with reality, shall
-discover that all things do not belong to it, that its omnipotent
-feelings are based purely upon phantasy and not upon reality; and upon
-the method of its disillusionment and the age at which this begins
-largely depend the future powers of adaptation of the child to its
-surroundings. It has now become obvious that the new-born infant lives
-in a world of phantasy, in which, the relative importance of itself to
-things outside itself is not merely distorted but is entirely absent.
-And if we can suppose a child kept artificially in this condition till
-it reached adult life, every wish satisfied instantaneously, every
-force it knows directed entirely towards gratifying its immediate
-desires, we do not require much imagination<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> to understand how
-absolutely helpless and lost this omnipotent creature would be if
-suddenly turned into the world to face life and reality. His one desire
-would be to return to his omnipotent state, his one effort to keep at
-bay reality and turn it into the pleasant phantasy of the previous
-twenty years. For he would surely, before his disillusionment, have
-really come to believe himself omnipotent, the only real thing in a
-phantasy world of his own fashioning and dreaming.</p>
-
-<p>An extreme case of this kind is, of course, an impossibility. But there
-are many and various degrees in which it is approached. Probably the
-nearest approach to it may be found in cases where some sort of moral
-or mental conflict has been too much for an extremely Narcissistic
-mind, which has then completely regressed, refused to recognise the
-outer world, and developed a certain form of insanity; and from this
-stage of complete Narcissistic regression all degrees and kinds of
-manifestations of it may be found, until we reach at the other end of
-our list a person who expects everyone around to consult his wishes
-and peculiarities or who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> is merely somewhat impatient, or inclined to
-irritability, or merely over-sensitive to either mental or physical
-pain.</p>
-
-<p>There is no more certain fact than that if an infant be allowed to
-postpone its acquaintance with reality too long it becomes fixed in a
-more or less degree in conditions in which phantasy plays too prominent
-a part, and regression of some kind takes place as it meets with real
-difficulties.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2><span>CHAPTER VI</span> <span class="smaller">FACT AND PHANTASY</span></h2>
-
-<p>In the last chapter we emphasised the fact that one of the first
-products of Narcissism was the infantile difficulty of distinguishing
-between fact and phantasy, of realising the world outside oneself. This
-tendency to mix up fact with phantasy is by no means only to be found
-in an abnormal mind. It is present in some degree in all persons; each
-one feels himself to be the most real thing present, and in feeling
-this he has a tendency to believe that others round him are in some way
-less real, though, fortunately, very few carry it far enough to imagine
-that all the others are merely part of a dream in which the dreamer is
-the only real figure, as the Red King in &#8220;Alice Through the Looking
-Glass&#8221; is supposed to have done, when the remark is made to Alice,
-&#8220;You&#8217;re only a sort of thing in his dream! If that there king<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> was to
-wake you would go out bang&mdash;just like a candle!&#8221;</p>
-
-<p>And yet quite a large number of people find it difficult to realise
-firstly, that they must die, and secondly that the rest of the world
-will not die also when they die. They know, of course, that this
-latter is not the case, yet they cannot look upon it as a commonplace
-fact. Their Narcissism refuses to contemplate their own mortality. It
-represses the fact and leaves the idea vague and unreal to them.</p>
-
-<p>In children, the difficulty of distinguishing between phantasy and
-reality is quite normally much more accentuated than in adults.
-And since they start in a world of phantasy and their training is
-to lead them to a world of reality, it is obvious that the halfway
-stages will be obscured by a strange mixture of the two. All children
-go through the stage in which phantasy and reality are by no means
-clearly differentiated, and most young children succeed, day by day, in
-fulfilling impossible wishes in phantasies in a manner which a properly
-developed adult can never do. </p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>A little boy desires to possess a pony; if this be impossible his
-imagination gives life to a rocking-horse, and failing that he may
-tie a piece of string to a chair, and with great pleasure and much
-emotion urge on his fiery untamed steed across mountain and desert.
-He fulfils his wishes immediately by means of a phantasy, which, for
-the time being, successfully replaces reality. If this child grows up
-normally, this possibility of phantastic fulfilment should gradually
-disappear. How many adults, for instance, could take a bath-tub into
-their dining-room, sit in it, and with the aid of a vivid imagination
-thoroughly enjoy a pleasant sail at sea? We trust no one, at any
-rate of our readers, for they would be of that type which has no
-perspective, and they would most certainly fail in their vocation as
-practical men and women. Yet remnants of phantasy thinking remain with
-everyone, and in a moderate degree, so far as we know, such remnants do
-but little harm if they are present in small measure only, and kept in
-water-tight compartments.</p>
-
-<p>Adult phantasy thinking very largely <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>consists in what is known as
-identification, which may be either conscious or unconscious. Of this,
-we shall have more to say shortly. At the moment let us trace out what
-should happen to the normal child as it grows older. Education and
-environment should be gradually convincing the child of the unreality
-of its phantastic thoughts and of its early world, should be inducing
-it to think in terms of facts and to adjust himself to these facts,
-instead of attempting the impossible task of adjusting these facts to
-suit his own phantastic conceptions of them. The method of thought
-which he should develop in order thus to fit himself to meet the
-world adequately has been conveniently termed &#8220;directive thinking.&#8221;
-Directive thinking is controlled thought based upon facts seen in their
-true perspective, and with a purpose in view which is both definite
-and possible. It is the very opposite of phantasy thinking, which is
-generally indefinite, based upon a lack of perspective, and attempts
-continually to obtain the fulfilment of wishes impossible of fulfilment.</p>
-
-<p>In directive thinking, the purpose in view<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> must be purposive to the
-thinker, a change to be produced in the world, either in its happiness,
-its morals, its commercial prosperity or in other forms of progress
-or even of deterioration; or the purpose may be to effect changes in
-the individual&#8217;s own happiness or prosperity, or it may be directed
-towards a mental change in the thinker himself with no immediate idea
-of changes in his external surroundings.</p>
-
-<p>Thus a man may wish to improve his own character by eradicating a bad
-habit. He may do this by thinking carefully about it, by analysing the
-causes of the habit, by giving himself auto-suggestion in opposition to
-the habit. All this, even if the habit may not in the end be eradicated
-must be classed as directive thinking. <i>Directive thinking is thus
-obviously, controlled thinking requiring an effort of attention and
-concentration as opposed to phantasy thinking which knows but little
-control save that of desire, and little effort or concentration.</i></p>
-
-<p>In all the business of everyday life, directive thinking must be
-employed; whether we are merely using our minds to decide the most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
-trivial problem, such as the best way of eradicating weeds from the
-garden, or whether we are deciding upon a policy to be pursued in some
-great commercial or political enterprise. Every time we use our brains
-in directive thinking we are establishing a habit which gradually gives
-us power to produce changes in our environment and in the world in
-general. Every time we indulge in phantasy thinking we encourage the
-habit of living in a world of our own ideas, and we are destroying the
-habit which enables us to create in reality.</p>
-
-<p>The two forms of thinking may, of course, overlap considerably. The
-novelist or playwright, for instance, is very largely a phantasy
-thinker. He may feel the emotions of the various phantasy characters
-which he evolves, but in order to arrange the words and sentences,
-and furthermore in having an idea to portray or in drawing attention
-to evils which he thinks should be remedied, he is using considerable
-energy in directive thought. So that it becomes obvious that directive
-thought need not merely apply to the things of the immediate present
-nor even the near<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> future, and in trying to draw distinction between
-the two, one is often confronted with a superficial criticism, that
-certain ideas must pertain to phantasy thinking, because they can never
-come to pass. That, however, is quite incorrect. The possibility that
-an idea may come to fruition in two or three hundred years time, and
-that the thoughts which have been given to the idea must assist its
-growth and ripening, is sufficient to constitute these thoughts as
-directive.</p>
-
-<p>We must now look at the second important element in the child&#8217;s early
-education, which would follow logically upon the first one that it
-should be made to face the facts around it; and that is, that in its
-games and occupations it should be encouraged, as far as possible, to
-take lines of directive thought, and not obtain its pleasures through
-phantasies only.</p>
-
-<p>Thus, it would be much better to give him bricks to play with, so that
-he may use directive thought in designing and building a house, than
-to give him a ready-made toy, such as an engine wherewith he will
-merely carry out the phantasy of being a driver or a passenger and of
-travelling wheresoever he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> wishes. A toy wheel-barrow which he can take
-into the garden and fill with real stones and earth is far better than
-a doll which he will merely imagine to be something to be brought up
-like himself, which he will endow with phantastic life and feelings
-which are quite unreal. In fact, as far as possible, the child&#8217;s games
-and occupations should involve his <i>doing</i> something, rather than
-merely imagining something. Of course, imagination and phantasy will
-come into its games, and are bound to do so, but as much directive
-thought as possible should be added.</p>
-
-<p>The ordinary fairy-tale should be swept from the nursery; here the
-child does nothing but identify himself with the hero or heroine in
-the most impossible of situations of a purely phantastic type. There
-is plenty of scope for giving a child an interest in stories from the
-fairy-land of science, or from the lives of famous persons in the
-centuries that have passed; all of which, if properly selected and
-dressed up, will assist the child&#8217;s directive thought. For though
-the facts with which the stories may deal are as wonderful as any of
-Grimm&#8217;s fairy-tales, <i>they are facts of which</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> <i>the child will never
-have to be undeceived, and he will never have to have his faith shaken
-in the stories which he has learnt</i>; thus the child will learn from the
-outset to think directively.</p>
-
-<p>I know that many mothers, when they read this, will be inclined to
-shake their heads and say to themselves, &#8220;Poor little darling, I could
-never treat it so.&#8221; And that they will be inclined, as is shown very
-early in this book, to say &#8220;These things cannot be true,&#8221; for they are
-not the ideas they are accustomed to. Yet I can assure them that by
-means of carrying out many of those actions and teachings which they
-think are pleasant and harmless, they are really damning the child,
-while many of these ideas which they might term cruel are really of
-the greatest value and kindness to it. Moreover, experience has shown
-that if diplomacy be used, the child will be as equally interested in
-wonderful facts as in wonderful phantasies. The only difference is
-that it is more trouble to the parent or educator to search out and
-deal with facts himself. It is quite true that the child&#8217;s imagination
-requires training, as part of its intellectual education. But there
-is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> vast difference between encouraging it to imagine the possibility
-of impossible things, and encouraging it to exercise its imagination
-in realisation of facts, however far they may be removed from the
-experience of everyday life. Many people have the idea that a child
-should be encouraged to use its imagination; whereas in fact the
-child&#8217;s imagination requires curbing, training, sublimating. Such
-people do not realise that the early life of a child is lived almost
-entirely in imagination, that it has no difficulty whatsoever in using
-its imagination, and that the real difficulty is in preventing it from
-using too much imagination directed into false channels and by-paths of
-permanent unreality.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2><span>CHAPTER VII</span> <span class="smaller">IDENTIFICATION</span></h2>
-
-<p>We must now traverse another path through which Narcissism wanders. We
-have emphasised the fact that when a child comes into the world, he is
-to himself the only real thing; the rest of the world is merely seen
-from his phantastic view point, and at this stage he accepts himself as
-the one all-powerful centre of everything. Another important fact which
-arises from this, however, we have not dealt with, and that is, that he
-does not separate the outer world from himself as a separate entity.
-His unconscious view point is that the world is subordinate to himself,
-beneath his omnipotent control, if you like, that it is a dream of his
-own imagining, that it is something which belongs to him in every sense
-of the word. This, summed up, means that it is part of himself, that
-his identity and the identity of the dream-world around him are part of
-the same thing. </p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Thus, the infant does not at first distinguish between himself and his
-mother. When he is hungry, he cries, and he probably has almost as
-ready access to his mother&#8217;s breasts as if they were part of his own
-body. And such imagination is more than encouraged when he is allowed
-the use of a rubber teat to suck in the intervals between his meals.</p>
-
-<p>It is generally a comparatively slow process through which the infant
-passes, this one of separating himself in thought and feeling from
-objects surrounding him. It is one which is hardly ever completely
-accomplished. We have already mentioned the fairy-tale which encourages
-the child&#8217;s phantasy thought. Let us now see how he really obtains
-pleasure from that fairy-tale. It is by identification. In imagination
-he is a fairy prince or princess, as the case may be; his pleasure in
-the triumphs and progress of the central figure of the story is that
-of performing his prodigious deeds by proxy; and if he thus identifies
-himself with the hero of the story, he is also encouraged to believe
-that he possesses the power and qualities of that hero. He is less able
-to realise that he,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> unlike the hero, cannot perform magic deeds with a
-mere wave of a wand. Indeed, when the story is over, he will probably
-play at being a fairy, and in phantasy perform the magic deeds again.</p>
-
-<p>This demonstrates the force of his identification with the hero of the
-story. <i>And it must be remembered that sooner or later the child will
-have to wake up, will have to realise that it possesses no magic power,
-and the struggle within it will be great.</i> It is obviously a mistaken
-form of kindness to enhance such pleasures of the moment, when you are
-merely accentuating the struggle which the child will have to make at
-a later period to overcome his Narcissism. In passing, I may mention
-that you have probably already done the child considerable damage by
-allowing him to have his rubber teat at the beginning of this period of
-identification, since he identifies it with the mother&#8217;s breast, and is
-thus encouraged to think that the breast is always with him.</p>
-
-<p>Let us now see where this Narcissistic identification may come out
-later in life.</p>
-
-<p>First of all, it is this which enables us to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> enjoy novels, just as
-we enjoyed fairy-tales as children. We identify ourselves with the
-hero or heroine of the book, and in phantasy perform their various
-wonderful feats. Thus we satisfy our Narcissistic desire to be great
-and powerful. If we lack cleverness, and the hero is clever, by
-identification and imputation we may attain the pleasures of feeling
-clever and superior. If the heroine is beautiful and everyone falls in
-love with her, we may by proxy be the same. If the hero is a sailor,
-and we have always desired to sail, yet have never been on the sea,
-our ambition is now attained&mdash;and see how easily attained&mdash;in a truly
-omnipotent fashion, without effort on our part, just by reading
-about it. Exactly the same thing takes place at theatres, where the
-Narcissist identifies himself with the actors on the stage. So far
-so good; if a person can content himself with an occasional theatre
-or occasional novel, wherewith to take a restful regression to an
-infantile outlet of energy, no harm is done. There are times when we
-must rest, and there are times when we must sleep, which also appears
-to be Narcissistic regression to a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> condition somewhat resembling
-our pre-birth state. But there are many who cannot control their
-identification in this way, who cannot confine it to the stage and the
-novel, who bring it into the affairs of life continuously. They may
-unconsciously identify themselves with their father or mother, their
-relations or friends, or even their enemies, and perhaps, in turn, with
-everyone with whom they come into contact. Like a looking-glass, they
-reflect everything that goes on around them. They feel the pleasures of
-their friends, they also feel their pains. They are called sympathetic,
-they are often ultra-sympathetic&mdash;they are a nuisance.</p>
-
-<p>I remember on one occasion I had asked a woman of strong Narcissistic
-temperament to take a fly out of the corner of my eye. She absolutely
-refused to do so under any consideration, as she was sure she would
-hurt me too much. Inquiry showed that Narcissism had exaggerated her
-own feelings, so that a speck of dust in her own eye was torture. Yet
-her eye was so tender and important to herself that she could not bear
-anyone to touch it even in order to get something out.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> <i>And she could
-not imagine that anybody else could have feelings that differed from
-hers</i>; and since she identified herself so much with other people, I
-have no doubt it would have been a real agony to her, had she attempted
-to extract the fly from my eye.</p>
-
-<p>Such people are by no means uncommon. We all know the person who cannot
-bear to hurt us, even for our good. For instance, some cannot bear to
-bandage a wound for us since they cannot bear to see pain in any form.
-They state that it is almost as if they felt it themselves, and they
-call themselves &#8220;sympathetic.&#8221; But in spite of popular belief to the
-contrary, such sympathy is not a virtue, there is nothing altruistic
-about it; it is an inconvenient fault of an entirely selfish kind. In
-order to help one&#8217;s friend, one does not need to feel his feelings and
-suffer his pains, one wants to understand them; the more one enters
-into his feelings, the more one&#8217;s judgment is biased, and the less one
-is able, as a rule, to be of assistance. Worse still, in connection
-with these people, they not only pour out sympathy in this way,
-but attribute it to themselves as a virtue, and they cannot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> bring
-themselves to believe their friends to be really good, unless their
-friends also can react in a similar way towards them. They call a
-normal person unsympathetic, perhaps exaggerate the term and call him
-brutal, wishing indeed that their friends who have climbed higher from
-Narcissism should regress to their lower stand-point.</p>
-
-<p>I have given here but one type of Narcissistic identification with
-other persons; it seems to me unnecessary to carry it further since
-any reader who chooses to think the matter out for himself will find
-endless modifications of such identifications. We all possess it in
-part, and on the whole women are more Narcissistic than men. Let it
-not be thought, however, that this is a reflection on women; it is a
-reflection on the way they have been brought up, for from the earliest
-times environment impresses them with the idea that &#8220;little boys are
-made of slugs and snails and puppy-dogs&#8217; tails, and little girls are
-made of sugar and spice and all things nice!&#8221; And hence on such lines
-as these, their Narcissism is encouraged, and their capabilities of
-facing fact and reality<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> discouraged from the very outset, until
-differences of temperament are produced in the adults of the two sexes,
-which in no way belong to Nature, but purely to our conventional and
-somewhat barbaric stand-point.</p>
-
-<p>There are yet more important results of Narcissistic identification
-than those already mentioned; Narcissism leads, in many instances, to
-the choice of a particular love-object. Narcissism is, of course, by no
-means the only or chief factor in the choice of love-objects, as anyone
-who has studied psycho-analysis will at once realise. It is, however,
-the only one I intend to touch on in this particular work.</p>
-
-<p>Just as the mythical Narcissus himself fell in love with his
-reflection, so does his prototype of to-day. An infant is not only
-the omnipotent centre of all, he is also the only interesting portion
-of the universe in his early days. His interests are entirely
-self-centred, and his joys and pleasures belong to himself alone; and
-as he grows older, everything that is like him is identified with
-himself. In the worst form of Narcissism in the adult, the individual
-remains entirely selfish, and is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> incapable of loving anybody outside
-himself at all.</p>
-
-<p><i>By identification, however, he can love in a sense those attributes of
-his own personality which he sees in other persons.</i> Thus, he may love
-somebody for a facial similarity, for a voice which is like his, or for
-tastes which are like his own, but most commonly he loves them for a
-body like his own. And from this we see that he may fall in love with
-somebody of his own sex. Hence, homo-sexuality,<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5" >[5]</a> as it is called,
-is frequently one of the distressing results of an early Narcissistic
-upbringing. But it need not be necessary for such homo-sexuality to
-be of a grossly erotic type; such desires may be for the most part
-repressed in the unconscious, or appear only in minor ways such as
-the desire to kiss, fondle or touch favoured persons of the same sex.
-On the other hand, frequently the early education and environment of
-the Narcissistic person has been such as to leave him quite incapable
-of complete repression; and we then have expressed more or less
-open erotic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> desires and actions for persons of the same sex. Such
-persons, however, should not be treated as criminals in this particular
-matter; they are by this time as hopelessly incompetent to deal with
-themselves, as is the kleptomaniac or a person having any other form
-of so-called degenerate mentality. Here again, we see the reason why
-homo-sexuality is so much more rife amongst women than amongst men. The
-minor details of their early environment tend so much more to confirm
-them in Narcissism. It is partially repressed and partially displaced
-homo-sexuality which causes some women to kiss one another, to call one
-another by affectionate names and so forth, to delight in taking hold
-of one another&#8217;s hands on occasion; actions which normally, between
-persons of opposite sex, would at once be taken to indicate some sort
-of erotic affection, but which we are so used to seeing amongst women
-that we do not realise their repressed and unconscious significance.</p>
-
-<p>Let it not be thought, however, that this subject of homo-sexuality is
-based on this one simple problem; there are many other early infantile
-fixations, which play a very large<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> part in causing persons to become
-homo-sexual. I only mention this one Narcissistic complex as being
-another example of how identification takes place as one of the chief
-results of the Narcissistic temperament, and to what lengths such
-identification may, on occasion, lead. Of course, all degrees of such
-identifications may be met with, and it is quite common to find persons
-who can love hetero-sexually as well as homo-sexually; that is to say,
-who can love persons of the opposite sex in the usual way, as well as
-persons of their own sex. But such people, even in their hetero-sexual
-love, tend to choose a love-object which resembles themselves in some
-manner or the other. However, a certain amount of Narcissism (which
-fortunately everyone still possesses), may be of value in this way,
-for it is certainly good for a man and woman to have similar interests
-when they marry; it is excessive Narcissism, excessive identification,
-excessive sympathy, which is deleterious, just as in other
-manifestations of Narcissism, with which we are going to deal shortly,
-it is excessive impatience, excessive anger, excessive tears which are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
-really harmful, and lead to the greatest unhappiness. Although perhaps
-in these latter instances, to be without impatience, anger, or tears
-would be better still.</p>
-
-<p>Thirdly, there is yet another method of Narcissistic identification.
-Just as a child identifies itself with its living surroundings, so
-does it identify itself with its inanimate surroundings. As its mother
-and nurse are treated as part of it in the early stages, so also are
-its rubber teat, feeding bottle and toys treated. If you take away
-the baby&#8217;s rattle, it will cry or stamp or weep with as much vigour
-and display of emotion as if you had caused it bodily pain by means
-of rigorous physical punishment. You have in fact taken away part
-of itself from the little omnipotent person. In later stages in his
-career, if his Narcissism has been allowed to remain, the adult will
-still identify himself with his belongings. He will be absurdly upset
-at the breaking of a tea-cup which belongs to him, at the theft of
-some jewelry, at damage done to his clothing or property in some way,
-however trifling. He cannot realise that these things which belong to
-him are more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> or less unimportant trifles, which can be replaced, or
-if they cannot be replaced, can be equally well done without, if he
-has attained that philosophical attitude of mind which belongs to the
-person who has thrown off this uncomfortable spirit of Narcissistic
-identification. Moreover, the Narcissist who thinks himself to be the
-best and most important of beings, will attach similar importance to
-his property. If he drives an inferior motor-car, which breaks down on
-every journey he makes, he will excuse it in all sorts of irrational
-ways, he will praise it on every possible occasion as &#8220;the best car
-on the market,&#8221; and what seems more absurd still, he will very likely
-think it the best car on the market. It is the same with his house,
-his books, with his relations, with everything that is even distantly
-connected with him. He will speak in high praise of them all, and be
-anxious, at all times, to show them off, and to uphold their virtues
-to all comers. The Narcissist, indeed, rationalises about things in
-general considerably more than most people. The fuller meaning of
-rationalization and its methods of working, however, we shall leave
-till later on.</p>
-
-<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5">[5]</a> Homo-sexuality&mdash;sensual love for a person of the same sex
-as oneself.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2><span>CHAPTER VIII</span> <span class="smaller">THE IRRITABLE TEMPERAMENT</span></h2>
-
-<p>Irritability is not merely that quality in a person which makes his
-friends carefully guard their every word, lest inadvertently they
-should cause an outburst of temper, in its fullest sense it means
-over-sensitiveness to unpleasant stimuli, followed by over-reaction of
-any kind whatsoever. Thus, if a person by accident damage his clothing,
-his over-sensitiveness and over-reaction might result in an oath, in
-abusing the nail which tore his clothing or in abusing the workman who
-put the nail in place originally. It might again result in a feeling of
-depression, with anger displaced on to anyone who was present during
-the next hour, on the smallest pretext; or in an over-sensitive woman,
-it might result in an outburst of tears, or perhaps merely in volubly
-deploring the accident for half-an-hour with the next visitor who
-called; or she might merely &#8220;worry&#8221; about it, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> keep turning the
-memory of it over and over in her mind, refusing to allow the fact to
-separate itself from her fancy.</p>
-
-<p>All these various results, with many others which may be imagined,
-can be gathered together under the one term &#8220;irritability,&#8221; or the
-term &#8220;over-sensitiveness&#8221; would do equally well. This irritability or
-over-sensitiveness may apply to material things or to purely mental
-ones. Narcissism may lead to an irritability of the body, and again it
-may lead to irritability merely of the mind. When Narcissism leads to
-an extremely sensitive body, it reacts to pain of every sort, however
-mild, as though it were acute. The omnipotent mind cannot bear to have
-its body disturbed. I gave an example a short while back of the lady
-who could not take a fly out of my eye, because her own eyes were so
-sensitive. Not only was this particular lady sensitive as regards her
-eyes, but at that period she was as afraid of the dentist touching a
-tooth as if it had been a serious abdominal operation. Pain of any sort
-or even slight accidents involving practically no pain, were reacted
-to as though they had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> overwhelming misfortunes. Here we had
-an excellent example of one in whom Narcissism had produced extreme
-irritability of a physical nature.<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6" >[6]</a></p>
-
-<p>On the other hand, one finds a mental sensitivity equally pronounced.
-People who are always in fear lest somebody should find fault with
-them, with their mode of behaviour, with their manner of dress, even
-with their habit of thought. Unconsciously, to themselves they are the
-acme of perfection, they are the centre of importance, and they are
-inclined to think that people are paying very much more attention to
-them than is actually the case. They may consciously realise that they
-are not important at all, that other people do not give them a thought;
-but their unconscious Narcissism will not accept this slight upon their
-importance, and they remain miserably self-conscious in all their acts,
-reacting with exaggerated feeling whenever some slight criticism of
-their thoughts and actions appear even to be implied.</p>
-
-<p>Pride, vanity, and self importance are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> other manifestations of this
-temperament. The person who feels slighted, or whose feelings are hurt
-when other persons think too little of his opinions, or pay too little
-attention to his actions, or, in fact, whose feelings are hurt easily
-by anything whatsoever, is for the most part a Narcissist, in whom once
-again the infantile omnipotence has been disturbed.</p>
-
-<p>Jealousy very often represents the Narcissistic idea. The
-&#8220;dog-in-the-manger&#8221; attitude, which finding it cannot possess for
-itself, cannot bear anybody else to possess, is largely the attitude
-of unconscious phantasy, in which the individual cannot relinquish the
-idea that somehow he will succeed by means of his omnipotent mind in
-possessing the desired object, and his unconscious mind retains this
-idea so long as the object has not become the property of somebody else
-in such a definite and irrefutable manner as to prove in spite of his
-unconscious phantasy that he cannot possibly possess it himself.</p>
-
-<p>The &#8220;dog-in-the-manger&#8221; attitude is one which simply refuses to
-recognise the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>impossibility of possessing something, although the
-desire for possession in any particular case may unconsciously mean
-nothing except the desire to prove to oneself one&#8217;s own omnipotence.
-And many a case of jealousy in love-affairs is nothing but this
-unconscious desire to prove to oneself the possession of power; it is
-the hatred of acknowledging the fact that one has not control where
-one desires to have it most. Curious as it may seem jealousy is bred
-mostly out of self-love rather than out of love for the other person,
-although, of course, except in extreme cases, love for the other person
-may also exist.</p>
-
-<p>The reaction which takes place whenever the Narcissistic element
-is hurt, almost always takes the form of a regression. It will be
-remembered that a regression implies a return to an infantile method
-of expression. The Narcissist unfailingly hopes, in his unconscious
-that his omnipotence will enable him to avoid an unpleasant fact, and
-to controvert it magically. He therefore falls back on those acts of
-infancy, which he found useful at that early period of his life as
-magical means of attaining his ends. Let us assume, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> example, that
-our Narcissist has entered quietly into an argument with a friend, with
-full faith in himself and his argument that he will convert his friend
-to his own point of view. He finds, however, that he is getting the
-worst of the argument. This is unbelievable to him, he cannot realise
-it; his friend must be pig-headed. Rapidly his unconscious mind says to
-itself, &#8220;What methods did I employ in my childhood, what magic formula
-did I use then to obtain what I wished?&#8221; &#8220;Ah!&#8221; says the unconscious, &#8220;I
-remember; I used abusive terms to my nurse, and the dear thing did what
-I wanted at once.&#8221; Very soon he is using abusive terms to his friend,
-who, however does not later on remark, &#8220;Oh! that man is a Narcissist.&#8221;
-He merely says, &#8220;You know, So-and-So never can keep his temper in an
-argument.&#8221; And the poor Narcissist all the time feels and thinks that
-he has been hardly dealt with, that people do not understand him, that
-they deliberately will not follow his arguments.</p>
-
-<p>Of course, the last is very likely to be right, for in argument there
-is generally more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> rationalization than there is about most things in
-life. Nevertheless, the fact remains that it is not really important
-that his friend should understand either him or his argument as a
-rule, and if he were not Narcissistic he would not over-react to this
-stimulus.</p>
-
-<p>Other methods of reaction in a like manner are all regressions to
-infancy. Some Narcissists, when they ask their unconscious memory,
-&#8220;What magic did I employ as a child?&#8221; find that it was the magic of
-words, and they use expletives of various kinds, which correspond
-in every way to the magic words which a conjuror whispers over his
-tricks when he performs the apparently impossible. Others remember in
-their unconscious mind that they wept copiously, that when they wept
-the feeding bottle was returned to their lips, or the toy to their
-hands. Others go back a stage further. They withdraw in to themselves,
-they refuse to speak, or they say, &#8220;I am so upset, I must go and lie
-down.&#8221; They attempt to return, in fact, to the condition of isolation
-and rest, if not of pre-birth, at least of that period immediately
-following birth, when if they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> cried, they were rocked and crooned over
-and put to sleep.</p>
-
-<p>Another form of regression largely due to Narcissism is that of
-alcoholism. Here again, there are other causes at work in the
-unconscious, but Narcissism is one of the most important of them.
-The Narcissist does not like real responsibility; he certainly
-thinks that he is always desiring responsible posts and positions,
-but this is merely because to hold a responsible position or to have
-responsibility signifies importance and power. As a matter of fact,
-when responsibility is thrust upon him, he often has a strong tendency
-to avoid it, because responsibility entails dealing with facts as
-they are, and not with phantasies; and the responsibility which the
-Narcissist seeks is largely that of phantasy. In spite, therefore, of
-his statements to the contrary, we know that he wishes to run away from
-responsible positions, and alcohol has a peculiar power of enabling
-one to forget the responsibilities of the moment, and at the same time
-to give one a feeling of potency and well-being. Consequently, when
-the Narcissist comes up against an unpleasant fact,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> a responsibility
-which he does not wish to take, anything in fact which disturbs his
-sense of well-being, alcohol serves the purpose of allowing regression
-to infancy. It returns him very swiftly to that early period when he
-had no responsibility, when he need take no thought of the facts around
-him, when he had a sense of well-being and omnipotence. This potency
-is increased by the fact that it also removes, simultaneously, other
-repressions, that is, it allows other forms of infantile energy to be
-expressed without conscious criticism or hindrance.</p>
-
-<p>Exactly the same thing may be said of drug-taking. The drug-taker is
-simply habitually seeking something to remove his responsibilities, to
-lead him away from his conflicts which he does not wish to face, away
-from the world of reality into an infantile world, where whatever his
-surroundings, whatever the facts that exist, he is able to ignore them,
-and feel himself in phantasy their master.</p>
-
-<p>But the curious thing about all these regressions is that, in a sense,
-they serve to satisfy the individual. They comfort him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> with the
-unconscious assurance at the moment they are performed, that all will,
-somehow, be well, that these reactions will somehow bring about the
-desired end, that the abuse will succeed where the argument did not,
-that the tears will somehow perform their magic act, that a rest in bed
-will bring about new life, and that the new life will succeed where the
-old life failed.</p>
-
-<p>Never does the Narcissist realise facts as they are, deal with them as
-facts, see them in their proper proportions, and leave them alone when
-he cannot use them.</p>
-
-<p>Impatience of a different kind is also one of the common reactions. A
-man may go into a restaurant; he finds it is full, and quite naturally
-he is kept waiting a few minutes before the busy waiter can bring him
-the menu. He refuses to recognise the fact that he is only one of a
-hundred persons present, that the restaurant has to be run at a profit
-to the proprietor, that innumerable waiters cannot therefore be kept
-to serve his high omnipotence; he frets with impatience and he cannot
-resign himself to the inevitable waiting. He will not understand that
-<i>time</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> is one of the factors over which he has no power. In fact,
-this difficulty to realise the <i>factor of time</i> is an extremely common
-one with Narcissists. No sooner has a project entered their heads than
-they expect to see it fulfilled. Such fulfilment can only take place in
-phantasy, just as they did indeed attain their wishes in childhood. As
-children they could instantaneously create a chariot and horses from an
-arm-chair with complete neglect of the time-factor, and now as adults,
-they hope instantaneously to create an omelet without waiting for it to
-be cooked, to create a business or a character, or fame or happiness
-in the same instantaneous way, without reference to time. They are
-quite unable to see, completely and wholly, any difference between the
-phantasy of childhood and facts of adult life; and one of the most
-essential differences between the two is this <i>time factor</i>.</p>
-
-<p>It takes minutes for an omelet to be cooked, it takes years for a
-business to be created, it takes a lifetime for a character to be
-formed, fame they may never attain, but happiness lies within their
-grasp at once, if only they could relinquish their Narcissism.</p>
-
-<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6">[6]</a> It may be of interest to readers to know that this
-physical over-sensitiveness has very largely disappeared from this
-particular lady as the result of partial psycho-analysis.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2><span>CHAPTER IX</span> <span class="smaller">RATIONALIZATION</span></h2>
-
-<p>Having now briefly sketched the birth and some of the possible
-developments of Narcissism, it may be well to revert to the subject
-of rationalization, on which I have already touched briefly, before I
-deal with some of the methods with which we may combat our Narcissistic
-tendencies. The reason for reverting here to rationalization is this.
-Already I know that there are few readers who will not have discovered
-some material in this book which will have touched a tender spot in
-themselves. And since we know that the great effort of Narcissism is
-to cover up those tender spots, and to deceive ourselves in thinking
-that either they are not there, or better still, that they are virtues
-and really particularly healthy spots, it is as well to examine these
-tendencies and observe one of the chief methods by which we do produce
-such disguises successfully. Of these methods of disguise, our greatest
-comforter, yet our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> worst enemy, is rationalization. The term means
-&#8220;<i>finding apparently adequate reasons for things</i>.&#8221;</p>
-
-<p>One of the qualities which we highly cultured animals possess is that
-of reason. We have discovered that logic is one of the essential
-factors of law and order, and that the highest form of intellect
-possesses reason in a large measure. Among our gods, the god of reason
-and logic stands high, and our very Narcissism will not permit us to
-do and accept things which are contrary to logical reasoning. For that
-means in the first place, that they are contrary to what we have been
-taught to revere highly as a good quality, and yet more still it means
-that they are contrary to the magic of WORDS, for logic means words;
-logic is words which follow one another in irrefutable sequence. And
-we have already learnt that <i>the infant has early associated words and
-sounds with magic, since by the persistent use of these he has got what
-he wanted</i>. So that doubly are logic and reason revered.</p>
-
-<p>Now, the unhappy thing about life is that we are continually wishing
-to do things or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> feel things or believe things which do not follow
-logically upon other things which we have also had to feel or think or
-believe at some time. Some of our wishes are logically incompatible
-with other of our wishes. More over, we very often do not wish to
-believe or think things which do follow logically on actual facts which
-have gone before. How are we then, as reasonable people, to deal with
-the situation? By rationalization, by finding a reason which suits our
-purpose; and this can only be done, as a rule, by leaving out some
-important factor, by ignoring some truth, and by arguing from false
-premises. We do not do this consciously, that would be unworthy. Our
-unconscious censor manages to delete from consciousness the unpleasant
-truth, as we have already pointed out, and brings forth an array of
-facts which appear irrefutable, and he succeeds in giving us most
-plausible reasons so that we may believe that which is most convenient
-to us.</p>
-
-<p>Let us consider for a moment such a subject as religion. The Roman
-Catholic will adduce evidences of various kinds to show that his is
-the only right and proper form of religion to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> be accepted by any
-intellectual person. The Baptist will likewise do the same, and will
-probably hold that Papal institutions, in many instances, spring not
-from Heaven but from Hell. If you discuss it with either of them, you
-may be flooded with reasons, logical evidences of the correctness of
-their views. Obviously, they cannot both be right in so exclusive a
-manner, and a very little insight will show that the reasons they
-adduce have really very little to do with their beliefs, although they
-think they have. Reverence for their parents, early environment, and
-other factors of this kind, have really induced their present beliefs,
-but these would not appear to them as logical reasons and so they
-select others.</p>
-
-<p>So it is with any unpleasant theory which comes into being. At the
-time of Darwin, a large number of facts were discovered which led
-unbiassed persons to believe in the theory of evolution. This appeared
-contrary to many religious beliefs, and the general public did not
-want to accept such a theory. They could not, however, shut their
-eyes to facts; what were they to do? By carefully leaving out some of
-the facts, and introducing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> speculative material, which they called
-facts, but which were not facts, they succeeded in producing excellent
-reasons, or what seemed excellent reasons to them, for refuting the
-theory of evolution and retaining their old beliefs. In other words,
-they went through a process of rationalization.</p>
-
-<p>The same thing was taking place a few years ago with reference to
-psycho-analysis. People did not like their omnipotent feelings
-disturbed, did not like to find that the superior bricks of which
-their edifice had been built were originally made from clay, and they
-found excellent reasons for not believing it. This, fortunately for
-progress, is gradually passing away, just as the opposition to the idea
-of the evolution of the body passed away. But rationalization is a
-process which has been and is still going on continuously. When Harvey
-discovered the circulation of the blood, when Galileo discovered that
-the earth went round the sun, when psycho-analysts discovered that
-much which mothers thought kind was really cruel, and when you read a
-book which tends to point out that some of your cherished virtues may
-possibly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> be faults, the same tendency is at work. Your mind sorts out
-some of the reasons, refuses to look at others of them, and by such
-careful selection, by this unconscious process of rationalization,
-supports your belief in yourself, holds fast to that which has been,
-and attempts continuously to prevent further changes and disturbances.
-This rationalization, however, is much more widely distributed than
-I have so far indicated; in order that one fact may be justified by
-reason, all the lesser facts which come before it must be similarly
-justified, until even into the trivial details of everyday life the
-leaven of rationalization has penetrated. Examples of it may be seen
-every day in the newspapers, in politics, in even trifling arguments.
-Take for instance the subject of woman&#8217;s suffrage. One half of the
-country produced irrefutable arguments to prove how bad it was, the
-other half to prove how good it was. In both cases, the arguments were
-but straws in the wind, they were quite unnecessary, they were only
-rationalization. Long before the argument on either side came into
-being, the feelings were there, the desires were there;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> and desires
-must somehow be proved right with the magic of words, before we feel at
-liberty to fulfil them. In neither case in this argument was the root
-of the matter touched. If some philosopher had come forward and said,
-&#8220;The first question we have to ask before thinking about suffrage,
-is should a woman wear a skirt?&#8221; or some such similar fundamental
-question, it would probably have been said that it had nothing to
-do with matter, and yet this question of <i>artificial</i> difference
-between the sexes is really fundamental to the whole subject. But the
-rationalist will find that he will not meet me in this statement. The
-woman who wishes to retain certain privileges, and yet accept certain
-other privileges, will at once find reasons why she should wear a skirt
-and yet have the vote. She will tell me all sorts of things about her
-physical disabilities, things which she believes to be fundamental
-truths, many of which, in fact, are fundamentally wrong, but accepted
-as truths because they lead to rationalization being able to support
-her wishes.</p>
-
-<p>In a similar way, on the much discussed subject of &#8220;prohibition&#8221; the
-prohibitionist will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> rationalise on a certain few facts, in order to
-support his emotions and desires. A moderate drinker will do exactly
-the same, in the opposite direction. Neither of them will have the
-courage to ignore his personal feelings, nor may he have the power
-to do so, and to take all the facts into consideration and come to a
-conclusion, irrespective of his wishes on the subject.<a name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7">[7]</a></p>
-
-<p>Of course, one of the other difficulties in the way of coming to
-correct conclusions in all these things is that people will insist on
-arguing upon subjects, when the amount of real scientific knowledge
-they have on the subjects is extremely small. The newspaper editor will
-quote a few popular facts, in order to support some theory of his own,
-having but a limited knowledge of psychology, physiology, anatomy, or
-of some other science which has considerable bearing on the subject,
-he will end by producing a series of conclusions probably entirely
-wrong. This, of course, is inevitable in our limited <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>circumstances;
-but it should not be equally inevitable that we should hold firmly
-to our beliefs, when we realise how limited is our knowledge of
-any one subject. And in order to examine facts and to get rid of
-rationalization as far as possible, we must try, with the utmost power
-at our command to refuse that reaction of self-defence and self-pride,
-which prevents us from looking at ourselves and from realising that
-most of our opinions about ourselves may be completely erroneous. We
-must be prepared to accept temporary, not fixed, judgments, based
-upon the evidence which we have. We must be prepared to reverse those
-judgments in the light of new evidence. We must be careful not to
-reject this evidence merely because we do not like it.</p>
-
-<p>It will now be seen how very necessary it is, in dealing with
-Narcissism in particular, to understand something of rationalization,
-so that we may be on our guard in examining ourselves, against
-allowing this to play too great a part in our conclusions. Otherwise,
-with all the goodwill in the world, we may never succeed in making
-any improvement whatsoever, in ourselves. The greatest <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>scientists
-themselves have been amongst those who realised this.</p>
-
-<p>It was Darwin who wrote, as we have quoted in the earlier part of this
-book, &#8220;I had, during many years, followed a golden rule, namely, that
-whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across
-me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of
-it without fail and at once, for I had found by experience that such
-facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than
-favourable ones.&#8221;</p>
-
-<p>And it was the great scientist, Helmholtz, who said, &#8220;It is better to
-be in actual doubt, than to rock oneself in dogmatic ignorance.&#8221; </p>
-
-<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7">[7]</a> Of course this does not imply that no one is ever capable
-of putting his conscious feelings on one side, and examining a subject
-in spite of pre-conceived ideas and desires, but that this is the
-exception rather than the rule.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2>PART II</h2>
-
-<p class="bold2">PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS </p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2><span>CHAPTER X</span> <span class="smaller">SELF ANALYSIS</span></h2>
-
-<p>In attempting to cure ourselves of hyper-Narcissistic characteristics,
-there are several lines of treatment which may be followed, some of
-which depend upon the particular manifestation of Narcissism with
-which we have to deal. One, however, which should be followed in
-every case, we borrow from the methods of psycho-analysis. We cannot
-call it psycho-analysis because the technique employed by an amateur
-in examining himself must be vastly different from the technique
-employed by a psycho-analyst in dealing with his patient. But it is a
-modification of one detail of the technique of psycho-analysis which,
-if properly applied, may have far-reaching results. It is on the lines
-of that phenomenon which is known generally as ab-reaction, and is as
-follows.</p>
-
-<p>When an individual has come to the conclusion that he is suffering from
-some <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>characteristic of Narcissistic nature, which he would rather
-be without, he should, first of all, carefully call to mind, and if
-possible make historical notes of the situations which stimulate the
-particular temperamental reaction to which he objects. If he can, he
-should go further than this, and recall as many as possible of the
-actual situations of recent date, when this particular reaction has
-been called forth.</p>
-
-<p>If he have an ungovernable temper, for example, he should, in detail,
-go first into the type of situations which call forth that temper, and
-secondly, he should revise in detail the recent occasions upon which he
-has lost his temper, and thirdly, <i>he should attempt to find out the
-particular moment, the particular words, the particular occasion which
-first began to stir feelings of temper within him before he actually
-began to show violent manifestations of it</i>.</p>
-
-<p>Having all these things set forth satisfactorily, it would be well
-if he spent half-an-hour every day, for a considerable period, in
-performing the next part of the treatment. He should go into a room
-by himself, where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> he will not be disturbed, recline on a couch or
-a comfortable chair, and allow his mind to drift backwards, year by
-year, remembering as far as possible, every instance on which the
-unfavourable symptom has been called forth. He will find that if he
-does not concentrate too hard, but merely keeps in mind the various
-causes of his temper and recent manifestations of it, other times
-and instances will come into his mind unbidden. He will, in fact, be
-surprised at the amount of detail which he can remember concerning
-the matter. Things which he had not thought of for years, happenings
-which he had passed over as trivial, will come into his mind, and be
-found to have stimulated, in some way or the other, the ill-temper (or
-other Narcissistic trouble) which he is endeavouring to get rid of. He
-must take himself, as far as possible, right into childhood. He will
-not necessarily of course, go back as far as this on the first few
-occasions, but after he has been at work on himself in this way for
-some days, he should have no trouble whatever in beginning to recall
-some of the infantile occasions upon which his Narcissism called forth
-temper. </p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>In all the instances which he brings up into his conscious mind, he
-should write down and study not only the facts remembered, but also the
-emotions which he felt. These he should examine from every possible
-point of view, and see what Narcissistic element appears to be present
-in them. Many memories will come into his mind of an infantile nature
-which do not express the particular symptom from which he now suffers,
-but will obviously have some bearing on it. These he should examine in
-the same way, because it is important for him to get into his conscious
-mind as much as possible of the various occasions in his life on which
-Narcissism acted, when he was not conscious of it. Not only must he
-see how these various occasions were exhibitions of Narcissism, but he
-must try and trace them back, and must compare them with his typical
-infantile methods of expression. These may be represented by shouting,
-crying, stamping, weeping or any other infantile manifestations
-of those omnipotent phantasies which now seem to him to be the
-starting-point of his more recent expression of them. He has, in fact,
-to lay bare<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> before himself, as much as possible of his previously
-unconscious Narcissistic life; its beginnings, its evolution, and its
-ultimate form. This making conscious of what was previously unconscious
-or but partly conscious, is, in itself, a most potent factor in
-improvement, if he will have the patience to steadily persevere and to
-go over daily, for a considerable period, the material he has brought
-to the surface. If he does not do this regularly, it is liable to sink
-back, and become once again an unconscious factor and a determinant to
-his actions over which he has no control.</p>
-
-<p>This bringing into consciousness the unconscious causes and motives
-under-lying behaviour is, in psycho-analysis, one of the powerful
-factors at work producing cures of neurotic obsessions and so forth,
-and it is equally potent with the minor temperamental abnormalities
-with which we are dealing here. For it means that previous mental
-conflicts which were either wholly or partially unconscious, are now
-rendered conscious habitually; and a conscious conflict, or rather a
-conflict in which the forces<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> at work become conscious, is far easier
-to direct than one in which the very forces themselves are hidden and
-unknown. Let us take a more material example for comparison. Suppose an
-officer to be in command of a company of soldiers out in the desert,
-and attacked on a dark night by savages. It might very well be that he
-was well armed, that his machine guns were efficient, but that he would
-be quite overwhelmed because he could neither see the savages nor know
-their numbers, their whereabouts nor their armaments. But supposing
-that the War Office had thoughtfully equipped him with one or two good
-search-lights, which he could direct upon the savages so that the
-number of savages, their armaments, position, and so forth, could be
-brought into his consciousness, he would be in a far better position,
-for he could direct his machine-guns at the threatened points, instead
-of being forced to fire them wildly and as likely as not miss his
-targets altogether.</p>
-
-<p>Exactly the same happens with these manifold feelings to which I
-have just been referring. The more one can see of them,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> their
-histories, their evolution, their beginnings, the more one holds them
-in consciousness, the easier does the conflict between good and evil
-become in the individual. Again, this method of self-help which I have
-given here, differs considerably from that pursued in psycho-analysis,
-in that it is following up only one unconscious factor, albeit, one
-of the most important factors; but in psycho-analysis we follow up in
-turn all the unconscious forces at work, great and small, and in any
-temperamental abnormality there are certainly many more unconscious
-factors than Narcissism concerned, although Narcissism may be the
-predominant one. Thus, for instance, alcoholism, though always
-possessing a Narcissistic element, frequently has other determinants
-present of an exceptionally strong<a name="FNanchor_8" id="FNanchor_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8">[8]</a> nature. So that while an
-analysis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> of Narcissism only, may be of the greatest value in some
-cases, in others, where Narcissism does not occupy so great a field,
-the other unconscious factors are too potent to allow much benefit to
-accrue from a partial self-analysis of this kind.</p>
-
-<p>In drug-taking, however, there is a slight difference from alcoholism,
-for, as a rule, Narcissism is nearly always the essential factor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> It
-will be understood that Narcissism links itself to almost any other
-characteristic, influencing it for the worse by fixing it more deeply,
-and holding it back from becoming conscious more strongly than would
-otherwise be the case.</p>
-
-<p>The patient will find himself, during this self-examination, repeatedly
-trying to excuse himself. He will find himself saying, &#8220;I remember on
-such an such an occasion losing my temper, but on that occasion I was
-perfectly justified.&#8221; Or in another instance, he may say, &#8220;I remember
-weeping (or I remember being depressed or angry, or impatient), but
-circumstances then existed which seem to me proper occasions for such a
-manifestation to have taken place.&#8221;</p>
-
-<p>Let me emphasise at the outset, that any such excuses will be
-rationalizing; that he must say to himself, &#8220;Whether they appear normal
-or abnormal, according to accepted standards, those occurrences most
-certainly had their Narcissistic factor.&#8221; For it must be understood
-that although there are many occasions when impatience or weeping may
-be looked upon, conventionally, as normal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> occurrences, that is only
-because everybody possesses certain imperfections due to Narcissism;
-and if one is going to attempt to improve one&#8217;s temperament in this
-way, every occasion must be examined without excuse or rationalization,
-otherwise the individual who is thus at work upon himself will only
-succeed in defeating himself to his own detriment, by putting up
-a resistance to his cure or improvement. And, indeed, one of the
-important factors in this work, just as in psycho-analysis itself, is
-the factor which comes into play in overcoming these resistances of
-seeing ourselves as we are, of seeing the evolution and beginnings of
-our temperament as it really was.</p>
-
-<p>This is bound to reveal in all of us without exception much that is
-unpleasant, and that we would rather not see. Resistance to seeing such
-material is inevitable, if the examination is sufficiently thorough. If
-no resistance has to be overcome, the individual may be certain that he
-is shirking the facts.</p>
-
-<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8">[8]</a> Alcoholism is further complicated by the fact that a habit
-of <i>physical</i> craving is formed, which as a rule cannot be overcome
-by mental treatment alone. This craving, fortunately, can now be
-eradicated by medicinal means. Indeed, patients of mine have been cured
-of all desire for alcohol in about one week as a rule. The patient
-is then in somewhat the same condition as a man who has never tasted
-alcohol, and he will have no craving for alcohol thereafter, unless he
-deliberately drinks it again. Herein, however, we see the importance of
-the psychic factor, for should the cured alcoholic begin again to take
-alcohol, either because he thinks that he has attained self control
-and can do so, or because he finds abstinence difficult on social
-grounds, he will almost inevitably regress to his old condition of
-uncontrolled desire, no matter how long has elapsed since he was cured
-of it. <i>The same causes which originally led him to excess, viz., his
-mental complexes, are still present and again produce similar results.</i>
-Of course, a very large proportion of those who have been cured by
-medicinal treatment do not relapse, because they have sufficient common
-sense not to experiment with themselves. In the other cases, however,
-the only hope of a permanent cure consists in following up the physical
-treatment with mental treatment, i.e., analysis.</p>
-
-<p>On the other hand, in most cases of drug taking a medicinal cure is
-generally sufficient, for there is no &#8220;social urge&#8221; to taking drugs as
-there is in the case of alcohol, and once the craving has been cured,
-the tendency to experiment again is the exception rather than the rule.
-But even here it is found that any indulgence in the drug, however
-slight, will again produce in the individual his old craving. <i>He has
-found a previous path of narcissistic regression and will inevitably
-follow it, for though the craving had been eradicated the complexes
-remain.</i> There are many potential alcoholics and potential drug-takers
-in the world, but they will never know it unless unfortunate chance
-induces them to open that particular channel of regression.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2><span>CHAPTER XI</span> <span class="smaller">READJUSTMENT OF OBJECTIVES</span></h2>
-
-<p>In the last chapter we described a process of self-assistance of
-the kind which should be applied by any person, to any Narcissistic
-manifestation he may desire to improve. In the present chapter we are
-going to deal with a method of treatment which is by no means necessary
-in all cases, but is very necessary in a large proportion of them.</p>
-
-<p>We must bear in mind that the Narcissist&#8217;s inability to realise
-distinctly the difference between phantasy and fact will often lead
-him to suppose possible that which is impossible in the ordinary
-affairs of everyday life, and to ignore difficulties which may really
-be insuperable, which stand in the way of his aims and projects. He
-will thus be continually finding himself at a disadvantage, continually
-failing, from apparently trivial reasons, to accomplish an end, and
-as a result<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> he may become depressed, nervous, worried, and subject
-to that lassitude accompanied by headaches, which so frequently comes
-to the Narcissist when he struggles unavailingly with the ordinary
-aims and tasks of everyday life. Moreover, not only does he fail to
-recognise the difficulties in the way of any particular task, but he
-fails to recognise the fact that two projects which he has in his mind
-may be incompatible with one another; or he fails to recognise that
-great &#8220;<i>Time-factor</i>,&#8221; which I have mentioned before, and tries to
-condense more work and more visible results into a given period than is
-humanly possible.</p>
-
-<p>This type of Narcissist is always considerably addicted to day-dreams,
-with which, however, we shall deal in a further chapter. For the
-present, we are going to restrict ourselves to the question of
-arranging his aims and wishes on a sound and possible basis. In the
-first place, let it be understood that although the method of treatment
-so far carried out may have made clear to the patient the origin and
-development of his phantasy thought and phantastic aims, there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> yet
-remains the breaking of the habit, and this is rendered far more easy
-if we attempt to substitute another habit of a different nature. Let
-us further impress upon him the fact that a frequent examination of
-his aims in a directive manner by the method about to be discussed is
-in itself an exercise in directive thinking, helping to form a habit
-opposed to a former habit of phantasy thinking. And, lastly, let it be
-remembered that Narcissists are generally very averse from making real
-personal sacrifices which have no glamour attached to them; that they
-object to adapting themselves to reality which may be unpleasant, and
-that by the method I am about to describe, they will have to deal in
-trivial things, and the conscious adjustment which they will thus make
-towards reality will gradually become habitual.</p>
-
-<p>What we are attempting to do now is to substitute directive thought
-and directive aims, aims possible of attainment, for phantasy thoughts
-and impossible aims. Most people will find on self-examination that
-their aims are by no means clearly defined; they have an object in
-life, but it is vague in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> outline, and ill-defined; it is often only
-a question of getting somehow through life, with enough food to eat,
-and sufficient phantasy thought to keep them from boredom. This again,
-is especially the case with some women, whose household duties require
-but little directive thought, since they are daily repetitions of the
-same thing. Dusting a room is a habit which becomes pleasanter if
-accompanied by phantasy thinking; whereas, had that woman some definite
-aim, apart from the habit of house-cleaning, it would be possible to
-accompany the room-dusting with directive thought which revolved round
-the aim in question, and this would very much add to the pleasure and
-efficiency of the individual&#8217;s life. If a person, on self-examination,
-finds that his aims are not clearly defined, or are in conflict with
-one another, or, on the other hand, that his aims or thoughts are in
-part phantasy and impossible of fulfilment, that person should at once
-deliberately remould and re-state his aims, so that they become:</p>
-
-<p>(a) clearly defined,</p>
-
-<p>(b) clearly possible. </p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Moreover, the aims should be of two kinds:</p>
-
-<p>(1) immediate,</p>
-
-<p>(2) remote.</p>
-
-<p>The remote aim is the ideal for which he is striving; and however high
-that ideal be, it should be of a kind possible of fulfilment, not
-necessarily in the lifetime of the individual, in all cases, for he may
-be working for something of which he does not expect fulfilment for
-even hundreds of years, yet it may be perfectly legitimately termed a
-real aim, as opposed to a phantastic one.</p>
-
-<p><i>Now, the first thing which the individual should bear in mind is that
-an immediate aim should always be in harmony with the remote aim.</i> Let
-it also be borne in mind that when we state that the aim should be
-clearly possible, we do not only mean that the aims should be possible
-from a point of view of external environment and circumstances, but
-also having regard to the patient&#8217;s own intelligence, will-power,
-education, and physical health&mdash;in other words possible in the case of
-this particular individual.</p>
-
-<p>Now let us consider in detail the further course to be pursued by the
-person who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> proposes to treat himself on these lines. Let him take
-pencil and paper and write out in the fullest of details a list of
-his aims, great and small, in the first place, without any reference
-to their bearing upon one another, or any attempt at classification,
-keeping in mind that by aims in life, we mean wishes which he hopes
-will be fulfilled. Let him think of every conceivable wish in his mind,
-and write it down, whether phantastic in nature, or trivial, or whether
-both possible and important.</p>
-
-<p>In the next place, let him see that this list is written so clearly
-and accurately, that each of the aims is well defined and without
-ambiguity. Now let him run through the list again, and see whether
-any of the aims are in conflict with one another, and whether any of
-them are inconsistent from the view point of his, and are therefore
-impossible of fulfilment. Let him put his pencil definitely through
-such impossible aims, and cut them out of his life, with as full a
-realisation as possible of the fact that they are nothing but dreams,
-that he need never consider them again, that he must not regret them,
-for that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> is mere infantile crying after the impossible. He must
-replace them in due course with others possible of fulfilment.</p>
-
-<p>Now let him take the revised list and separate it into two divisions,
-writing the aims down again under the two headings, (1) immediate aims,
-and (2) remote aims. Here, he will have to bear in mind one of his
-chief faults, if he be strongly Narcissistic. Such persons in their
-phantasy carry their aims to completion long before reality can permit
-of it. The time-factor is not realised, and hence they have a great
-tendency to confuse remote aims with the immediate aims, in their
-desire to see immediate results; hence, also, because they cannot soon
-see such results, they give way to despair, become depressed, and have
-the tendency to regress to the infantile characteristics to which I
-have already referred. Here lies the importance of dividing the aims
-into immediate and remote. For as soon as the individual&#8217;s mind has
-grasped the fact that an aim is necessarily remote, and therefore
-impossible of immediate fulfilment, he is much more able to adjust
-himself to these facts, and to pay real and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> undivided attention to
-the immediate present. Apart from the fact that sorting and adjusting
-of the aims relieves the mind of many previous conflicts, it acts as
-a stimulus to a considerable amount of directive thinking. And the
-patient will be surprised at first to find the amount of time it is
-possible to spend in a really useful recasting of his life interests.</p>
-
-<p>It was not until the author, himself, took pencil and paper, and
-classified his own aims, and put down the points for and against each,
-and attempted to see the disharmonies existing amongst them, that he
-realised the full value of this procedure. It might be thought that in
-a very short period any person could put down all his aims, and that
-but little modification would take place in them from day to day. This,
-however, is very far from being true, as will be seen by anyone who
-carries out this method fully.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps at this point the details taken from a case of a woman
-suffering from a &#8220;nervous breakdown&#8221; in which I used this method as a
-subsidiary form of treatment, may not only be of interest, but will
-also throw some light on the practical working of the method.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> I may
-mention that her chief troubles were insomnia, constant worrying, great
-depression, and inability to settle down to work of any kind.</p>
-
-<p>In the first place, this patient commenced by stating that she had no
-aim in life at all. She had to admit, however, immediately after, that
-she had at least the aim of wishing to get well, or otherwise she would
-not have come to me. On being asked why she wished to get well, several
-subsidiary aims appeared. For the most part, they were rationalization,
-and I knew these aims would be thrown over in due course, but that, for
-the purpose in view, did not matter. I told her to go home, and write
-down her aims, in the manner I have just indicated.</p>
-
-<p>The following was the list brought to me on the next day.</p>
-
-<blockquote><p>(1) To be well.</p>
-
-<p>(2) To be married.</p>
-
-<p>(3) To become a doctor.</p>
-
-<p>(4) And if I cannot do that, to become a masseuse.</p>
-
-<p>(5) Or a psycho-analyst.</p>
-
-<p>(6) Or a private secretary. </p></blockquote>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p>
-
-<blockquote><p>(7) And I should like to have two children.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>With this rather pathetic list in front of me, I asked her to give as
-far as possible the reasons she had for these various wishes, and to
-examine these on the lines I had indicated, with the following results.</p>
-
-<p>(1) <i>To get well.</i> &#8220;The reason for this aim is obvious; it is necessary
-in order to obtain the others,&#8221; said she.</p>
-
-<p>(2) <i>To get married.</i> &#8220;This aim has three subsidiary immediate aims,&#8221;
-she replied, &#8220;and there may be others. (a) I want a comfortable home of
-my own, (b) I want satisfaction of my natural instincts in accordance
-with the custom of ordinary adult life, (c) I could attain the later
-aim of having two children.&#8221; She immediately added, &#8220;In that case, the
-aim of having two children is a remote aim, and if I follow your advice
-I must no longer have day-dreams about them, I must put them out of my
-thoughts, I must not waste time on anything connected with them, until
-I am married.&#8221;</p>
-
-<p>(3) <i>To become a doctor.</i> &#8220;Concerning this,&#8221; she added, &#8220;I have
-always liked studying Zoology, and microscopic work, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> diseases.
-Moreover, it is the only way in which one can make money in a really
-interesting manner.&#8221; She then stated that she realised this to be
-a double aim, and to consist, firstly, of the aim of earning a
-livelihood, and secondly, of that of having an interesting occupation.
-This aim was soon discovered to be phantastic, however, for she had to
-admit that her financial position would not permit of the necessary
-study, and that there was no prospect of any improvement in this. She
-therefore realised that although she had had it at the back of her
-mind for several months that somehow such an aim might be possible of
-fulfilment, she now clearly saw that it was not. She at once removed
-it from the list, and realised that neither regrets nor phantasy in
-connection with it would be of any avail, and again, that she must bear
-in mind possibilities and realities.</p>
-
-<p>(4) <i>To become a masseuse.</i> She at once stated her thoughts on this
-subject. &#8220;I have known one or two masseuses, who seem to make money,
-and who are very happy. Moreover, it is an occupation that a lady can
-take up.&#8221; She then discovered that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> this involved three aims: (a) to
-make money, (b) to be happy, (c) to remain genteel. On the opposite
-side, however, she added that she was not sufficiently physically
-strong for the work, and was afraid she would soon tire of it, because
-as an occupation itself, it did not appeal to her. This aim, also,
-immediately disappeared from the list.</p>
-
-<p>(5) <i>To become a psycho-analyst.</i> This, said she, was a very
-interesting subject, and she thought she could do much good by means of
-it. Moreover, she thought she would like psychology though she had not
-studied it much as yet. &#8220;Moreover,&#8221; said she, &#8220;psycho-analysts probably
-make a lot of money. And further, it would be very nice to sit at
-home in an arm-chair to do one&#8217;s work, and to let other people do the
-talking.&#8221; She at once recognised this latter idea to be a thoroughly
-Narcissistic regression. And then she found that all the other ideas
-contained multiple aims in themselves, each of which had to be thought
-out and classified, and into the details of which I need not go. Except
-to say that when she considered the matter from a practical point of
-view, the difficulties<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> of training, the time it would take, and more
-especially the fact that she feared that psycho-analysis might not be
-popular by the time she was ready, she determined that it was only a
-phantasy aim, upon which she had been wasting phantasy thought, and she
-ruled it out.</p>
-
-<p>(6) <i>To become a private secretary.</i> On this point, she considered that
-her personal appearance and general education would help her, and was
-quite compatible with the aim. But she knew no shorthand, book-keeping,
-nor typewriting. She, however, realised at once that the immediate aim
-in this case should be the shorthand, book-keeping, and typewriting,
-and she said, &#8220;I will go to-morrow and see where I can learn these
-things.&#8221; I pointed out to her that she might very possibly change
-her mind, when she considered things further, but that even if she
-did so, the mastery of shorthand, typewriting and book-keeping might
-stand her in good stead, and in any case that she would be working for
-an immediate object, in turning some of her phantasy into directive
-thought. And on the morrow, she actually did commence her studies on
-these subjects. </p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>(7) <i>The desire to have two children.</i> This was at once classified, as
-I have already said, as a remote aim; though, as a matter of fact, she
-got married shortly afterwards, and the remote aim is now on the way to
-being fulfilled, as she has one child.</p>
-
-<p>I have shown by this example the ill-considered, phantastic, and
-conflicting aims, which some persons may at first produce when they
-attempt deliberately to classify them. But it must be remembered that
-each of the subsidiary aims which she had discovered her primary aims
-to be divided into were, in turn, again capable of being divided into
-further subsidiary aims. And the next stage of this form of technique
-is to discover these. Day by day, the pencil and paper must be
-brought out, and a list of aims and wishes for that day compiled and
-considered. They must be in turn examined to show (1) whether they are
-compatible with one another, (2) whether they are compatible with other
-immediate aims, (3) whether they are compatible with the remote aims.</p>
-
-<p>A strong attempt must then be made to eradicate any aims or wishes
-which are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> antagonistic to one another, or to the primary aims of the
-individual, which have already been passed as real. As progress is
-made, definite and personal aims will be developed day by day, many of
-these, no doubt, apparently trivial, others at least important for the
-day in question, all important from the point of view of developing the
-habit of thinking in terms of reality.</p>
-
-<p>For instance, on one occasion, the lady above mentioned wrote on her
-list in the morning that she wished to work hard at her shorthand
-in the early part of the day, to go to a matinée in the afternoon,
-and to a dance in the evening. On consideration, however, she came
-to the conclusion that the dance in the evening, following after
-the day&#8217;s work and entertainment, would probably interfere with her
-next morning&#8217;s work, and it was not, moreover, compatible with that
-immediate aim of regaining complete health at the earliest possible
-moment. It was, therefore, rejected; the lesser aim was recast, and
-a quiet dinner with a friend substituted. Only by such rigorous and
-possibly painful self-treatment can the Narcissist&#8217;s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> conflicts be
-regulated and viewed in a proper perspective.</p>
-
-<p>Every daily aim has a further subsidiary aim appertaining to it. For
-instance, a man may have made up his mind to devote a certain part
-of the day to studying; the lesser aim includes the subject to be
-studied, the amount to be done, and the time to be occupied. It is
-important that he should not over-estimate the amount he can get done
-in a given time. One reason why so much detail should be considered,
-is that it is astounding how excessively a person, with a tendency to
-phantasy thought, over-estimates the amount of work it is possible
-to get through in a given time. No sooner is a task commenced than
-he expects it to be almost finished. The daily programme frequently
-includes far more than is possible, and he forms a habit of being late
-for everything; all this being merely the ordinary omnipotent idea of
-childhood, which fulfils a wish in phantasy as readily as it is formed.</p>
-
-<p>I must now give a warning, that those who follow this method are, at
-first, nearly always extremely impatient for results, for this very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
-reason that they do not realise the time-factor; and they must realise,
-and consciously and patiently accept inevitable delay, with the
-assurance that if they can overcome their Narcissism sufficiently to
-persist in the method they will steadily and gradually develop a habit,
-an attitude of mind which devotes its energy to directive thought, to
-real aims, and to displacing from themselves the phantastic medley
-which was there before.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2><span>CHAPTER XII</span> <span class="smaller">READJUSTMENT OF THOUGHT</span></h2>
-
-<p>We have seen in an earlier chapter how one of the ways in which
-Narcissism manifests itself is in day-dreams. We saw how a child would
-substitute a phantasy or day-dream for a reality, and so fulfil its
-wishes and desires in this unreal manner. And we saw how, if this were
-persisted in to excess, the same or a modified method of fulfilling
-one&#8217;s wishes in realms of phantasy would remain even in adult life.
-I may here remark that even <i>very little</i> day-dreaming constitutes
-excess, and is bound to have a deleterious effect upon the efficiency
-and happiness of the individual&#8217;s life; unless, perhaps, that
-individual is mixing sufficient directive thought with his phantasies
-as in the case of a novelist or artist, for instance. In realising
-this, it must be borne in mind, that time and energy spent in phantasy
-thinking are time and energy lost to reality and fact; that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
-encouragement of the habit of phantasy thinking destroys the ability
-to think directively, or rather renders the full development of it
-impossible. Moreover, by encouraging day-dreams, we are simultaneously
-holding on to our Narcissism, and making it more likely that it
-will also find outlets in other deleterious ways. For instance, the
-&#8220;worrying nature&#8221; which is constantly thinking of possible troubles to
-come, and of how past troubles might have been avoided is indulging in
-a form of phantasy thinking. If the habit of phantasy thinking has been
-cultivated for pleasurable purposes, a channel has been opened which
-will be used without conscious intention for other kinds of phantasy
-as well. The habit of worrying to which we have just referred, is an
-example of this.</p>
-
-<p>Worry consists in weaving phantasies about something which cannot at
-the moment be influenced directively. It may be about something which
-<i>has</i> happened and therefore cannot be influenced at all by thinking
-about it, or about something which <i>may</i> happen but over which the
-thinker has no immediate control; and it consists in going over all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
-the &#8220;mays&#8221; and &#8220;mights&#8221; connected with the case, and experiencing
-the unpleasant emotions belonging to each phantasied situation. In
-order to get rid of this worrying habit, to close the channel which
-permits of it, a person must simultaneously cut out pleasurable
-day-dreams also, and thus close the channel entirely. Therefore, let
-us recommend the individual who indulges largely in day-dreams, to get
-rid of the habit as soon as possible. Those who have other abnormal
-characteristics which they wish to eradicate, should understand that
-they must, simultaneously, get rid of their day-dreams. And this means
-pulling oneself up, not merely when one discovers oneself imagining
-some glorious vista in which one occupies a principle but impossible
-part, it means similarly pulling oneself up in a thousand little ways;
-it means catching oneself whenever one wanders from a type of directive
-thought to a type of phantastic thought.</p>
-
-<p>For instance, in the examination of one&#8217;s aims, one is thinking
-directively, and one comes to the conclusion that, say, a course
-of shorthand and typewriting shall be taken at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> once, that the aim
-of being a secretary is one suitable and compatible with one&#8217;s
-attainments. At this point, it is very easy for the individual to
-suddenly find that he or she has become, in day-dreams, the secretary
-of a duke or American millionaire. And if he does not pull himself up
-at this stage, he will find that the duke&#8217;s money has been left him,
-or she will find that she has married the American millionaire. And
-so the phantasy goes on. It starts in reality, but the Narcissistic
-temperament takes it right away from this. It must be nipped in the
-bud at the very beginning, if the habit of directive thought is to be
-established. As soon as the individual finds himself drifting in this
-way, wasting energy, fulfilling wishes by mere dreams, he must pull
-himself up short, and say to himself, &#8220;Here the real ends, there the
-phantasy begins. This is the point I must come back to, I must deal
-with this matter from the real point of view only, without allowing
-this phantasy to intrude itself.&#8221;</p>
-
-<p>And here again, much patience will be needed, for if the habit has
-already been cultivated, he will soon be back in phantasy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> again,
-probably in less than five minutes. But phantasy thought does not only
-mean day-dreams in the sense in which we have spoken of them here. It
-may take all sort of disguises, and what would be phantasy thought in
-one person, would be directive thought in another. In one case, the
-environment and education and inherent ability would not be of that
-order which could make the thoughts come to be facts; in the other case
-the abilities of the person might be sufficient to do so. Thus, were an
-ordinary person to sit in his arm-chair, and phantasy a wonderful plan
-for the conquest of Europe, without having either the will or the means
-of carrying out his ambition, that would constitute phantasy thinking
-pure and simple. If, however, a Napoleon did the same, with the will
-and the possible means, with the near aim at hand in the conquest of
-a small country, and the subsequent conquest of Europe as an ultimate
-one, his method of thought would have to be described as directive
-thinking. So that similar thinking in two different individuals may
-really be classified as two different principles of thinking. </p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>I have no doubt that many readers will be saying to themselves now,
-&#8220;But my greatest pleasure is to be found in day-dreams. I find in
-directive thinking nothing but hard work.&#8221;</p>
-
-<p>In such a case, if the individual cannot enjoy his directive
-thinking, and he gets no emotional discharge by means of it, it is
-possible that his aims in life are unsuited to him, or that he has
-not sufficient aims in life, that his time is not as fully occupied
-with interesting <i>acts</i> as it should be. In such a case, subsidiary
-aims should be formed deliberately, wherein he could take an interest
-in directive thinking. <i>For it may be accepted as a fact that, with
-proper cultivation and education, more real pleasure can be found in
-suitable directive thinking than in any amount of day-dreams.</i> It is
-also a further fact that the individual&#8217;s energy is not then wasted,
-but is more or less efficiently utilised. Moreover, instead of losing
-strength of character, he is now gaining it. Let it be borne in mind,
-always, that continual indulgence of phantasy thought, from its very
-ease, breeds the habit of inertia, for the individual&#8217;s aims and wishes
-attain fulfilment without any need for activity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> on his part; and here
-a vicious circle is produced, because the inertia, which he has thus
-encouraged, now in its turn tends to make him resort to phantasy the
-more.</p>
-
-<p>It is easy, of course, to say, &#8220;I will cut myself off from phantasy
-thought, I will pull myself up whenever this occurs, and leave it
-alone.&#8221; But it is by no means easy to act up to this resolution. If,
-however, another kind of directive thought is deliberately substituted
-for the phantasy, the task is made very much easier. If the water in
-the bath is too hot, and we want it to cool rapidly, we do not merely
-turn off the hot tap, we simultaneously turn on the cold.</p>
-
-<p>The task will be rendered more easy still, if the individual selects
-his subject of directive thought to replace phantasy beforehand, not
-waiting until the time comes. For instance, we will suppose that,
-as one subsidiary aim with which to fill in his time, a person has
-selected the collection of postage stamps. He will each day have in
-front of him some page which he wishes to arrange in chronological
-order, to consider from the point of view of water-marks and
-perforations; and he may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> make up his mind that as soon as he finds
-himself dealing in phantasy thought he will not only cut out the
-phantasy thought but will at once start arranging, in his mind, the
-stamps which he was shortly going to arrange in his book. It matters
-not in the least what form the substitute thought takes, so long as it
-possesses two qualities, (1) it is directive, <i>i.e.</i>, it is going to
-lead to some sort of actual change or action, and (2) that it bears
-a pleasurable interest. And for that reason, I have selected a very
-trivial form of directive thought as an example. The point is that
-the individual should select some subject in which he has a personal
-and active interest, as a subject with which he may replace phantasy
-thought, whenever the latter comes into his mind.</p>
-
-<p>Phantasy thought may, further, not be of necessity thoughts impossible
-of fulfilment, except in the immediate present. Thoughts of erotic
-or other desires which intrude themselves at untimely moments, are
-phantasy thoughts, and some people frequently complain that they are
-annoyed by them, especially when they have no intention of actually<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
-fulfilling them in fact, or when the means of fulfilling them are
-not present. Here again, to have a subject ready at hand, or to
-have a substitute thought for the undesired thoughts is a very real
-assistance. Even a sentence thought out beforehand or a good maxim
-which can be repeated several times and considered, forms an excellent
-substitute thought with which to replace the unwanted phantasy.</p>
-
-<p>Let us now consider a few other examples. The majority of educated
-people, of a so-called normal type, when they have completed their
-day&#8217;s work, and are fatigued, require some sort of mental rest, and as
-a rule some kind of phantasy thought is resorted to in the evening.
-Also, when this fatigue is cumulative, they say, &#8220;We have worked
-eleven months, and now require one month&#8217;s holiday.&#8221; This is really an
-unconscious phantasy requiring a regressive reward. They are not really
-tired out, physically or mentally, but they have accumulated, after
-a series of postponements, a large number of Narcissistic efforts at
-phantasy; and the holiday which they now require is really to satisfy
-this. It is a return to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>childhood and the time of irresponsibility,
-and their occupations on the holiday may very likely be, to a large
-extent, similar to those with which they occupied themselves in
-childhood. They throw off their adult status and responsibility, and
-deliberately take this regressive reward. Even with normal people
-the idea of <i>rest</i> in the form of a holiday, often means nothing but
-phantasy thought, time disregarded, no effort of any sort to be made.</p>
-
-<p>But in the less Narcissistic type of person who still retains directive
-thought even on a holiday&mdash;a holiday means merely change in immediate
-aim, change in occupation, rather than rest from aim and occupation.</p>
-
-<p>Phantasy thinking may take many quite surreptitious forms. In old age,
-for instance, we know that type of person, who is quietly slipping
-into helpless imbecility. He is the same man, who, at an earlier age,
-lacked the habit of directive thought. On the other hand, there is
-our intellectual old man or woman, still full of the day&#8217;s problems
-or politics, who indulged, in early life, but little in phantasies.
-Experience shows us that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> influence of directive or undirective
-thought in youth may not only determine our happiness in declining
-years, but may even determine the actual age to which we live. For,
-paradoxically, it is the Narcissist, who of all people desires a long
-life, and who is, of all people, the least likely to attain old age. He
-frequently &#8220;worries himself into the grave.&#8221;</p>
-
-<p>We have not yet exhausted the forms of phantasy thought. A casual
-conversation between acquaintances in which no information of value
-is imparted, in which merely some emotional material is brought to
-the surface and thrown out, is undirective thought. The first person,
-interested in some emotional experience, recounts to the second the
-facts of that experience, often without arousing any emotional feeling
-in the second person. Such is the type of conversation which takes
-place over a vast majority of tea-tables. It is wasted energy.</p>
-
-<p>Another example is that of conventional letter-writing, in certain
-cases. The duty letter which one person writes to another person is
-of the same type. The writer who deals with his or her experiences
-on a shopping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> expedition, who states a series of things which have
-happened, merely in order to enjoy them once again in phantasy, is
-performing the same waste of energy. There is no return for this
-expended energy, the rush of ideas produces no result. Perhaps the
-time is due for a letter to be written, and it is the turn of this
-person to write a letter. As a result of this conventional attitude,
-the writer has to resort to phantasy thought to satisfy the needs of
-the moment. We have pointed out that reading a novel is a form of
-phantasy thinking, in which we identify ourselves with the hero. The
-same occurs in our cinemas. Here, the pleasure of phantasy thinking is
-enhanced by the fact that the visual impression is produced direct,
-whereas in reading a novel the visual impression is by words only,
-and a certain amount of effort is needed to translate it in the mind
-into its pictorial form; and thus the cinematograph induces a form of
-phantasy thinking which needs the least effort of all to realise. It
-is within the reach of anyone possessing a few pence, and although the
-average person may regard it as educative and useful to the community,
-the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> magistrate who is dealing with the youthful delinquent knows the
-cinematograph to be very harmful to the child&#8217;s mind. And there is no
-doubt that the unconscious effect of such mental stimuli is excessively
-deleterious to the race in general. The indulgence in it encourages
-the habit of phantasy thinking at a small cost, and such a habit soon
-becomes established as part of the individual&#8217;s make-up. Nor does the
-evil stay itself here. For the phantasy in the cinematograph consists
-usually in the fulfilment of impossible wishes, and in this, as in
-other cases, the emotional output is increased out of all proportion
-to the real exciting causes. This results in a misplacement in the
-emotional output in the unconscious mind, which in its turn is the
-basis of many neurotic conditions which may even require a physician&#8217;s
-aid to eradicate. And one must remember that a neurotic condition need
-not merely be the illness of an individual, it may be, and often is,
-the disease of a nation. Hence, like the fairy-tale, the cinema, as it
-is at present, should not be used as a child&#8217;s pastime. </p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
-
-<h3>§2</h3>
-
-<p>In other forms of Narcissism also, we shall find it easier to break
-away from phantasy if we substitute a reality; that is, if we turn our
-flow of energy into a real, instead of an imaginary channel, instead of
-merely trying to dam the flow in the original channel. In cases where
-this Narcissism involves a bad habit, such as irritability, impatience,
-weeping, etc., the line that should be followed differs rather from
-that suggested in the case of day-dreams. In the first place, not only
-should we pull ourselves up short, but we should also bear in mind,
-immediately, the first part of the technique which we suggested in
-a previous chapter. That is to say, we should call to mind what our
-abnormal act really means, and having done this, having realised it in
-consciousness, <i>we should then endeavour to use the same energy which
-we should have used for this abnormal act in an immediate and useful
-manner</i>. Now, in all these cases, our abnormal reaction takes place
-because our omnipotence or sense of perfection is disturbed; and since
-this sense of perfection is not real, the easiest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> and most convenient
-channel for us to turn our energy into is one which still satisfies the
-sense of perfection, that is to say, one in which we may feel that <i>we
-are, by our act, becoming more perfect in reality, instead of clinging
-to our perfection in phantasy</i>. It is impossible to give examples to
-cover the very many reactions which may take place, but one actual
-example, given in detail, should be sufficient to enable the individual
-to invent others to suit his own case. Let us again take the case
-of the impatient man, in which the Time-factor has never been fully
-realised.</p>
-
-<p>Let us say that he has entered a restaurant for lunch, and that
-having glanced down the menu, he then has to wait ten minutes before
-the waiter attends to him. Probably, after the first minute of that
-time, he has begun to get impatient; at the end of ten minutes he is
-either making up his mind to go without his lunch, so great is his
-irritability, or else he is, with great emotion, explaining to his
-neighbour how extremely inefficient this restaurant is, as regards
-management, service, and, in fact, everything connected with it. He is
-utterly unable to realise the facts of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> case. Let us again refer
-to the facts for a moment. The restaurant is a business, and must make
-a profit; in order to do this, only a limited number of waiters can
-possibly be kept, and the number of these has to be regulated by the
-<i>average</i> number of customers, by the profit which it is possible to
-make in the neighbourhood, and other factors. In the second place, the
-luncheon hour is one at which the number of customers is well above
-the average, and therefore in which the service is bound to be the
-slowest; however good the management, however skilful the waiters, they
-are obliged to devote a certain number of minutes to each customer;
-and the probability is that our Narcissistic individual is being as
-well attended to as anybody else. He does not realise this however, he
-is not dealing with the facts at all. He merely knows that he wishes
-for an immediate meal, that his sense of perfection is thoroughly
-disturbed, and his unconscious idea is that if he is sufficiently
-impatient, what he wants will come to him immediately, just as it did
-in childhood.</p>
-
-<p>Now let us see how he may deal with <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>himself. We will suppose that
-he has read this chapter before his next visit to the restaurant in
-question. Once again he sits down, once again he finds he is kept
-waiting. His impatience begins to manifest itself in its early stages.
-He pulls himself up, and the first thing that he does is to realise the
-causes of his impatience, as set out in the last paragraph. He must go
-quickly over the original causes of his Narcissism in infancy, and of
-how he obtained means of satisfaction, and so developed his present
-habit of thought. He must run over the facts concerning the restaurant,
-and realise that it is a business place, and that it is at its busiest
-hour. In other words, he must get into full consciousness the various
-factors associated with this Narcissistic outburst of impatience. Then,
-let him realise as a kind of summary, &#8220;What I am actually objecting
-to is the disturbance of my unconscious feeling of omnipotence and
-perfection. Let me, however, turn this energy, utilise this time
-during which I am waiting in attaining a step nearer real perfection
-instead of bemoaning the loss of my imaginary perfection. Now, a step
-towards<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> real perfection will be attained, if I overcome this habit
-of impatience. Let me, therefore, utilise this time in sitting here
-patiently, in worrying no longer about the time the waiter is taking,
-in being actually pleased with the fact that I am becoming more
-patient, and that my time is being usefully filled with a directive
-aim, which has as its object the same ultimate idea as the original
-phantastic one, namely, that of perfection.&#8221;</p>
-
-<p>Critics may here suggest that this long monologue on the part of the
-impatient individual might have been cut short by allowing him to say,
-&#8220;Obviously, the waiters are busy, it is no use being impatient, let me
-be patient.&#8221; I must point out, however, that the result would probably
-not have been the same. The longer method has its value in the fact
-that he brings into consciousness the two ideas of perfection, the
-Narcissistic idea which is being hurt, and the real idea which he is
-desiring consciously to obtain. <i>And it is very much easier to turn
-energy from one channel to another, if there are lines of similarity
-between the two channels.</i></p>
-
-<p>Hence, when one&#8217;s sense of perfection is <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>assailed, let one turn
-one&#8217;s energy into some form of thought which still satisfies the idea
-of perfection attained or attainable. A similar process can be gone
-through with any other Narcissistic form of trouble, and consists in
-recapitulating the causes, and in reaching a determined effort to
-deflect consciously the energy from the phantastic into the real. The
-same principle holds good for all temperamental troubles of this sort,
-but the individual will have to devise for himself a suitable formula
-to use to suit the needs of his own case.</p>
-
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2><span>CHAPTER XIII</span> <span class="smaller">AUTO-SUGGESTION</span></h2>
-
-<p>Suggestion, in one form or another, plays an extremely important
-part in the life of everyone. Suggestion consists in impressing upon
-the unconscious mind some idea or thought in such a way that the
-unconscious mind will take it and absorb it as part of itself, and
-utilise it unconsciously and instinctively. Quite unconsciously,
-throughout childhood and adult life, we are receiving suggestions from
-the actions of those around us.</p>
-
-<p>For example, I remember as a boy going repeatedly with a relative
-to a friend&#8217;s house. At the time, I did not notice that my relative
-invariably used the knocker, and never rang the bell, or rather I did
-not consciously notice it. On one occasion I, myself, was sent with
-a message to this house, and although I was in the habit of ringing
-bells whenever I went to other houses, at this particular one, I
-instinctively knocked only. The suggestion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> that I should knock upon
-that particular door had been implanted in me by the fact that I had
-repeatedly seen the same action take place, although I had paid no
-conscious attention to it. It had impressed itself upon my mind as
-the right action to take place, under the particular circumstances
-attending a visit to this house, so that I performed the action itself
-automatically, without any further thought in the matter.</p>
-
-<p>The example impressed itself upon my mind, because while I was in the
-house, on this occasion, a man came to mend the bell, which had been
-out of order for many months. Hence, the reason my relative invariably
-knocked.</p>
-
-<p>Suggestion of various kinds is a very powerful factor, and as in
-the example given above, it is for the most part an unconscious
-factor in determining our actions. But it is possible for us to give
-ourselves <i>conscious</i> suggestions which will afterwards cause us to
-act automatically, in accordance with the suggestion. A great deal too
-much, however, has been claimed for suggestion in recent months. There
-are many circumstances in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> which suggestion is not likely to be any
-good at all, there are also circumstances when it may arouse an actual
-opposition in the unconscious mind, where a counter-suggestion is set
-at work immediately, and the condition of the individual may actually
-be worse than before he started giving himself suggestions.</p>
-
-<p>Apart from other things, one factor may be mentioned which is very
-antagonistic to suggestion, and that is <i>fear</i>, possibly fear which
-is for the most part unconscious. Thus, supposing that the alcoholic
-gives himself the suggestion that he shall pass a public-house without
-going into it, and he has a definite fear of the wish to go in; he
-will probably find that in suggesting that he shall not have the wish,
-he is actually re-enforcing the strength of the wish which is there.
-His unconscious counter-will is at work, and turning the force of the
-suggestion in the wrong direction, and he will very likely succumb
-to temptation more readily than before. Hence, in a subject where we
-have acute fear of failure, suggestion must be very carefully dealt
-with. Moreover, suggestion, to be efficient, must have other things in
-its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> favour, some knowledge, in fact, of the underlying causes of the
-deleterious action which we wish to eradicate. It is not impossible to
-improve oneself by suggestion, even though one may be ignorant of the
-cause of one&#8217;s trouble, but I have found that it is infinitely more
-easy to obtain this improvement if one has previously brought into
-consciousness the underlying cause, and can therefore direct one&#8217;s
-suggestion to this rather than merely to the effect or symptom. I have
-myself devised a method for the use of certain of my patients by means
-of which suggestion may be directed to both the cause and result,
-as indicated shortly. Ordinary methods of suggestion are frequently
-merely directed to the cure of the symptom rather than the disease; in
-fact, such auto-suggestion, popular as it has become, may frequently
-be likened to a doctor who treats small-pox by putting ointment on the
-spots, or appendicitis by giving morphia. It will be successful in
-those cases where the manifestations of the disease are worse than the
-disease itself; but when the causes are strong and virile, suggestion
-directed towards the symptom will not avail. </p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>In an earlier chapter, we described how the individual suffering
-from deleterious abnormalities of temperament could, to some extent,
-trace the cause of this back to infancy. We told how this, in itself,
-would, if repeatedly brought to mind on succeeding occasions, produce
-considerable improvement. We have further discussed how he could
-consciously turn the energy from one form of reaction into another
-and more suitable form. All these methods, however, may be made
-considerably more efficient by the active use of auto-suggestion, as I
-have indicated, directed partially to the cause and partially to the
-result desired. Thus, the form which suggestion should take in the case
-of the man, whom we quoted in the last chapter as being over-impatient
-in the restaurant, would be somewhat as follows:</p>
-
-<p>He would have to impress upon himself several suggestions; and in the
-case of each of these suggestions he would be required to form a mental
-picture of himself in the conditions to which the suggestions referred.
-Firstly, &#8220;In circumstances in which I have been accustomed to react
-with impatience, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> will no longer act as I did when I was a little
-child.&#8221; (In repeating this to himself in the manner to be referred to
-shortly, he should hold a picture of himself reacting impatiently when
-a child, and contrast it with the manner in which he ought to have
-acted.) Secondly, &#8220;Under conditions which have previously caused me to
-react with impatience, I will in future, at once think out the <i>real</i>
-circumstances of the case.&#8221; (And another suitable mental picture should
-be visualised here, as also in each of the following suggestions.)
-Thirdly, &#8220;Under conditions which previously caused me to react with
-impatience, I will no longer be impatient.&#8221; Fourthly, &#8220;Under conditions
-to which I have been accustomed to react with impatience, I shall now
-devote my energy to perfecting myself, in reality.&#8221; Thus, he is taking
-himself through the stages from childhood onward, and re-educating
-himself in each stage by means of a forced education in which the
-individual &#8220;grows up&#8221; in reality from the point at which he stopped in
-childhood.</p>
-
-<p>Not one, but all these thoughts, and possibly even intermediate ones
-that may develop,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> should be impressed upon the unconscious mind, so
-that they may act automatically. As to the method which should be
-adopted by the patient in giving himself suggestions, I recommend the
-following. That he first of all write down briefly the results of his
-self-examination, that he should take those results in chronological
-order, and write down from them suitable suggestions dealing with
-the various stages, such as I have just written with regard to the
-impatient man. That every night and morning, or at any other time
-during the day, he should for five or ten minutes lie down, relax
-himself, and close his eyes; that he should then repeat to himself
-fifteen or twenty times each of the suggestions, taking the earliest
-first, then the next, and so on. They need not be repeated out loud,
-but if repeated under the breath and accompanied by a suitable movement
-of the lips, it will suffice. Effort should be avoided; suggestion
-is not an effort of will so much as an impression effected by the
-imagination. When an individual is giving himself suggestion, he is not
-fighting an active battle, he is merely allowing ideas to sink into his
-mind; and if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> they are repeated often enough, like drops of water which
-in time wear a channel in the stone, they will make their mark and
-produce their effects in due course.</p>
-
-<p>Suggestion, in fact, minimises the need for the use of will-power,
-at any given moment in a difficult situation. If the battle has been
-fought out beforehand in imagination, it will automatically succeed
-when the time comes. The will has played its part previously when
-adopting the method of suggestion.</p>
-
-<p>This is not a text-book on suggestion, and I do not propose to go
-further into the method here. I merely wish to point out the practical
-efficiency of the use of a certain amount of auto-suggestion when
-applied in conjunction with the other methods of combating Narcissism
-already outlined, and when applied in an intelligent manner, so that
-not merely the symptoms, but the original causes themselves shall be
-affected by it.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2><span>CHAPTER XIV</span> <span class="smaller">CONCLUSION</span></h2>
-
-<p>The previous portion of this book has been devoted to showing how
-Narcissism may be harmful, and how in its endeavour to obtain
-satisfaction it may render the individual unhappy in the utmost
-degree. It is possible that the reader will have gathered that the
-author regards Narcissism as wholly and completely a useless and
-detrimental element in life; the more so, since at various points
-we have had to emphasise that in one form or another very little of
-it persisting in adult life may be a great deal too much. It should
-be realised, however, that Narcissism to a slight extent, and at
-certain periods, plays an important and also necessary part in the
-individual&#8217;s life. We mentioned at one place that a certain amount of
-identification was beneficial in choosing one&#8217;s life partner. Whereas
-too much identification might lead to one&#8217;s choosing a sexual partner
-of the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> sex, a small amount of identification might lead to one&#8217;s
-choosing a partner with the same tastes, and would further lead to a
-tendency to enjoy whatsoever the other one enjoyed, and to dislike what
-the other one disliked, and this similarity would lead to a certain
-harmony in life. <i>Narcissism is a normal thing in the new-born infant,
-and Narcissism is the root of many virtues; but its final adult form
-must be sublimated and very much attenuated.</i> It is like the salt in
-cooking; a little is essential to bring out the flavour, but a very
-little more spoils the whole dish.</p>
-
-<p>A certain amount of self-love, self-appreciation, self-importance, and
-self-consciousness of one&#8217;s own capacities is necessary in every one;
-without it he would be ill prepared to cope with men and circumstances.
-But this necessary self-importance and self-appreciation is not, as
-many might think, due to Narcissism alone. It has a slight Narcissistic
-element, but it is largely a resultant of other unconscious instincts,
-which we have not attempted to deal with here; and we only mention
-it, lest the reader should draw the conclusion that these necessary
-elements in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> our character are drawn purely from a Narcissistic
-basis, and that he should therefore be left puzzled as to how, if he
-should eradicate Narcissism, he would be able to retain necessary
-characteristics which apparently belong to this same instinct. It is
-also very necessary for the reader to bear in mind that much which
-may be developed from Narcissism is useful; even though the original
-from which it came may be dangerous and harmful. Moreover, a certain
-amount of enjoyment of phantasy such as is obtained from novels or
-theatres may be in many people quite a useful and adequate form of
-relaxation. With them it may be strictly cut off from real life, may
-be strictly limited as regards time and place, and, in fact, entirely
-under their control. In such persons it forms a useful element in their
-lives. I do not say that if their early education and environment had
-been different they might not possibly possess an even better form of
-recreation, but merely that, taking facts as they are, in certain cases
-it forms a useful factor in the working scheme of life.</p>
-
-<p>In others, however, in those where it has exceeded the limits of
-absolute control, it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> necessary, for the time being at least, to
-attempt to cut it out as completely as possible, because where it is
-allowed slight free play, it is liable to get out of hand, unless it
-can be dealt with absolutely at the will of the individual. Hence the
-necessity for such stringent treatment as I have laid down in the
-previous chapters of this book.</p>
-
-<p>I have attempted to show that happiness is, for the most part,
-within the individual&#8217;s own grasp. Happiness comes from within the
-individual and not from without. Unhappiness must not be confused
-with pain, either mental or physical, for pain is a normal reaction,
-to a harmful stimulus which all are liable to feel; it is for the
-most part beyond the individual&#8217;s control so long as the stimulus
-persists; but the peace of mind, the absence of worry, of irritability,
-of perpetual uneasiness, which we call unhappiness, lies within the
-control of everybody. It largely consists in continually recognising
-what facts are unchangeable, and ceasing to bemoan or phantasy about
-these unchangeable facts. It is true that the road to happiness may
-be difficult if we have long been accustomed to tread the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> path of
-Narcissism, but it is equally true that if the advice laid down in this
-book be followed patiently and systematically, a very much happier
-frame of mind will be attained as a result. In a few cases, Narcissism
-is not a predominant factor causing the temperamental disturbance
-although superficially it may appear to be so. In such cases (where
-other primitive instincts are really of paramount importance) the same
-degree of improvement will not be attained by this method of self
-treatment and only a more prolonged course of regular psycho-analysis
-is likely to produce the desired result.</p>
-
-<p>Happiness is not to be found by seeking happiness in the direct sense.
-This, I am aware, sounds very much like a mere high-sounding thought
-of a writer. It is the sort of phrase that people dismiss with the
-remark, &#8220;That is all very well in theory.&#8221; This statement, however,
-is not made from any moral or sentimental point of view, nor on any
-purely theoretical grounds, but as a scientific fact, which has been
-demonstrated as the result of psychological research. It may be
-interesting to note here how much the psychology<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> of happiness is in
-agreement with many of the teachings of the New Testament, although a
-different terminology and mode of expression may be used.</p>
-
-<p>It was pointed out earlier how the individual who employed too much
-phantasy thought in youth might worry himself into an early grave,
-although he was the same individual who most desired a long life. It
-has now been shown that happiness does not come to those who seek
-happiness, but to those who can adapt themselves to realities, that
-is, to those who can control their Narcissism. Narcissism is not so
-very different from the word &#8220;self,&#8221; as used in Christian teachings,
-and any who are interested enough to compare them will find that there
-is considerable parallelism between Christian teaching and certain
-psychological observations.</p>
-
-<p>I must emphasise the fact once more that patience, that is a
-realization of the time factor, is very necessary for those who attempt
-self-treatment on the lines indicated in this book. For since lack of
-this is often one of their faults to start with, they may otherwise
-involve themselves in a vicious circle, from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> which they do not
-escape. Patience and attention to detail will, however, enable them to
-accomplish that improvement which they have set out to achieve. In the
-words of Horace, &#8220;Happiness is here, happiness is everywhere, if only a
-well-regulated mind does not fail you.&#8221;</p>
-
-<p class="center space-above">THE END</p>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OMNIPOTENT SELF, A STUDY IN SELF-DECEPTION AND SELF-CURE ***</div>
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Omnipotent Self, by Paul Bousfield.
+    </title>
+    <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" />
+    <style type="text/css">
+
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+            /*  visibility: hidden;  */
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+                left: 92%;
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+    .mynote { background-color: #DDE; color: black; padding: .5em; margin-left: 20%;
+              margin-right: 20%; } /* colored box for notes at beginning of file */
+    .space-above {margin-top: 3em;}
+    .right            {text-align: right;}
+    .left             {text-align: left;}
+
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 66496 ***</div>
+
+<div class="mynote"><p class="center">Transcriber&#8217;s Note:<br /><br />
+Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.<br /></p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p>
+
+<h1>THE OMNIPOTENT SELF </h1>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/title.jpg" alt="title page" /></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="bold2">THE OMNIPOTENT<br /> SELF</p>
+
+<p class="bold">A Study in Self-Deception and Self-Cure</p>
+
+<p class="bold space-above">BY</p>
+
+<p class="bold2">PAUL BOUSFIELD</p>
+
+<p class="bold">M.R.C.S. (<span class="smcap">Eng.</span>), L.R.C.P. (<span class="smcap">Lond.</span>)</p>
+
+<p class="bold"><i>Physician to the London Neurological Clinic (Ministry of Pensions),<br />
+Late Demonstrator of Morbid Anatomy, St. George&#8217;s Hospital, Late<br />
+M.O. American Women&#8217;s Hospital for Officers, etc., etc.</i></p>
+
+<p class="bold">Author of <i>The Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="bold space-above">LONDON<br />
+KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER &amp; CO., <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span>,<br />
+BROADWAY HOUSE, 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.C.<br />1923</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center">PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE DEVONSHIRE PRESS, TORQUAY.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p class="center">&#8220;<i>Nature has granted to all to be happy if we but knew how to use her
+gifts.</i>&#8221;&mdash;<span class="smcap">Claudius.</span></p>
+
+<p>Many people, while not considering themselves as suffering from any
+nervous ailment, nor desiring the services of a physician, are yet far
+from being perfectly happy in their mental outlook and temperament.
+Either their feelings are too easily roused, or they are inclined to
+worry, to be depressed, irritable, nervous, or over-sensitive. Trifles
+which to them seem no trifles interfere with the smooth course of their
+daily lives, or this slight abnormality may manifest itself in an
+over-sensitiveness to physical pain or to mental or moral difficulties
+and conflicts. It is with the hope of helping a few such individuals
+to a better understanding of themselves, and through this to a more
+equable temperament and greater happiness, that this little book is
+written.</p>
+
+<p>There is no hard and fast line between the normal and the abnormal
+person, and indeed a very real difficulty exists in even defining a
+normal person. If we take our definition of normal as being &#8220;average
+or conforming to type or standard,&#8221; then the majority of people
+are normal. If, on the other hand, we take its other meaning, that
+of &#8220;performing the proper functions,&#8221; then there are few people
+approaching the normal under modern civilized conditions. A tendency
+to undue irritability or depression is a mild and very common form of
+abnormality. Hysterias, obsessions, and unreasonable fears are greater
+abnormalities, and fortunately of less frequent occurrence, while
+certain forms of insanity are still greater deviations from the normal.
+A similar combination of causes, however, may form the basis of all
+these abnormalities,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> and these various deviations from the normal are
+more of degree than of kind. But whereas in cases of obsessions and
+unreasonable fears or in such other abnormalities as homo-sexuality or
+sexual impotence, etc., the causes are deeply hidden and the forces at
+work somewhat complicated, in the lesser abnormalities there are causes
+frequently lying less deeply.</p>
+
+<p>In the case of obsessions, phobias, hysterias, sexual abnormalities,
+and so forth, we can only hope to effect an improvement by a thorough
+analysis of the unconscious causes and conflicts by a competent
+psycho-analyst. In the lesser troubles of the mind, however,
+considerable improvement can often be effected by means of a somewhat
+superficial self-analysis. This will be directed towards investigating
+one in particular of the primary causes which play an important part in
+all the minor unpleasant temperamental faults.</p>
+
+<p>In order to teach the patient to help himself, it will first of all be
+necessary to enlighten him to a considerable extent as to the general
+evolution of his character; at any rate in as far as one important
+mental complex known as &#8220;Narcissism&#8221; is concerned. In doing this, many
+other mental complexes will have to be superficially touched upon; but
+in order to simplify the work for the uninitiated, they will not be
+specifically named when they appear; for, although this would make the
+work more technically accurate, it would, at the same time, make it
+less clear, and in a book of this type this would be very undesirable.
+The first object I have in mind is that the work shall be lucid,
+concise, and readily understood by any person of ordinary education,
+so that he may gain an insight into the essential causes and growth
+of some of his abnormal characteristics without undue complication
+of ideas. It is further hoped that this small work may be of some
+assistance in suggesting to parents a few of the many things to be
+avoided in the early training of the child.</p>
+
+<p class="right">PAUL BOUSFIELD</p>
+
+<p><i>7, Harley Street, W.</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table summary="CONTENTS">
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="3" class="center">PART I: THE OMNIPOTENT SELF</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2" class="left"><span class="smaller">CHAP.</span></td>
+    <td><span class="smaller">PAGE</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>I&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Unconscious Mind</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>II&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Repression</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>III&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Forces Shaping Character</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>IV&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Determinism and Will Power</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>V&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Narcissism</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>VI&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Fact and Phantasy</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>VII&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Identification</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>VIII&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Irritable Temperament</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>IX&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Rationalization</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="3" class="center">PART II: PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>X&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Self Analysis</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>XI&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Readjustment of Objectives</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>XII&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Readjustment of Thought</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_138">138</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>XIII&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Auto-Suggestion</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>XIV&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Conclusion</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_165">165</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>PART I</h2>
+
+<p class="bold2">THE OMNIPOTENT SELF </p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER I</span> <span class="smaller">THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND</span></h2>
+
+<h3>§1</h3>
+
+<p>In considering the question of character, with its various
+irregularities and idiosyncracies, we shall have to accustom ourselves
+to dealing with factors which do not exist in consciousness at all.
+Strange as it may seem to the uninitiated, many of our thoughts, ideas,
+and motives are quite outside our normal consciousness, and of them
+only the resulting emotions and actions appear on the surface. This
+may be taken as an absolute and indisputable fact, and one which the
+reader should try to appreciate at the outset, although it is somewhat
+difficult to realise, for we always find it hard to apprehend and
+understand something which we can neither see nor touch.</p>
+
+<p>If one were to tell the ordinary labourer that water is composed of
+two gases which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> when combined form a liquid, he would probably be
+quite incredulous, and possibly in his ignorance might even deny
+emphatically any such possibility, on the grounds that it was against
+all common-sense and experience; he failing to realise, of course, how
+very limited were both his sense and his experience. In spite of his
+feelings of absolute certainty, and in spite of complete faith in the
+unshakable logic behind his belief, he would be wrong.</p>
+
+<p>While it is not to be expected that many readers of this book will deny
+the existence of the unconscious part of the mind, it may well be that
+many will fail to realise that it is of more than theoretical value.
+It therefore becomes necessary for us to examine the matter somewhat
+carefully, and to familiarise ourselves with the ideas of the working
+of this unconscious mind.</p>
+
+<p>Without going into the further sub-divisions recognised in psychology,
+we will confine ourselves to dividing the mind into two parts&mdash;the
+conscious and the unconscious. <i>And of these, at any given moment, the
+conscious is by far the smaller part.</i> We are actually <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>conscious at
+any moment of but very few things, such as the book we are reading,
+the chair we are sitting on, and dimly of our immediate surroundings.
+A thousand memories which we might conjure up of our childhood and
+our past are, for the time being, far from consciousness. Yet these
+matters exist somewhere in the mind, for we are able, if we choose,
+to search about in it, and bring them into consciousness, even though
+we may not have thought of them for many years. This leads us at once
+to a striking fact, namely, that while many things can be remembered
+at will, others which we feel we ought to remember, cannot be brought
+to mind at all. It is an extremely common experience to find that one
+has forgotten a name completely, and that no effort will bring it into
+consciousness, yet later on, apparently without effort, the name will
+&#8220;come back to us,&#8221; as we say. In fact, the very phrase we use&mdash;&#8220;come
+back to us&#8221;&mdash;implies that it has been somewhere away from us, that it
+has been lodged in some place that is foreign and unknown to us, yet
+which we are aware is somewhere within us.</p>
+
+<p>It is also common knowledge that a great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> many events and scenes of
+considerable importance to us at the time of action are forgotten, and
+that they can only be recollected if some sort of stimulus or reminder
+be given. For instance, a person may have forgotten completely where
+and how he spent a holiday ten years ago. No amount of racking his
+brain brings anything to light. But having been reminded of a single
+incident that occurred during that holiday, the whole of the rest may
+come up from the unconscious in full detail.</p>
+
+<p>There is a third kind of memory more important still, if one may
+be permitted to call it memory, and that is the memory of facts
+which no <i>ordinary</i> stimulus of this sort will ever bring up into
+consciousness again. The term &#8220;memory&#8221; is used here because we have
+every reason to believe that somewhere in the unconscious all facts
+have been registered, and in many cases may be partially brought into
+consciousness again by suitable means, such for instance, as hypnotism
+or psycho-analysis, (two very different methods, by the way). Yet,
+though these impressions have been made on the mind, and though there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
+is this unconscious memory still in existence, in the ordinary course
+of events we should never again be conscious of them.</p>
+
+<p><i>We may, however, be very conscious of actions and emotions emanating
+from the unconscious memory.</i> Thus, suppose that as a child one had
+lived in the country, and on several very happy occasions a bonfire
+had been lighted at a picnic, and that later on one lived in a town,
+and that this picnic which happened at the age of three or four years
+had become completely forgotten, so much so that even photographs of
+the scenes or conversations on the subject carried on by other people
+brought no memory to light and seemed to touch no chord; it would still
+be quite likely that the mere smell of a bon-fire in the distance or
+any smell resembling this would be enough to cause a considerable
+feeling of elation and happiness in the person, a feeling that
+something pleasant was taking place, an idea that if only one could
+remember, a pleasant picture could be called up. This is because it is
+associated in the unconscious mind with these previous happy occasions.</p>
+
+<p>Or again, suppose a child at the age of two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> or three years has been
+dropped into a pond and nearly drowned. Although the incident may
+in later years be completely forgotten, the horror of deep water
+and all its associations may vividly persist. It seems probable,
+and a considerable amount of work has been done on this subject in
+psycho-analysis, that every action, thought, or idea that has ever
+been registered in the mind, even to some extent before birth, is
+permanently fixed; and that although much of this cannot be brought
+into consciousness by present methods, yet all the feelings and
+emotions, however slight, which attended these thoughts, ideas, and
+actions are perpetually being called forth by slight stimuli of which
+we are unaware, and these are playing their part in moulding our
+thoughts, feelings and actions in the present time.</p>
+
+<p>I had an interesting patient a short time ago who, owing to certain
+experiences in the war, was suffering from complete loss of memory; so
+complete that he did not know his own wife nor even his parents. Under
+hypnosis, the whole of his memory was rapidly brought back; and when it
+appeared to be normal and both he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> and his parents were quite confident
+that it was as good as it had ever been, I suggested that we might try
+an experiment to see if we could improve it still further. I asked him,
+amongst other things, if he could voluntarily remember the first time
+he wore knickerbockers. He had not the faintest recollection of the
+matter. I then hypnotised him, and told him to give me the details. He
+described the knickerbockers minutely, the number of buttons on them,
+the fact that he wore them on his third birthday, that his father had
+given him a penny, and told him that &#8220;now he was a little man, he must
+have money in his pocket,&#8221; together with a very large number of other
+details. I enquired of his father and mother and sisters, and they
+corroborated the details in every particular.</p>
+
+<p>I have tried several similar experiments with him and with one or two
+other patients under hypnosis with considerable success, and have even
+tried to take them back to the memory of their own birth. They have
+frequently produced many memories of events that occurred before the
+age of one year, but previous to that could only give reproductions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> of
+movements and pleasant and unpleasant emotions. Whether these latter
+are memories or not one has unfortunately no means of proving. But the
+fact that under hypnosis both educated and uneducated people alike
+exhibit extremely similar ideas as to types of movements, expressions,
+and feelings at the various stages of their very early life, inclines
+one to think that these reproductions may be memories. One has,
+however, to beware of the fact that observation and knowledge acquired
+in later periods of their lives might be the real factor underlying
+their apparent reproductions. Further evidence of a different nature
+will be given on this point, however, at a later stage in the book.</p>
+
+<h3>§2</h3>
+
+<p>So far, we have shown that there is an unconscious part of the mind
+which acts as a store-house for memories, ideas, and emotions of the
+past. We have not, however, shown that it is anything more than a
+store-house. But if we look into it from other points of view, we
+shall see that it is a great deal more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> than a mere store-house, for
+it thinks, reasons, comes to conclusions, and in fact assists in
+controlling our acts at every turn; indeed this unconscious part of our
+mind wields driving forces of the utmost potency in moulding our lives.</p>
+
+<p>Let us examine first the <i>reasoning</i> faculty of the unconscious mind.</p>
+
+<p>Maeder gives a good example of this. A house-surgeon at a hospital
+wished particularly to keep a certain appointment, but he was not
+allowed to leave the hospital until his chief, who was out, should
+return later in the evening. As his appointment was of considerable
+importance, he decided to brave the anger of his chief. He therefore
+kept his appointment, but when he returned later, he found to his
+astonishment that he had left a light in his room, a thing he had
+never done before, although he had occupied that room for two years.
+He thought the matter over, and soon realised why he had done this.
+The chief, on going to his own house, would pass the window and would
+see the light burning within, and imagine that his house-surgeon was
+at home. The unconscious mind had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> rapidly reasoned this out and had
+determined that the conscious mind should forget to turn off the light.</p>
+
+<p>Another illustration of the persistent way in which the unconscious
+mind will reason and act can be given from my own experience. I had to
+attend a lecture given by a man, with whose views I totally disagreed.
+I had no wish to attend the lecture, but felt compelled to do so in
+an official capacity. Consciously, I determined to go; unconsciously
+when I made the note of the lecture, I wrote down the time of it in
+my engagement-book a week late. On discovering this, I consciously
+endeavoured to rectify the matter, but my unconscious mind wrote
+Tuesday instead of Thursday in my engagement-book, so it went down
+wrong once again. Later, having been forced to see my mistake by a
+friend mentioning the matter, I omitted for a short time to rectify it
+in my engagement-book, feeling sure that I should remember to do so a
+little later. But alas! for the determination of my conscious mind. I
+forthwith made an appointment for a patient at the real time appointed
+for the lecture, and so could not in the end<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> attend it. Now, these
+lectures were held regularly on a particular day of the week, and I
+had generally looked forward to them, and attended them without any
+difficulty. It was only in this one case that I did not wish to go. My
+conscious mind decided to attend; but my unconscious mind played trick
+after trick in order that my real desires should be satisfied. Such
+examples could be multiplied indefinitely. It is possible that many
+would say that they do not actually prove unconscious reasoning nor
+power of thought. Let me, therefore, give one or two simple examples of
+a different nature.</p>
+
+<p>A friend of mine once told me that he had spent several days in trying
+to work out a chess problem without success. One morning, he woke
+up with a picture in his mind of the exact moves that he must make.
+The problem had been solved in his sleep unconsciously, and with no
+recollection on waking of any conscious effort at reaching the solution.</p>
+
+<p>In my own experience, as a school-boy, I failed to solve a problem in
+Euclid during an examination. On the morning afterwards, the solution
+flashed through my brain <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>suddenly, as I lay in bed. Whether I had
+solved it in my sleep, or whether it was solved in bed as I lay awake,
+I am not prepared to say. Of this much, however, I am certain. I made
+no conscious effort; my mind merely wandered lazily in the direction
+of the previous day&#8217;s failure, and almost instantaneously the right
+solution appeared without effort.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now take another example of work which the unconscious mind is
+called upon to perform; an example which we are accustomed to view
+without question or thought, which is comparatively commonplace,
+and which we dismiss summarily by referring to it as &#8220;habit.&#8221; The
+accomplished pianist reads the music in front of him consciously, but
+he is not conscious of the extremely rapid translation which takes
+place from the brain to the fingers, so as to produce complicated
+movements on the key-board. And if we examine it carefully, we shall
+find that something very wonderful has actually taken place outside
+his consciousness. When he was first learning to play, he looked at
+the note on his music, and said to himself &#8220;That is C.&#8221; He looked at
+the key on the piano,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> and repeated &#8220;That is C.&#8221; He was taught that a
+particular finger must be placed on that particular note when playing
+in a certain key. He was taught that it had to be hit in a particular
+way and held down for a particular time, according to the size and
+shape of the note he was reading on the sheet of music in front of him.
+He was further taught that in order to modify any sound in a particular
+manner, he could use his feet on one or other of the pedals, and must
+be extremely careful to put his feet down and lift his feet up again
+at exactly the right moment. He was taught that when certain symbols,
+known as sharps and flats, preceded the notes at the beginning of his
+piece of music, the whole scheme of fingering would be different. And,
+at first, he had laboriously to go through the process of watching
+first the music and then the key-board, and of <i>thinking</i> at each
+point what he should do with his fingers and with his feet, and how he
+should do it, and for what period he should keep on doing it. Now, the
+whole process is gone through with half-a-million notes which he has
+never seen before, many of them played simultaneously, and with an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+exactitude which he never attained when he was consciously thinking.
+Whatever may be the nature of the unconscious action which is taking
+place, all he has in consciousness is the music in front of him, and
+the final sound that he is producing, together with the emotions which
+these called forth in him as a result of the whole.</p>
+
+<p>Can there be any doubt left that a complicated unconscious process of
+the same kind is taking place?</p>
+
+<p>Or again, let us examine our own personal likes and dislikes.
+Frequently one can assign no reason whatsoever for these. They may
+exist, in fact, against what we call our better judgment. We may
+love a person in spite of certain faults, or dislike him in spite
+of his virtues. If the matter be examined further, however, we not
+infrequently find the reasons for our emotions towards him. Either
+his manner, dress, or tone of voice, or some other trivial feature
+may resemble someone we have liked before, or on the contrary, some
+mannerism may call to mind a similar mannerism which we associate
+either in ourselves or in some other person, with unpleasant
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>characteristics. Our unconscious mind has rapidly sized up all these
+points, appraised them, and presented our conscious mind with the
+resulting emotions alone.</p>
+
+<p>So-called intuition is, to a large extent, merely rapid unconscious
+reasoning, in which minute details are taken into consideration by the
+unconscious, and only the final opinion presented to consciousness.
+One should beware of trusting intuition too much, however, in spite of
+popular prejudice to the contrary, for unconscious reasoning is just
+as liable to be wrong in its conclusions as is conscious reasoning;
+and it is just as liable to reach the conclusion which best serves its
+immediate purpose, and to suppress truth where it is unpleasant.<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" >[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>Some psychologists think that the unconscious mind is <i>infallible</i>
+in purely <i>deductive</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> reasoning from the <i>premises</i> from which it
+starts. But it provides its own premises from a secret store and also
+accepts any suggested premises which are not repugnant. The premises
+may therefore be wrong but the deductive reasoning is accurate. In this
+case the conclusions will only be wrong because the premises are wrong.</p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1">[1]</a> Unconscious reasoning or intuition is found chiefly in
+those who have not been trained in subjects which induce and train
+logical conscious reasoning. It is not a prerogative of sex, but on
+the whole is found more amongst women, merely because of their method
+of training from childhood upwards. In children and savages intuition
+is found equally present in both sexes. The loss of intuition merely
+means that the training of the conscious mind has caused us to mistrust
+conclusions for which we cannot consciously see the reasons.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER II</span> <span class="smaller">REPRESSION</span></h2>
+
+<h3>§1</h3>
+
+<p>One other faculty of the unconscious mind requires special mention, and
+that is its power of obliterating memories from the conscious mind,
+or as it is better termed, of <i>repressing</i>, since this word not only
+implies pushing out of consciousness, but also preventing from coming
+into consciousness. It is found that all persons have formed a regular
+habit of forgetting or partially forgetting, (and so disguising),
+things which are unpleasant to them. This especially refers to those
+things which are unpleasant to their self-respect, their moral beliefs
+and ideas, and their general pride in themselves. The primitive
+immoralities and thoughts and actions of early childhood which would
+now offend their æsthetic and moral susceptibilities, are, more or
+less, completely put out of sight, together with a host of unpleasant
+ideas and thoughts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> which have cropped up from childhood onwards.
+Indeed, there is a general tendency for anything of an unpleasant
+nature to be pushed out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>Darwin, in his autobiography, states, &#8220;I had, during many years,
+followed a golden rule, namely that whenever a published fact, a new
+observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general
+results, to make a memorandum of it without fail, and at once, for I
+had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt
+to escape from the memory than favourable ones.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>We had a further example in the case of the house-surgeon who &#8220;forgot&#8221;
+to put out his light, and examples are extremely common in everyday
+life. We forget to post letters entrusted to us against our will, but
+we do not forget to post our own love-letters. We mislay bills very
+readily, but rarely do we mislay a cheque.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst my patients suffering from shell-shock, I have had very many
+hundreds who have completely forgotten some of the most unpleasant
+and terrifying experiences which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> occurred to them out at the front.
+Others unconsciously had found the easiest method of dealing with
+the unpleasant past to be that of blotting the whole of it out,
+dissociating it completely from their conscious mind, and then stating
+that they remembered nothing of their lives until they woke up in
+hospital. It is not only memories, however, which are repressed and
+remain dormant in the unconscious mind. Most of our primitive instincts
+handed on from our savage forefathers before even the evolution of man
+in his present form, lie similarly buried in this unconscious part of
+the mind, and we are wont to deny emphatically that we possess these
+unpleasant instincts. Nevertheless, just as <i>in utero</i> we repeat more
+or less in detail the history of our physical evolution, so do we at
+that period and in childhood repeat to a great extent the history of
+our psychic evolution; and just as during this early period we possess
+the physical attributes of many of our ancestors, such as the gills
+of the fish or the tail of the lower vertebrates, so psychically do
+we at a somewhat later period, possess the instincts and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> desires of
+our progenitors, and utilise them as the hidden foundation stones
+in building our adult mental constitution. These various primitive
+instincts include all kinds of desires which would consciously be
+regarded as sexual perversions and moral crimes of different kinds, and
+they are present in all of us without exception. Our upbringing and
+conscious outlook upon them, however, causes them to be so abhorrent to
+us, that we successfully keep the majority of such ideas and feelings
+<i>from ever coming out of the unconscious in their primitive form</i>.
+In other words, we repress them. Occasionally, however, there is a
+tendency for these ancestral instincts to become conscious, and in
+our further efforts to prevent this we may develop instead hysterias,
+obsessions and unreasonable fears, together with many other nervous
+and abnormal signs and symptoms, into the nature of which it is not
+my intention to inquire further in this present volume. Those who
+are interested in pursuing this line of investigation will find an
+elementary account of it in a previous work of mine, &#8220;The Elements
+of Practical Psycho-Analysis.&#8221; All that I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> wish to emphasise here
+is that we do push out from the conscious mind unpleasant thoughts
+and memories, that we do repress and keep in the unconscious mind
+unpleasant desires and instincts, and that we do, as a result of this,
+have many unconscious or semi-conscious conflicts within ourselves,
+which may lead to unpleasant feelings of depression, irritability,
+fear, or in more pronounced cases hysterias, obsessions, and even
+permanent mental derangement.</p>
+
+<h3>§2</h3>
+
+<p>A further and somewhat important result of our possessing so much
+which is unconscious and of having so many feelings and ideas in
+consciousness of which we do not know the origin, or of whose
+origins we have but the vaguest and haziest notion is known as
+<i>rationalization</i>. This word signifies that we find reasons for doing
+or believing things which are of a pleasant nature and agreeable to us,
+and <i>vice versa</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Following on this rationalisation comes also a certain conservatism,
+which tends to retard progress of any sort, which dislikes looking at
+new ideas, and this for a very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> obvious reason. Looking at new ideas,
+examining ourselves or our work very closely, has a tendency to bring
+to light, from time to time, the very primitive instincts and feelings
+which we have been at so much pains to repress. And rather than submit
+to the indignity of discovering how really imperfect we are, and having
+our pride in our divinely constituted natures shaken, we have acquired
+a habit of denying and fighting strenuously against discovering truths
+connected with either our moral or physical evolution which would be
+unpleasant to us. In the light of our upbringing, such new truths are
+often unpleasant, therefore we rationalise that they must be untrue.
+For having been educated to venerate logic and reason, we can only
+be satisfied with any given conclusion we come to when we feel that
+it is justifiable in the light of logic and reason. But the logic of
+rationalisation is false logic.</p>
+
+<p>For many years, scientific and popular thought denied strenuously the
+possibility of the now universally accepted theory of human evolution;
+and on scientific grounds it was urged, with much plausible reasoning,
+that it was not possible to develop a high type<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> like man from any low
+form of animal. On religious grounds it was argued equally passionately
+that if evolution were true, the Bible was wrong, God disappeared, and
+therefore the theory of evolution was untrue. The real reasons lying
+behind those reasons advanced by both the scientist and the general
+public, however, were not the reasons so carefully thought out by
+them, but consisted largely in the fact that they did not wish to find
+that the body, which they had hitherto thought a special and divine
+creation partaking of the miraculous, to be merely a stage in the
+evolution of life on this planet, and possibly not a final stage at
+that. For in that case, no longer would man be able to flatter himself
+that he was almost divine, he would have to relegate himself to the
+possibility of being in a stage of semi-barbarism; he would no longer
+be a final perfect product, but merely a half-finished article. It was
+this blow to his pride that he could not stand. And it is the same
+to-day. Whenever there is a likelihood that examination, particularly
+through research work, has thrown light on his psychic evolution,
+on the imperfections of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> his moral laws, or on the crudity of some
+conventional custom, the process which takes place in him is much the
+same.</p>
+
+<p>Firstly, dislike of the idea. Secondly, on further examination of it,
+hatred of the idea. Thirdly, rationalisation directed against the idea.
+Fourthly, contentment, in that he has proved by logic and reason that
+the idea is wrong. Hence, it is that the truth takes long to emerge,
+and that obsessions and hysterias, and even trivial abnormalities are
+difficult to cure, for the cure involves seeing our own imperfections
+naked and undisguised.</p>
+
+<p>In all these cases, we are trying to keep out of consciousness those
+things which will distress us or cause us to have conflicts, or to have
+to readjust our views of ourselves, or in fact cause us unpleasantness
+in any form. It will be noticed that I have mentioned pride in the
+belief that we have reached a condition of final development, and in
+our superiority over the rest of nature, as being one of the important
+factors in preventing our advance. It is to the development of this
+pride, and its ramifications that I am devoting the major portion of
+this book.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER III</span> <span class="smaller">THE FORCES SHAPING CHARACTER</span></h2>
+
+<p>It will be seen from the foregoing that evolution of the individual
+character may be the result of a very large number of forces at
+work, of which many are quite unconscious; and that any considerable
+disturbance or variation of the unconscious factors will considerably
+modify the character of the individual, in spite of conscious desires
+in some other direction. The character of an individual is the sum of
+his thoughts, ideas, capacities, desires, feelings and actions, and the
+general forces moulding it may be briefly summarised as follows:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>1. The primitive instincts inherited from his ancestors, and held
+back in the unconscious mind.</p>
+
+<p>2. Environment and education.</p>
+
+<p>3. That pride in his own greatness, to which we referred in
+the last chapter, which modifies all the other forces at work,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>according to the direction of its development. This force will
+henceforth be called by the name of Narcissism, for a reason
+shortly to be explained.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>§2</h3>
+
+<p>Of the inherited instincts we have already said as much as is necessary
+here. It suffices for us to recognise that they are for the most part
+of a primitive erotic type, and that they are so repressed and modified
+as to be unrecognisable in the normal adult. When they have been
+ineffectually converted by environment and education, we have present
+the basis of many neurotic and functional conditions, and this again is
+a matter which is outside the scope of the present work.</p>
+
+<h3>§3</h3>
+
+<p>Environment and education are extremely comprehensive terms as used
+in psychology. Environment does not merely refer to the home with its
+visible surroundings, nor does education merely refer to the scholastic
+side of it. Environment and education include the treatment of the
+child by the nurse during<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> the first week of life; for instance,
+whether she leaves it alone when it cries, or whether she soothes it
+and rocks it to sleep again. A trivial fact, the reader will think,
+especially in the first week of the child&#8217;s life, yet experience
+shows us that this environment and education of the first week is an
+extremely important factor in its after-life. The thousand little
+actions, the trivial chance words of anger or contempt, not merely
+of the parent but of strangers or of other children, all make their
+impressions on the infantile unconscious mind. They all belong, in the
+strictest sense, to what we term its environment and education. Any
+stimulus, in fact, however small, which is capable of reaching the
+brain forms part of this environment and education which is reacting
+on the child. Psychologists are now generally of the opinion that
+the essential elements of the individual character have all been
+definitely formed by the age of five, and that, important as training
+in successive years may be, the environment and education during those
+first five years are more important still.</p>
+
+<p><i>It is the object of education and</i> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span><i>environment to modify and utilise
+the force of the primitive instincts with which the child comes into
+the world in the best possible way.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Three things may happen to any particular instinct.</i> Firstly, it may
+remain unchanged and unrepressed, in which case the individual will
+be said, on reaching adult life, to be perverted in some way. Let us
+take as an example that instinct which exists in some animals, and
+which urges them at the mating season to exhibit their genital organs
+to their fellows of the opposite sex, with the perfectly natural and
+proper end in view of propagating the species. We occasionally find
+adult human beings in whom this instinct has remained unchanged and
+uncontrolled, and they generally find their way, sooner or later,
+into prison. The psychological term for the offence they commit is
+&#8220;exhibitionism.&#8221; In the small child, however, we have often seen this
+instinct at work, without regarding it as objectionable in any way.
+We have laughed at the little child who delights in running about
+naked, or asks us to come and see it being bathed, or on occasion calls
+even more obvious attention to its state<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> of nakedness. It is quite
+unconscious of the primitive instinct which it is displaying, and since
+it is a child and cannot in any way fulfil the sexual objects of the
+instinct, we pass the matter over, without further thought.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, our primitive instincts may be <i>displaced</i>, and the
+displacement must be such as to conceal them from our conscious
+thoughts, in order that they may be tolerated by the conscious mind.
+For instance, the normal adult will not be guilty of exhibiting his
+nakedness in the way above referred to, nor will he display desires of
+sexual exhibitionism in a conscious manner. But he, or more frequently
+she, will <i>displace</i> these ideas, and will only call attention to the
+sex of her body indirectly by exhibiting the neck or arms, or more
+indirectly still through the medium of clothes, designed to suggest,
+(for the most part unconsciously) erotic ideas.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, a much higher state may be reached by some people in which the
+primitive instinct has now lost entirely its erotic meaning, instead
+of being merely disguised and displaced as in the last case. The force
+and energy of it has all gone from the personal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> physical plane to
+serve a useful social purpose of a non-sexual nature. This is known as
+<i>sublimation</i>, and instead of the desire of our exhibitionist to show
+himself or herself physically, the person may attain the desire by
+showing a fine character, by designing a fine building, achieving some
+high position, or anything in fact of an ideal or non-erotic nature.</p>
+
+<p>Exactly the same process takes place in the opposite of exhibitionism,
+which in its primitive form we term observationism. &#8220;Peeping Tom&#8221; is a
+celebrated example of this. We have a <i>displacement</i> of observationism
+in the fairly average young man, who likes to observe all that he can
+of the charms of every woman he comes into contact with, who takes
+an eager interest in her shoulders, breasts, underclothing, and any
+part she may exhibit. And we have the third or <i>sublimated</i> stage in
+the scientist, who has turned most of his primitive sexual instinct
+of &#8220;looking&#8221; in the sexual sense into looking down the microscope, or
+searching for the secrets of Nature, and delving amidst her hidden
+laws, instead of using the same <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>primitive desire to look in an
+unsublimated and rather more infantile manner.</p>
+
+<p>It is exactly the same with a large number of other primitive
+instincts, which even did I mention them here would not be grasped
+or understood at all by many without very much further explanation.
+Suffice it to say, that many of our higher activities and desires
+are sublimations of lower and more primitive instincts, which we are
+learning to develop and control; <i>and that education and environment
+have, as their object, the training of the child by turning the forces
+at work in his primitive instincts through the stage of displacement
+into the final one of sublimation</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It should be clearly grasped that the energy lying behind our primitive
+instincts, whether it be repressed, displaced or sublimated, is a
+very real force, comparable with the physical energy which we are
+accustomed to deal with in everyday life. <i>And this energy must find
+some outlet for its discharge.</i> Thus,<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" >[2]</a>&#8220;We know as regards physical
+energy that there are not several kinds of energy, but merely several
+manifestations of it, and that it may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> be changed from one form of
+manifestation to another, but that still the sum total of the original
+energy remains without addition or loss.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Thus there is a given amount of energy stored in a ton of coal. This
+energy can manifest itself as <i>heat</i> in the furnace and boiler. By
+means of an engine we can change the manifestation into that of
+<i>motion</i>, then with a dynamo to <i>electricity</i>; the electricity we can
+again change into <i>light</i>, or back again into <i>heat</i> or <i>motion</i>. There
+is <i>one</i> energy, but by suitable means we can turn it to different
+uses, and give different manifestations of it. Owing, however, to the
+imperfection of the boiler, machinery, etc., we never transform the
+<i>whole</i> of our energy into another form. In transforming heat into
+electricity, there is always some heat wasted; it is not destroyed, but
+it remains as heat for a time, and is absorbed by surrounding objects.
+A complete transference of energy does not take place, and the less
+efficient the machinery the less is the transference.</p>
+
+<p>Now evidence tends to show a considerable similarity between psychic
+and physical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> energy. In all probability there is only one ultimate
+psychic energy which, like physical energy, can be directed into
+different channels. Thus, the energy of erotic desire can be directed
+to a large extent into the energy of desire for music, religion,
+science, or sport; or the energy of the desire for sport may be changed
+into the energy of the desire for mental exercise, such as chess,
+mathematics, or science. For example, an individual feels &#8220;restless,&#8221;
+he then desires to play tennis; the afternoon is wet: he plays chess
+instead. His psychic energy has been diverted from one channel into
+another with its accompanying excitement and satisfaction of desire:
+with its final feeling of fatigue and repletion.</p>
+
+<p>Psychic energy, like physical energy, can never be entirely diverted
+from one channel to another. There is always some, often a large
+quantity, which is not altered in character. The amount of this depends
+largely on the person concerned, just as the amount of physical energy,
+changed from one form to another depends on the efficiency of the
+engine or machinery.</p>
+
+<p>This possibility of transference of energy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> of desire from one form
+to another is of the utmost importance to the psycho-analyst. By the
+technique of psycho-analysis the energy of repressed desires is first
+freed from deleterious objectives, and then transferred to legitimate
+ones. The energy behind the conflicts which lead to alcoholism or
+drug-taking may, under suitable conditions, be transferred to energy of
+higher types of desire with more suitable outlets. These processes are
+known as <i>transference</i> and <i>sublimation</i> respectively.</p>
+
+<p>It may be taken that every mind has a given amount of psychic energy
+which <i>must</i> find somewhere its suitable outlet in satisfying desire,
+whether for accomplishment or for enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>We may here again take the opportunity of stating that the efficiency
+or lack of efficiency demonstrated in different individuals in their
+attempts to transfer the energy of desire from a lower to a higher
+channel depends not only on heredity and constitutional circumstances
+but to an extraordinary degree on the individual&#8217;s environment and the
+actions of the parents in the first three or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> four years of his life.
+The reason why seemingly excellent parents produce sometimes execrable
+progeny becomes clearer under psycho-analysis. The over-strict parent
+produces one type of inefficient children, the parent who spoils
+produces other inefficient types. The nurse, the nursery, the casual
+visitor, the trivial conversations, the unconsidered sights and
+experiences, all have a terrific influence in the first few years
+of the child&#8217;s life. Parents do not realise that conventional or
+arbitrary methods of education, whether in one direction or another,
+are not going to effect the results they expected. The primitive
+unconscious mind of the child understands and absorbs in a manner
+that civilised man does not recognise. The bad father may by accident
+or <i>neglect</i> produce an excellent child&mdash;the good father with all
+his designs may produce a bad one. This is not an attempt to show
+that as the child grows up <i>all</i> its actions are dependent on the
+early environment; merely that we can never compare the good or bad
+in individuals; that an apparent failure, owing to his inefficiency
+of powers of sublimation, may yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> be devoting more energy to ascent
+than the successful saint whose early environment made for efficient
+transference of energy of desire. Some of the commonest of errors made
+by well-meaning parents will come to light at a later period. &#8220;<i>They
+teach their children to repress erotic and other desires but they omit
+at the same time to assist the development of that sublimation of them
+which is absolutely essential.</i>&#8221;</p>
+
+<h3>§4</h3>
+
+<p>We now come to the third great factor in character formation, and as
+this particular factor is going to occupy the major portion of this
+book, I will not do more here than indicate briefly the symbolic
+meaning of the term Narcissism; the reason why this term is used in
+connection with our primitive feelings of pride will then gradually
+unfold itself.</p>
+
+<p>Narcissus was the son of the river god, Cephissus. In his mother&#8217;s
+eyes he was extremely beautiful, and later in the eyes of all others,
+including himself. It was his wont to walk abroad in solitary places
+lost in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> admiration of the graceful form which he thought no eyes
+worthy to behold, save his own. On one occasion, he wanted to drink
+from a cool spring and catching sight of his face in the water for
+the first time in his life, at once fell in love with it, not knowing
+it to be his own likeness. On his knees at the edge of the pool, he
+stretched himself, and looked down upon a face and form so entrancingly
+beautiful, that he was ready to leap into the water beside it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who art thou, who hast been made so fair?&#8221; cried Narcissus. And the
+lips of the image moved, yet there came no answer. He stretched out his
+hand towards it, and the beautiful form beckoned to him. But when his
+hand touched and broke the surface, it vanished like a dream, only to
+return in all its enchantment when he was content to gaze motionless,
+even then, again, growing dim beneath the tears of vexation he shed
+into the water. Repeatedly, he tried to gather the lovely image in his
+arms, but it always eluded him, but when he entreated and implored, it
+imitated his gestures with unfeeling silence. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Maddened by the strong allurement of his own likeness, he could not
+tear himself away from the mirror which ever mocked his fancy. Hour
+after hour, day after day, he leant over the pool&#8217;s brink, crying in
+vain for that imaginary object of adoration. But at last from despair
+his heart ceased to throb, and he lay still among the water-lilies that
+made his shroud.</p>
+
+<p class="center">*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*</p>
+
+<p>Before proceeding further and examining the development of Narcissism,
+and those factors which come to preserve it, and make it forceful in
+our unconscious mind, we must first briefly consider the subject of
+determinism.</p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2">[2]</a> &#8220;Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis,&#8221; by Paul
+Bousfield.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER IV</span> <span class="smaller">DETERMINISM AND WILL POWER</span></h2>
+
+<p>Determinism is the doctrine that all things, including the will, are
+determined by causes. It is the antithesis of the doctrine of free
+will. In its complete form, it holds that the individual has no direct
+and voluntary control over his thoughts and actions but that every
+thought and action is inevitably the result of a large number of
+previous thoughts and actions which have gone before.</p>
+
+<p>There is a very large amount of evidence, and indeed, whether we admit
+it or not, the evidence is quite irrefutable, that in regard to the
+majority of our actions the doctrine of determinism holds good. But the
+evidence is by no means sufficient to enable us to conclude that we
+have no free will.</p>
+
+<p><a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" >[3]</a>Freud in his book on the &#8220;Psychopathology of Everyday Life&#8221; and in
+other works gives many convincing examples that much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> in our character,
+that many of our actions, evil and good, are quite beyond our control
+at any given moment. But there is one thing that appears to have been
+overlooked, and that is, <i>that in all the examples given one could
+not conceivably utilise free will in any case</i>. If I ask you to think
+of a number what opportunity do you get of using your will power?
+If you put the wrong latch-key into the door by accident, have you
+made any effort to use will power? When a patient is suffering from
+hysteria due to repressions of various kinds, in that particular matter
+<i>the will power has already been lost</i>. When a chronic alcoholic is
+unable to cease from drinking his will power in reference to this has
+disappeared, therefore determinism holds the field completely. The
+will has no opportunity of working then. In all the examples which
+Freud gives one discovers on careful investigation that for some reason
+or another there is no opportunity for the use of free will. Such
+evidence as we have certainly does not prove the nonexistence of free
+will, but merely shows that in a very large number of our thoughts and
+actions we do not use any will at all, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> that in other cases we are
+unable to use our will effectively.<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4" >[4]</a> When determinism does rule we
+may liken it physically to this: a patient sits down and crosses one
+leg over the other and leaves the one leg hanging free. On tapping
+it smartly beneath the patella the foot will kick; the knee jerk has
+been elicited. If this be done fifty times the result will be the
+same fifty times. There is movement of the leg, but this movement is
+predetermined. On the other hand this does not prove that no other
+movement of the leg is possible. Under the conditions just given the
+man&#8217;s will, or the freedom of the leg, is merely <i>eliminated during
+that period</i>. Or again, we may liken it to a locomotive standing at the
+top of a hill; if the brake be taken off, the locomotive will run down
+the hill, and will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> do it every time; but this will not prove that did
+somebody happen to put the brake on half-way down the hill the engine
+would still go on running. However, all actions which we may ascribe to
+our will are no doubt strictly limited by other determined conditions.
+The man on the engine may run it backwards or forwards, but only within
+<i>the very much prescribed limits which the rails allow</i>. We may safely
+accept this much determinism, that although the will exists, its
+capabilities are strictly circumscribed by determinism.</p>
+
+<p>It is rather in his general direction than in any specific act that
+a man has most control. We certainly have not the amount of free
+will which we like to believe we have. For example, the reader of
+this chapter may have returned home to-night and have said, &#8220;I will
+not have a meal to-night, it is too hot.&#8221; What are the factors (or
+determinants, as they are called) in this case? Perhaps external heat,
+producing langour by various physiological processes, combined with
+lack of appetite, in its turn produced by several causes, and added to
+this, depression, produced by a bad business deal, and in its turn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> the
+result of many other determinants outside the reader&#8217;s control. There
+is no desire to eat, and these various determinants, added together,
+prove stronger than the habit of eating the evening meal. Having,
+however, read this chapter as far as this point, the reader desiring to
+disprove my unpleasant suggestion, immediately says, &#8220;Ah! I will prove
+that I have free will. I will eat my meal in spite of not wanting it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Alas! this does not <i>prove</i> free will, new determinants have merely
+been added on the other side, and desire to prove strength of mind has
+now out-weighed accumulated efforts which prevented you from eating.</p>
+
+<p>Since it has been shown that a man&#8217;s control is constantly being
+limited by other determinants, it follows that the criminal whose
+environment and determinants, conscious and unconscious, have been
+manufactured for him from evil sources, yet who, on the whole, is
+progressing upwards in spite of these, may be forming a far better
+character than the arch-bishop whose environment from the beginning has
+been such as never to give him criminal characteristics,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> yet whose
+growth has been, on the whole, towards a more selfish position, even
+though this be not noticeable to the eyes of others.</p>
+
+<p><i>Now many of the determinants forming our characters lie in the
+unconscious. They are unknown to us and only the results of their
+activities are visible. Herein lies the difficulty of controlling
+ourselves. How can we efficiently control that of which we do not know
+the existence? Herein, also, lies the value of psycho-analysis, for it
+brings many of these determinants to light, and we are thus able to
+control them consciously.</i> Only a part of all this can be accomplished
+by such self-analysis as may be indicated in this book. Yet even so, a
+much greater degree of self-control may be obtained.</p>
+
+<h3>§2</h3>
+
+<p>Let us now consider briefly why persons who have not previously been
+irritable, should suddenly become irritable; who have not previously
+been hysterical, should suddenly become hysterical; who have not
+previously been in the habit of weeping, should at some time after
+reaching adult life, revert to that infantile habit. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The explanation of mental troubles of various kinds involves two
+factors. In the first place, any individual is capable of bearing a
+certain amount of conflict and a certain amount of repression. It is
+only when the accumulated force is more than he can control, <i>that is
+when new determinants are added</i>, that the symptoms begin to appear. He
+is like a steam engine in which as long as the steam is being used up
+in doing work, or as long as the safety valve is working efficiently
+when work is not being done, the boiler stands a pressure of 100lbs.
+very comfortably. If the safety valve gets jammed, and the energy
+cannot be transferred from the steam to the work, the pressure in the
+boiler rises higher and higher until it bursts from the joints and
+rivet-holes.</p>
+
+<p>The second factor which determines the mode of expression of this
+out-burst of repressed energy is known as the <i>law of regression</i>.
+This means that if the adult outlet of energy becomes dammed up or is
+insufficient, <i>the energy will flow through an earlier channel which
+has once been used</i>. The individual will, in fact, revert to some
+method which he was wont to use in earlier years,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> or in infancy. It
+is true that this may be disguised and not recognised as an infantile
+mode of expression until it is looked into more closely. This question
+of regression, however, need not be more than touched upon here. It
+will be much more fully dealt with when we come to actual examples at a
+later stage.</p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3">[3]</a> &#8220;The Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis,&#8221; by Paul
+Bousfield.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4">[4]</a> The doctrines of determinism and free-will respectively
+can be brought entirely into line with one another if we include
+freewill itself as one of the determinants. Thus, if in the formula</p>
+
+<p class="center">S = a + b + c + d + etc.</p>
+
+<p>where S is the resultant action, and a, b, c, d, etc., are the several
+determinants, it happens that d = 0. The presence of d does not
+invalidate the formula. <i>But if</i> d <i>does not happen to be zero, the
+absence of</i> d <i>would invalidate the formula</i>. If d represents the
+&#8220;will&#8221; component there may be plenty, even a majority of cases in which
+d = 0, but there may be cases in which the omission of d will render
+the result erroneous.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER V</span> <span class="smaller">NARCISSISM</span></h2>
+
+<p>The term Narcissism has already been mentioned and some slight
+indication of its importance in character development has been given.
+We have also examined the derivation of the term, and found that it
+implies self-interest, self-importance, self-worship; all of which
+characteristics are in modified degrees possessed by everybody. There
+are, however, many other manifestations of Narcissism, many tricks by
+which it gets past our conscious intentions, many ways in which it
+associates itself with other instincts, and unknown to us works our
+undoing. We shall therefore, in this chapter, examine the development
+of Narcissism from its very earliest stages, and trace out in some
+detail whither it may lead.</p>
+
+<p>Most people were they asked at what moment the child&#8217;s mind first
+began to register feelings, thoughts, and emotions, would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> probably at
+once and without hesitation say, &#8220;At the moment of birth.&#8221; It seems
+the obvious thing to say, but like many other obvious things such a
+statement appears to have but little evidence in support of it and much
+against it.</p>
+
+<p>The act of birth has performed no sudden or miraculous change upon the
+growth and tissues of the body. It is true that oxygen is now absorbed
+through the lungs instead of as originally through the mother&#8217;s blood,
+but the essential tissues, the brain, the muscles and the bones have
+undergone no sudden change. Before birth, they were living tissues,
+and we know that the muscles were at work, for we had felt the baby&#8217;s
+movements <i>in utero</i>; we know that the heart was at work, driving
+the blood through the child&#8217;s arteries. We had learnt this also by
+means of the stethoscope many weeks before the child was born. Why
+then should we assume that the brain had registered nothing at birth?
+We do indeed know that it must have been at work in part, for it was
+learning to regulate the action of the child&#8217;s heart and the child&#8217;s
+secretions, the blood pressure, and the motions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> of its limbs. We are
+therefore justified in assuming that it must be capable of registering
+impressions, even though it were incapable of reason or thought.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that at birth it commences to undergo many vivid new
+experiences, but that is no reason for assuming that it has not
+undergone any experiences <i>in utero</i>, and that these experiences have
+not made some impressions on the brain. Let us see for a moment what
+impressions it is likely to have received and registered. First of
+all, it would most certainly hear sounds, the sounds of the blood
+rushing through the mother&#8217;s arteries and the sounds from the outer
+world, muffled and indistinct when they had penetrated the mother&#8217;s
+body. All these sounds would be of a soft crooning nature, and those
+caused by the blood in the mother&#8217;s arteries would be of a rhythmic,
+humming, rising and falling nature, a kind of rhythmic lullaby very
+similar in many respects to the lullaby the mother will hum to the
+child when she wishes to put it to sleep at a later period. We should
+expect these sounds to be registered on the child&#8217;s brain so that if
+it ever heard their like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> again, some chord of <i>feeling-memory</i> would
+be struck, and some emotional association brought to mind. In the
+second place, external movements would be registered on the child&#8217;s
+mind as the mother walked about. There would be a swaying or swinging
+movement. Again we should expect that when, in after life, the child
+experienced a swaying or swinging movement, a chord of memory would be
+touched again, and these earlier associations would be revived; not as
+a conscious memory or fact, of course, but as a feeling.</p>
+
+<p>Again, conscious movements of its own limbs might be impressed upon it.
+It would find, when it tried to move, that its movements were limited,
+and that it attained more perfect peace by refraining from attempting
+to struggle and change its position. It would be impressed by the
+pleasantness of inertia as opposed to the unpleasantness of making
+an effort. And finally, its general position with the knees drawn up
+and the chin bent down would be firmly registered, so that when in
+after-life it again assumed this position, once more the chord of
+memory<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> would be struck, and the old feeling of repose would be likely
+to return.</p>
+
+<p>Now, we cannot assume that the child has any active mental state before
+its birth, but we know that its condition (taken in conjunction with
+its extremely limited experience) is one as near omnipotence (from its
+standpoint) as may be. It breathes, or rather absorbs oxygen without
+any effort of breathing. It is fed, it is kept warm and comfortable
+without any effort whatsoever. It lives in a world entirely its own,
+where everything works together for its comfort and well-being. It has
+to make no struggle for existence. It has to deal with nothing <i>real</i>,
+save perhaps that its voluntary movements are limited, and this perhaps
+is bad for its education, since at that period of its life it learns
+that it can be most comfortable by making least effort! And here we see
+the beginning of that which we all possess in after-life, <i>inertia</i>,
+the difficulty of making a beginning at anything, the objection which
+we have to making efforts.</p>
+
+<p>Now let us see what happens to this omnipotent little creature at
+birth. It goes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> through the probably painful process of having its
+position roughly changed and being thrust into an atmosphere which is
+cold and unusual to it. Moreover it has to make its first struggle for
+breath, its first effort to sustain existence. And in its struggle for
+breath it utters cries, which by experience it very soon finds to be
+magic sounds which enable it to fulfil its wishes. But of this, more
+later.</p>
+
+<p>After its first rude awakening, let us once more see what happens. It
+is wrapped up in something warm; that is, it is returned to a semblance
+of the womb, by having something round it which keeps out the cold. It
+is gently rocked to and fro by the nurse or other attendant, and again
+the semblance of the previous rocking in the womb is returned to it.
+Crooning sounds are murmured over it, and the semblance is still more
+complete. It frequently draws its knees up somewhat if it is placed in
+such a position that it can do so with ease, and falls asleep. It has
+attained as nearly as possible once more the semblance of its pre-birth
+condition, where it has no cares, and is warm and comfortable again.
+And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> though it has become acquainted with effort, it is quite obvious
+that its feeling of omnipotence, if we may so term it for the moment,
+is hardly yet disturbed, and the world it has come into differs but
+slightly from the world which it has left; it is still a world in which
+the infant is the centre and ruler, in which its every want is attended
+to without an effort on its part, save that it may sometimes have to
+call attention to its wants by means of that magical cry which it soon
+learns how and when to use, and which acts in a truly magical manner in
+accomplishing the fulfilment of all its desires.</p>
+
+<p>During the first few weeks of the infant&#8217;s life this delusion on the
+part of the child is largely kept up. Few people think there is any
+harm in attending to all a baby&#8217;s wants in the first month of its
+life. They do not think it could possibly be wrong to spoil it at that
+age, because its intellect has not developed. They forget entirely
+that its mental condition and attitude towards life, apart from actual
+thought, may inevitably be affected at this period. Hence, whenever
+the baby cries, it is not uncommonly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> rocked to sleep, or fed, or if
+it holds out its hand and shows its desire to possess anything, it is
+immediately allowed to possess it, and to play with it. It has to make
+but the faintest attempts to adjust itself to its environment, it has
+to face but the slightest reality; all its desires are immediately
+fulfilled, and kept in a condition of almost continual fulfilment. And
+it may remain for a considerable period as near being an omnipotent
+creature as it is possible for any living thing to be. Its omnipotence,
+however, is really a fallacy, or as I prefer to term it at a slightly
+later stage, a phantasy, for the world in which it lived before birth,
+which seemed to it as a world, was not really a world at all, but a
+very small and a very temporary abode, and the world in which it is
+living for the first few months after birth is again not really a world
+but a combination of extremely limited and carefully selected portions
+of the world, in which every attempt is made to disguise from it the
+realities of the actual world.</p>
+
+<p>Again let us emphasise the fact that the chief effort that the infant
+has to make is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> the effort of crying. And it may learn very quickly
+that this is so all-powerful as to practically efface the unpleasant
+task of having to adjust itself to the realities of life. This process
+is carried on with slight modifications for many months. The infant has
+but to wave a magic wand, as it were, has but to emit a little magic
+noise from its mouth, and all the world it knows is set in motion to
+give it satisfaction and some semblance of its pre-birth omnipotence.</p>
+
+<p><i>This cry which brings it gratification, if it has been really
+effective over a too-prolonged period, will tend to fix permanently
+in the child&#8217;s mind the fact that either weeping or making a magic
+noise with the mouth will always attain for it gratification. And
+although at a later stage the conscious mind will be obliged to accept
+a considerable amount of reality and to reject the idea of omnipotence,
+yet the unconscious mind will persist in the struggle and will make
+futile efforts to forget reality, to change reality into phantasy, and
+to regain its omnipotent state.</i></p>
+
+<p>When a man uses expletives because some task of his has failed to
+result in success, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> is really repeating the infant&#8217;s cry. He is
+really uttering a magic sound which his unconscious mind hopes may
+somehow remedy the failure. He has not definitely accepted the reality
+of failure as a commonplace hard fact of life at the moment at which he
+utters his expletive.</p>
+
+<p>When a person weeps at some unpleasant happening or in anger at
+something which has touched his pride, exactly the same is taking
+place. He, or she, has failed to make a complete adaptation of
+himself to the facts and realities of life. <i>He has obeyed the law
+of regression</i>, to which I referred in a previous chapter, and has
+returned to the infantile method of expression, namely weeping, with
+the unconscious hope that a magic compensation will result; that
+instead of his having to adapt himself to the facts of life, the facts
+of life will somehow adapt themselves to his phantasy.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, the first piece of advice that one must give to parents is
+that they should, from the earliest possible moment, train the
+infant to understand that the magic cries will not at once produce
+their expected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> result; and the first week in the infant&#8217;s life is
+all-important in this matter. The choosing of the nurse who has charge
+during that period should be done with great care, and what is required
+of her should be insisted on. Too great emphasis cannot be laid upon
+these points.</p>
+
+<p>The child should be fed at regular and proper intervals, and should
+be kept warm. But if it cries, as it will do naturally, it should be
+left to itself to cry. It should not be picked up, rocked to sleep,
+given another meal nor petted. If it is left to cry, it will learn very
+rapidly and at the right period of its life that the sounds which it
+emits are not magical, and it will begin to adapt itself to the fact
+that it lives in a real world which has not been built solely and only
+for its own delight.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious to note how regression, this instinct to return to the
+earlier mode of expression, to return apparently even to the pre-birth
+state, persists in the unconscious mind.</p>
+
+<p>During the war, I knew a youth who was intensely agitated by the
+air-raids. He felt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> perfectly safe, however, if he could crawl under
+the bed or table, where he would curl himself into practically the same
+position as that of a normal baby before birth. When questioned, he had
+not, of course, the slightest conscious knowledge of why he felt safe
+in such curious circumstances. But it does not seem improbable that
+the association of ideas produced by his position and by the confined
+space created a feeling akin to that feeling of safety which has been
+his in his pre-birth omnipotent position where nothing could harm him.
+A similar feeling of security was experienced by many normal persons in
+cellars and other confined spaces and was probably of the same origin;
+for there is no doubt that this safety was felt even though their
+reason told them that a bomb was as likely to reach their confined
+space as any other place in the neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>Again, I know of innumerable cases in which soldiers felt very much
+safer from bombs which fell at night when they were under cover of a
+canvas tent. Logically, of course, the thing was absurd; emotionally,
+it was a fact. And all were equally unconscious of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> any possible
+reasons for the feeling of security produced. An example of this same
+tendency at an earlier age is seen in children who cover their heads
+with the bedclothes when they are frightened.</p>
+
+<p>To return to our Narcissistic infant, we are now impressed with the
+fact that one thing of the utmost importance in the first years of its
+life is that it shall gradually come into contact with reality, shall
+discover that all things do not belong to it, that its omnipotent
+feelings are based purely upon phantasy and not upon reality; and upon
+the method of its disillusionment and the age at which this begins
+largely depend the future powers of adaptation of the child to its
+surroundings. It has now become obvious that the new-born infant lives
+in a world of phantasy, in which, the relative importance of itself to
+things outside itself is not merely distorted but is entirely absent.
+And if we can suppose a child kept artificially in this condition till
+it reached adult life, every wish satisfied instantaneously, every
+force it knows directed entirely towards gratifying its immediate
+desires, we do not require much imagination<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> to understand how
+absolutely helpless and lost this omnipotent creature would be if
+suddenly turned into the world to face life and reality. His one desire
+would be to return to his omnipotent state, his one effort to keep at
+bay reality and turn it into the pleasant phantasy of the previous
+twenty years. For he would surely, before his disillusionment, have
+really come to believe himself omnipotent, the only real thing in a
+phantasy world of his own fashioning and dreaming.</p>
+
+<p>An extreme case of this kind is, of course, an impossibility. But there
+are many and various degrees in which it is approached. Probably the
+nearest approach to it may be found in cases where some sort of moral
+or mental conflict has been too much for an extremely Narcissistic
+mind, which has then completely regressed, refused to recognise the
+outer world, and developed a certain form of insanity; and from this
+stage of complete Narcissistic regression all degrees and kinds of
+manifestations of it may be found, until we reach at the other end of
+our list a person who expects everyone around to consult his wishes
+and peculiarities or who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> is merely somewhat impatient, or inclined to
+irritability, or merely over-sensitive to either mental or physical
+pain.</p>
+
+<p>There is no more certain fact than that if an infant be allowed to
+postpone its acquaintance with reality too long it becomes fixed in a
+more or less degree in conditions in which phantasy plays too prominent
+a part, and regression of some kind takes place as it meets with real
+difficulties.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER VI</span> <span class="smaller">FACT AND PHANTASY</span></h2>
+
+<p>In the last chapter we emphasised the fact that one of the first
+products of Narcissism was the infantile difficulty of distinguishing
+between fact and phantasy, of realising the world outside oneself. This
+tendency to mix up fact with phantasy is by no means only to be found
+in an abnormal mind. It is present in some degree in all persons; each
+one feels himself to be the most real thing present, and in feeling
+this he has a tendency to believe that others round him are in some way
+less real, though, fortunately, very few carry it far enough to imagine
+that all the others are merely part of a dream in which the dreamer is
+the only real figure, as the Red King in &#8220;Alice Through the Looking
+Glass&#8221; is supposed to have done, when the remark is made to Alice,
+&#8220;You&#8217;re only a sort of thing in his dream! If that there king<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> was to
+wake you would go out bang&mdash;just like a candle!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And yet quite a large number of people find it difficult to realise
+firstly, that they must die, and secondly that the rest of the world
+will not die also when they die. They know, of course, that this
+latter is not the case, yet they cannot look upon it as a commonplace
+fact. Their Narcissism refuses to contemplate their own mortality. It
+represses the fact and leaves the idea vague and unreal to them.</p>
+
+<p>In children, the difficulty of distinguishing between phantasy and
+reality is quite normally much more accentuated than in adults.
+And since they start in a world of phantasy and their training is
+to lead them to a world of reality, it is obvious that the halfway
+stages will be obscured by a strange mixture of the two. All children
+go through the stage in which phantasy and reality are by no means
+clearly differentiated, and most young children succeed, day by day, in
+fulfilling impossible wishes in phantasies in a manner which a properly
+developed adult can never do. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A little boy desires to possess a pony; if this be impossible his
+imagination gives life to a rocking-horse, and failing that he may
+tie a piece of string to a chair, and with great pleasure and much
+emotion urge on his fiery untamed steed across mountain and desert.
+He fulfils his wishes immediately by means of a phantasy, which, for
+the time being, successfully replaces reality. If this child grows up
+normally, this possibility of phantastic fulfilment should gradually
+disappear. How many adults, for instance, could take a bath-tub into
+their dining-room, sit in it, and with the aid of a vivid imagination
+thoroughly enjoy a pleasant sail at sea? We trust no one, at any
+rate of our readers, for they would be of that type which has no
+perspective, and they would most certainly fail in their vocation as
+practical men and women. Yet remnants of phantasy thinking remain with
+everyone, and in a moderate degree, so far as we know, such remnants do
+but little harm if they are present in small measure only, and kept in
+water-tight compartments.</p>
+
+<p>Adult phantasy thinking very largely <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>consists in what is known as
+identification, which may be either conscious or unconscious. Of this,
+we shall have more to say shortly. At the moment let us trace out what
+should happen to the normal child as it grows older. Education and
+environment should be gradually convincing the child of the unreality
+of its phantastic thoughts and of its early world, should be inducing
+it to think in terms of facts and to adjust himself to these facts,
+instead of attempting the impossible task of adjusting these facts to
+suit his own phantastic conceptions of them. The method of thought
+which he should develop in order thus to fit himself to meet the
+world adequately has been conveniently termed &#8220;directive thinking.&#8221;
+Directive thinking is controlled thought based upon facts seen in their
+true perspective, and with a purpose in view which is both definite
+and possible. It is the very opposite of phantasy thinking, which is
+generally indefinite, based upon a lack of perspective, and attempts
+continually to obtain the fulfilment of wishes impossible of fulfilment.</p>
+
+<p>In directive thinking, the purpose in view<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> must be purposive to the
+thinker, a change to be produced in the world, either in its happiness,
+its morals, its commercial prosperity or in other forms of progress
+or even of deterioration; or the purpose may be to effect changes in
+the individual&#8217;s own happiness or prosperity, or it may be directed
+towards a mental change in the thinker himself with no immediate idea
+of changes in his external surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>Thus a man may wish to improve his own character by eradicating a bad
+habit. He may do this by thinking carefully about it, by analysing the
+causes of the habit, by giving himself auto-suggestion in opposition to
+the habit. All this, even if the habit may not in the end be eradicated
+must be classed as directive thinking. <i>Directive thinking is thus
+obviously, controlled thinking requiring an effort of attention and
+concentration as opposed to phantasy thinking which knows but little
+control save that of desire, and little effort or concentration.</i></p>
+
+<p>In all the business of everyday life, directive thinking must be
+employed; whether we are merely using our minds to decide the most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+trivial problem, such as the best way of eradicating weeds from the
+garden, or whether we are deciding upon a policy to be pursued in some
+great commercial or political enterprise. Every time we use our brains
+in directive thinking we are establishing a habit which gradually gives
+us power to produce changes in our environment and in the world in
+general. Every time we indulge in phantasy thinking we encourage the
+habit of living in a world of our own ideas, and we are destroying the
+habit which enables us to create in reality.</p>
+
+<p>The two forms of thinking may, of course, overlap considerably. The
+novelist or playwright, for instance, is very largely a phantasy
+thinker. He may feel the emotions of the various phantasy characters
+which he evolves, but in order to arrange the words and sentences,
+and furthermore in having an idea to portray or in drawing attention
+to evils which he thinks should be remedied, he is using considerable
+energy in directive thought. So that it becomes obvious that directive
+thought need not merely apply to the things of the immediate present
+nor even the near<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> future, and in trying to draw distinction between
+the two, one is often confronted with a superficial criticism, that
+certain ideas must pertain to phantasy thinking, because they can never
+come to pass. That, however, is quite incorrect. The possibility that
+an idea may come to fruition in two or three hundred years time, and
+that the thoughts which have been given to the idea must assist its
+growth and ripening, is sufficient to constitute these thoughts as
+directive.</p>
+
+<p>We must now look at the second important element in the child&#8217;s early
+education, which would follow logically upon the first one that it
+should be made to face the facts around it; and that is, that in its
+games and occupations it should be encouraged, as far as possible, to
+take lines of directive thought, and not obtain its pleasures through
+phantasies only.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, it would be much better to give him bricks to play with, so that
+he may use directive thought in designing and building a house, than
+to give him a ready-made toy, such as an engine wherewith he will
+merely carry out the phantasy of being a driver or a passenger and of
+travelling wheresoever he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> wishes. A toy wheel-barrow which he can take
+into the garden and fill with real stones and earth is far better than
+a doll which he will merely imagine to be something to be brought up
+like himself, which he will endow with phantastic life and feelings
+which are quite unreal. In fact, as far as possible, the child&#8217;s games
+and occupations should involve his <i>doing</i> something, rather than
+merely imagining something. Of course, imagination and phantasy will
+come into its games, and are bound to do so, but as much directive
+thought as possible should be added.</p>
+
+<p>The ordinary fairy-tale should be swept from the nursery; here the
+child does nothing but identify himself with the hero or heroine in
+the most impossible of situations of a purely phantastic type. There
+is plenty of scope for giving a child an interest in stories from the
+fairy-land of science, or from the lives of famous persons in the
+centuries that have passed; all of which, if properly selected and
+dressed up, will assist the child&#8217;s directive thought. For though
+the facts with which the stories may deal are as wonderful as any of
+Grimm&#8217;s fairy-tales, <i>they are facts of which</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> <i>the child will never
+have to be undeceived, and he will never have to have his faith shaken
+in the stories which he has learnt</i>; thus the child will learn from the
+outset to think directively.</p>
+
+<p>I know that many mothers, when they read this, will be inclined to
+shake their heads and say to themselves, &#8220;Poor little darling, I could
+never treat it so.&#8221; And that they will be inclined, as is shown very
+early in this book, to say &#8220;These things cannot be true,&#8221; for they are
+not the ideas they are accustomed to. Yet I can assure them that by
+means of carrying out many of those actions and teachings which they
+think are pleasant and harmless, they are really damning the child,
+while many of these ideas which they might term cruel are really of
+the greatest value and kindness to it. Moreover, experience has shown
+that if diplomacy be used, the child will be as equally interested in
+wonderful facts as in wonderful phantasies. The only difference is
+that it is more trouble to the parent or educator to search out and
+deal with facts himself. It is quite true that the child&#8217;s imagination
+requires training, as part of its intellectual education. But there
+is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> vast difference between encouraging it to imagine the possibility
+of impossible things, and encouraging it to exercise its imagination
+in realisation of facts, however far they may be removed from the
+experience of everyday life. Many people have the idea that a child
+should be encouraged to use its imagination; whereas in fact the
+child&#8217;s imagination requires curbing, training, sublimating. Such
+people do not realise that the early life of a child is lived almost
+entirely in imagination, that it has no difficulty whatsoever in using
+its imagination, and that the real difficulty is in preventing it from
+using too much imagination directed into false channels and by-paths of
+permanent unreality.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER VII</span> <span class="smaller">IDENTIFICATION</span></h2>
+
+<p>We must now traverse another path through which Narcissism wanders. We
+have emphasised the fact that when a child comes into the world, he is
+to himself the only real thing; the rest of the world is merely seen
+from his phantastic view point, and at this stage he accepts himself as
+the one all-powerful centre of everything. Another important fact which
+arises from this, however, we have not dealt with, and that is, that he
+does not separate the outer world from himself as a separate entity.
+His unconscious view point is that the world is subordinate to himself,
+beneath his omnipotent control, if you like, that it is a dream of his
+own imagining, that it is something which belongs to him in every sense
+of the word. This, summed up, means that it is part of himself, that
+his identity and the identity of the dream-world around him are part of
+the same thing. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Thus, the infant does not at first distinguish between himself and his
+mother. When he is hungry, he cries, and he probably has almost as
+ready access to his mother&#8217;s breasts as if they were part of his own
+body. And such imagination is more than encouraged when he is allowed
+the use of a rubber teat to suck in the intervals between his meals.</p>
+
+<p>It is generally a comparatively slow process through which the infant
+passes, this one of separating himself in thought and feeling from
+objects surrounding him. It is one which is hardly ever completely
+accomplished. We have already mentioned the fairy-tale which encourages
+the child&#8217;s phantasy thought. Let us now see how he really obtains
+pleasure from that fairy-tale. It is by identification. In imagination
+he is a fairy prince or princess, as the case may be; his pleasure in
+the triumphs and progress of the central figure of the story is that
+of performing his prodigious deeds by proxy; and if he thus identifies
+himself with the hero of the story, he is also encouraged to believe
+that he possesses the power and qualities of that hero. He is less able
+to realise that he,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> unlike the hero, cannot perform magic deeds with a
+mere wave of a wand. Indeed, when the story is over, he will probably
+play at being a fairy, and in phantasy perform the magic deeds again.</p>
+
+<p>This demonstrates the force of his identification with the hero of the
+story. <i>And it must be remembered that sooner or later the child will
+have to wake up, will have to realise that it possesses no magic power,
+and the struggle within it will be great.</i> It is obviously a mistaken
+form of kindness to enhance such pleasures of the moment, when you are
+merely accentuating the struggle which the child will have to make at
+a later period to overcome his Narcissism. In passing, I may mention
+that you have probably already done the child considerable damage by
+allowing him to have his rubber teat at the beginning of this period of
+identification, since he identifies it with the mother&#8217;s breast, and is
+thus encouraged to think that the breast is always with him.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now see where this Narcissistic identification may come out
+later in life.</p>
+
+<p>First of all, it is this which enables us to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> enjoy novels, just as
+we enjoyed fairy-tales as children. We identify ourselves with the
+hero or heroine of the book, and in phantasy perform their various
+wonderful feats. Thus we satisfy our Narcissistic desire to be great
+and powerful. If we lack cleverness, and the hero is clever, by
+identification and imputation we may attain the pleasures of feeling
+clever and superior. If the heroine is beautiful and everyone falls in
+love with her, we may by proxy be the same. If the hero is a sailor,
+and we have always desired to sail, yet have never been on the sea,
+our ambition is now attained&mdash;and see how easily attained&mdash;in a truly
+omnipotent fashion, without effort on our part, just by reading
+about it. Exactly the same thing takes place at theatres, where the
+Narcissist identifies himself with the actors on the stage. So far
+so good; if a person can content himself with an occasional theatre
+or occasional novel, wherewith to take a restful regression to an
+infantile outlet of energy, no harm is done. There are times when we
+must rest, and there are times when we must sleep, which also appears
+to be Narcissistic regression to a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> condition somewhat resembling
+our pre-birth state. But there are many who cannot control their
+identification in this way, who cannot confine it to the stage and the
+novel, who bring it into the affairs of life continuously. They may
+unconsciously identify themselves with their father or mother, their
+relations or friends, or even their enemies, and perhaps, in turn, with
+everyone with whom they come into contact. Like a looking-glass, they
+reflect everything that goes on around them. They feel the pleasures of
+their friends, they also feel their pains. They are called sympathetic,
+they are often ultra-sympathetic&mdash;they are a nuisance.</p>
+
+<p>I remember on one occasion I had asked a woman of strong Narcissistic
+temperament to take a fly out of the corner of my eye. She absolutely
+refused to do so under any consideration, as she was sure she would
+hurt me too much. Inquiry showed that Narcissism had exaggerated her
+own feelings, so that a speck of dust in her own eye was torture. Yet
+her eye was so tender and important to herself that she could not bear
+anyone to touch it even in order to get something out.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> <i>And she could
+not imagine that anybody else could have feelings that differed from
+hers</i>; and since she identified herself so much with other people, I
+have no doubt it would have been a real agony to her, had she attempted
+to extract the fly from my eye.</p>
+
+<p>Such people are by no means uncommon. We all know the person who cannot
+bear to hurt us, even for our good. For instance, some cannot bear to
+bandage a wound for us since they cannot bear to see pain in any form.
+They state that it is almost as if they felt it themselves, and they
+call themselves &#8220;sympathetic.&#8221; But in spite of popular belief to the
+contrary, such sympathy is not a virtue, there is nothing altruistic
+about it; it is an inconvenient fault of an entirely selfish kind. In
+order to help one&#8217;s friend, one does not need to feel his feelings and
+suffer his pains, one wants to understand them; the more one enters
+into his feelings, the more one&#8217;s judgment is biased, and the less one
+is able, as a rule, to be of assistance. Worse still, in connection
+with these people, they not only pour out sympathy in this way,
+but attribute it to themselves as a virtue, and they cannot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> bring
+themselves to believe their friends to be really good, unless their
+friends also can react in a similar way towards them. They call a
+normal person unsympathetic, perhaps exaggerate the term and call him
+brutal, wishing indeed that their friends who have climbed higher from
+Narcissism should regress to their lower stand-point.</p>
+
+<p>I have given here but one type of Narcissistic identification with
+other persons; it seems to me unnecessary to carry it further since
+any reader who chooses to think the matter out for himself will find
+endless modifications of such identifications. We all possess it in
+part, and on the whole women are more Narcissistic than men. Let it
+not be thought, however, that this is a reflection on women; it is a
+reflection on the way they have been brought up, for from the earliest
+times environment impresses them with the idea that &#8220;little boys are
+made of slugs and snails and puppy-dogs&#8217; tails, and little girls are
+made of sugar and spice and all things nice!&#8221; And hence on such lines
+as these, their Narcissism is encouraged, and their capabilities of
+facing fact and reality<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> discouraged from the very outset, until
+differences of temperament are produced in the adults of the two sexes,
+which in no way belong to Nature, but purely to our conventional and
+somewhat barbaric stand-point.</p>
+
+<p>There are yet more important results of Narcissistic identification
+than those already mentioned; Narcissism leads, in many instances, to
+the choice of a particular love-object. Narcissism is, of course, by no
+means the only or chief factor in the choice of love-objects, as anyone
+who has studied psycho-analysis will at once realise. It is, however,
+the only one I intend to touch on in this particular work.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the mythical Narcissus himself fell in love with his
+reflection, so does his prototype of to-day. An infant is not only
+the omnipotent centre of all, he is also the only interesting portion
+of the universe in his early days. His interests are entirely
+self-centred, and his joys and pleasures belong to himself alone; and
+as he grows older, everything that is like him is identified with
+himself. In the worst form of Narcissism in the adult, the individual
+remains entirely selfish, and is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> incapable of loving anybody outside
+himself at all.</p>
+
+<p><i>By identification, however, he can love in a sense those attributes of
+his own personality which he sees in other persons.</i> Thus, he may love
+somebody for a facial similarity, for a voice which is like his, or for
+tastes which are like his own, but most commonly he loves them for a
+body like his own. And from this we see that he may fall in love with
+somebody of his own sex. Hence, homo-sexuality,<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5" >[5]</a> as it is called,
+is frequently one of the distressing results of an early Narcissistic
+upbringing. But it need not be necessary for such homo-sexuality to
+be of a grossly erotic type; such desires may be for the most part
+repressed in the unconscious, or appear only in minor ways such as
+the desire to kiss, fondle or touch favoured persons of the same sex.
+On the other hand, frequently the early education and environment of
+the Narcissistic person has been such as to leave him quite incapable
+of complete repression; and we then have expressed more or less
+open erotic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> desires and actions for persons of the same sex. Such
+persons, however, should not be treated as criminals in this particular
+matter; they are by this time as hopelessly incompetent to deal with
+themselves, as is the kleptomaniac or a person having any other form
+of so-called degenerate mentality. Here again, we see the reason why
+homo-sexuality is so much more rife amongst women than amongst men. The
+minor details of their early environment tend so much more to confirm
+them in Narcissism. It is partially repressed and partially displaced
+homo-sexuality which causes some women to kiss one another, to call one
+another by affectionate names and so forth, to delight in taking hold
+of one another&#8217;s hands on occasion; actions which normally, between
+persons of opposite sex, would at once be taken to indicate some sort
+of erotic affection, but which we are so used to seeing amongst women
+that we do not realise their repressed and unconscious significance.</p>
+
+<p>Let it not be thought, however, that this subject of homo-sexuality is
+based on this one simple problem; there are many other early infantile
+fixations, which play a very large<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> part in causing persons to become
+homo-sexual. I only mention this one Narcissistic complex as being
+another example of how identification takes place as one of the chief
+results of the Narcissistic temperament, and to what lengths such
+identification may, on occasion, lead. Of course, all degrees of such
+identifications may be met with, and it is quite common to find persons
+who can love hetero-sexually as well as homo-sexually; that is to say,
+who can love persons of the opposite sex in the usual way, as well as
+persons of their own sex. But such people, even in their hetero-sexual
+love, tend to choose a love-object which resembles themselves in some
+manner or the other. However, a certain amount of Narcissism (which
+fortunately everyone still possesses), may be of value in this way,
+for it is certainly good for a man and woman to have similar interests
+when they marry; it is excessive Narcissism, excessive identification,
+excessive sympathy, which is deleterious, just as in other
+manifestations of Narcissism, with which we are going to deal shortly,
+it is excessive impatience, excessive anger, excessive tears which are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+really harmful, and lead to the greatest unhappiness. Although perhaps
+in these latter instances, to be without impatience, anger, or tears
+would be better still.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, there is yet another method of Narcissistic identification.
+Just as a child identifies itself with its living surroundings, so
+does it identify itself with its inanimate surroundings. As its mother
+and nurse are treated as part of it in the early stages, so also are
+its rubber teat, feeding bottle and toys treated. If you take away
+the baby&#8217;s rattle, it will cry or stamp or weep with as much vigour
+and display of emotion as if you had caused it bodily pain by means
+of rigorous physical punishment. You have in fact taken away part
+of itself from the little omnipotent person. In later stages in his
+career, if his Narcissism has been allowed to remain, the adult will
+still identify himself with his belongings. He will be absurdly upset
+at the breaking of a tea-cup which belongs to him, at the theft of
+some jewelry, at damage done to his clothing or property in some way,
+however trifling. He cannot realise that these things which belong to
+him are more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> or less unimportant trifles, which can be replaced, or
+if they cannot be replaced, can be equally well done without, if he
+has attained that philosophical attitude of mind which belongs to the
+person who has thrown off this uncomfortable spirit of Narcissistic
+identification. Moreover, the Narcissist who thinks himself to be the
+best and most important of beings, will attach similar importance to
+his property. If he drives an inferior motor-car, which breaks down on
+every journey he makes, he will excuse it in all sorts of irrational
+ways, he will praise it on every possible occasion as &#8220;the best car
+on the market,&#8221; and what seems more absurd still, he will very likely
+think it the best car on the market. It is the same with his house,
+his books, with his relations, with everything that is even distantly
+connected with him. He will speak in high praise of them all, and be
+anxious, at all times, to show them off, and to uphold their virtues
+to all comers. The Narcissist, indeed, rationalises about things in
+general considerably more than most people. The fuller meaning of
+rationalization and its methods of working, however, we shall leave
+till later on.</p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5">[5]</a> Homo-sexuality&mdash;sensual love for a person of the same sex
+as oneself.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER VIII</span> <span class="smaller">THE IRRITABLE TEMPERAMENT</span></h2>
+
+<p>Irritability is not merely that quality in a person which makes his
+friends carefully guard their every word, lest inadvertently they
+should cause an outburst of temper, in its fullest sense it means
+over-sensitiveness to unpleasant stimuli, followed by over-reaction of
+any kind whatsoever. Thus, if a person by accident damage his clothing,
+his over-sensitiveness and over-reaction might result in an oath, in
+abusing the nail which tore his clothing or in abusing the workman who
+put the nail in place originally. It might again result in a feeling of
+depression, with anger displaced on to anyone who was present during
+the next hour, on the smallest pretext; or in an over-sensitive woman,
+it might result in an outburst of tears, or perhaps merely in volubly
+deploring the accident for half-an-hour with the next visitor who
+called; or she might merely &#8220;worry&#8221; about it, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> keep turning the
+memory of it over and over in her mind, refusing to allow the fact to
+separate itself from her fancy.</p>
+
+<p>All these various results, with many others which may be imagined,
+can be gathered together under the one term &#8220;irritability,&#8221; or the
+term &#8220;over-sensitiveness&#8221; would do equally well. This irritability or
+over-sensitiveness may apply to material things or to purely mental
+ones. Narcissism may lead to an irritability of the body, and again it
+may lead to irritability merely of the mind. When Narcissism leads to
+an extremely sensitive body, it reacts to pain of every sort, however
+mild, as though it were acute. The omnipotent mind cannot bear to have
+its body disturbed. I gave an example a short while back of the lady
+who could not take a fly out of my eye, because her own eyes were so
+sensitive. Not only was this particular lady sensitive as regards her
+eyes, but at that period she was as afraid of the dentist touching a
+tooth as if it had been a serious abdominal operation. Pain of any sort
+or even slight accidents involving practically no pain, were reacted
+to as though they had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> overwhelming misfortunes. Here we had
+an excellent example of one in whom Narcissism had produced extreme
+irritability of a physical nature.<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6" >[6]</a></p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, one finds a mental sensitivity equally pronounced.
+People who are always in fear lest somebody should find fault with
+them, with their mode of behaviour, with their manner of dress, even
+with their habit of thought. Unconsciously, to themselves they are the
+acme of perfection, they are the centre of importance, and they are
+inclined to think that people are paying very much more attention to
+them than is actually the case. They may consciously realise that they
+are not important at all, that other people do not give them a thought;
+but their unconscious Narcissism will not accept this slight upon their
+importance, and they remain miserably self-conscious in all their acts,
+reacting with exaggerated feeling whenever some slight criticism of
+their thoughts and actions appear even to be implied.</p>
+
+<p>Pride, vanity, and self importance are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> other manifestations of this
+temperament. The person who feels slighted, or whose feelings are hurt
+when other persons think too little of his opinions, or pay too little
+attention to his actions, or, in fact, whose feelings are hurt easily
+by anything whatsoever, is for the most part a Narcissist, in whom once
+again the infantile omnipotence has been disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>Jealousy very often represents the Narcissistic idea. The
+&#8220;dog-in-the-manger&#8221; attitude, which finding it cannot possess for
+itself, cannot bear anybody else to possess, is largely the attitude
+of unconscious phantasy, in which the individual cannot relinquish the
+idea that somehow he will succeed by means of his omnipotent mind in
+possessing the desired object, and his unconscious mind retains this
+idea so long as the object has not become the property of somebody else
+in such a definite and irrefutable manner as to prove in spite of his
+unconscious phantasy that he cannot possibly possess it himself.</p>
+
+<p>The &#8220;dog-in-the-manger&#8221; attitude is one which simply refuses to
+recognise the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>impossibility of possessing something, although the
+desire for possession in any particular case may unconsciously mean
+nothing except the desire to prove to oneself one&#8217;s own omnipotence.
+And many a case of jealousy in love-affairs is nothing but this
+unconscious desire to prove to oneself the possession of power; it is
+the hatred of acknowledging the fact that one has not control where
+one desires to have it most. Curious as it may seem jealousy is bred
+mostly out of self-love rather than out of love for the other person,
+although, of course, except in extreme cases, love for the other person
+may also exist.</p>
+
+<p>The reaction which takes place whenever the Narcissistic element
+is hurt, almost always takes the form of a regression. It will be
+remembered that a regression implies a return to an infantile method
+of expression. The Narcissist unfailingly hopes, in his unconscious
+that his omnipotence will enable him to avoid an unpleasant fact, and
+to controvert it magically. He therefore falls back on those acts of
+infancy, which he found useful at that early period of his life as
+magical means of attaining his ends. Let us assume, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> example, that
+our Narcissist has entered quietly into an argument with a friend, with
+full faith in himself and his argument that he will convert his friend
+to his own point of view. He finds, however, that he is getting the
+worst of the argument. This is unbelievable to him, he cannot realise
+it; his friend must be pig-headed. Rapidly his unconscious mind says to
+itself, &#8220;What methods did I employ in my childhood, what magic formula
+did I use then to obtain what I wished?&#8221; &#8220;Ah!&#8221; says the unconscious, &#8220;I
+remember; I used abusive terms to my nurse, and the dear thing did what
+I wanted at once.&#8221; Very soon he is using abusive terms to his friend,
+who, however does not later on remark, &#8220;Oh! that man is a Narcissist.&#8221;
+He merely says, &#8220;You know, So-and-So never can keep his temper in an
+argument.&#8221; And the poor Narcissist all the time feels and thinks that
+he has been hardly dealt with, that people do not understand him, that
+they deliberately will not follow his arguments.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, the last is very likely to be right, for in argument there
+is generally more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> rationalization than there is about most things in
+life. Nevertheless, the fact remains that it is not really important
+that his friend should understand either him or his argument as a
+rule, and if he were not Narcissistic he would not over-react to this
+stimulus.</p>
+
+<p>Other methods of reaction in a like manner are all regressions to
+infancy. Some Narcissists, when they ask their unconscious memory,
+&#8220;What magic did I employ as a child?&#8221; find that it was the magic of
+words, and they use expletives of various kinds, which correspond
+in every way to the magic words which a conjuror whispers over his
+tricks when he performs the apparently impossible. Others remember in
+their unconscious mind that they wept copiously, that when they wept
+the feeding bottle was returned to their lips, or the toy to their
+hands. Others go back a stage further. They withdraw in to themselves,
+they refuse to speak, or they say, &#8220;I am so upset, I must go and lie
+down.&#8221; They attempt to return, in fact, to the condition of isolation
+and rest, if not of pre-birth, at least of that period immediately
+following birth, when if they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> cried, they were rocked and crooned over
+and put to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Another form of regression largely due to Narcissism is that of
+alcoholism. Here again, there are other causes at work in the
+unconscious, but Narcissism is one of the most important of them.
+The Narcissist does not like real responsibility; he certainly
+thinks that he is always desiring responsible posts and positions,
+but this is merely because to hold a responsible position or to have
+responsibility signifies importance and power. As a matter of fact,
+when responsibility is thrust upon him, he often has a strong tendency
+to avoid it, because responsibility entails dealing with facts as
+they are, and not with phantasies; and the responsibility which the
+Narcissist seeks is largely that of phantasy. In spite, therefore, of
+his statements to the contrary, we know that he wishes to run away from
+responsible positions, and alcohol has a peculiar power of enabling
+one to forget the responsibilities of the moment, and at the same time
+to give one a feeling of potency and well-being. Consequently, when
+the Narcissist comes up against an unpleasant fact,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> a responsibility
+which he does not wish to take, anything in fact which disturbs his
+sense of well-being, alcohol serves the purpose of allowing regression
+to infancy. It returns him very swiftly to that early period when he
+had no responsibility, when he need take no thought of the facts around
+him, when he had a sense of well-being and omnipotence. This potency
+is increased by the fact that it also removes, simultaneously, other
+repressions, that is, it allows other forms of infantile energy to be
+expressed without conscious criticism or hindrance.</p>
+
+<p>Exactly the same thing may be said of drug-taking. The drug-taker is
+simply habitually seeking something to remove his responsibilities, to
+lead him away from his conflicts which he does not wish to face, away
+from the world of reality into an infantile world, where whatever his
+surroundings, whatever the facts that exist, he is able to ignore them,
+and feel himself in phantasy their master.</p>
+
+<p>But the curious thing about all these regressions is that, in a sense,
+they serve to satisfy the individual. They comfort him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> with the
+unconscious assurance at the moment they are performed, that all will,
+somehow, be well, that these reactions will somehow bring about the
+desired end, that the abuse will succeed where the argument did not,
+that the tears will somehow perform their magic act, that a rest in bed
+will bring about new life, and that the new life will succeed where the
+old life failed.</p>
+
+<p>Never does the Narcissist realise facts as they are, deal with them as
+facts, see them in their proper proportions, and leave them alone when
+he cannot use them.</p>
+
+<p>Impatience of a different kind is also one of the common reactions. A
+man may go into a restaurant; he finds it is full, and quite naturally
+he is kept waiting a few minutes before the busy waiter can bring him
+the menu. He refuses to recognise the fact that he is only one of a
+hundred persons present, that the restaurant has to be run at a profit
+to the proprietor, that innumerable waiters cannot therefore be kept
+to serve his high omnipotence; he frets with impatience and he cannot
+resign himself to the inevitable waiting. He will not understand that
+<i>time</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> is one of the factors over which he has no power. In fact,
+this difficulty to realise the <i>factor of time</i> is an extremely common
+one with Narcissists. No sooner has a project entered their heads than
+they expect to see it fulfilled. Such fulfilment can only take place in
+phantasy, just as they did indeed attain their wishes in childhood. As
+children they could instantaneously create a chariot and horses from an
+arm-chair with complete neglect of the time-factor, and now as adults,
+they hope instantaneously to create an omelet without waiting for it to
+be cooked, to create a business or a character, or fame or happiness
+in the same instantaneous way, without reference to time. They are
+quite unable to see, completely and wholly, any difference between the
+phantasy of childhood and facts of adult life; and one of the most
+essential differences between the two is this <i>time factor</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It takes minutes for an omelet to be cooked, it takes years for a
+business to be created, it takes a lifetime for a character to be
+formed, fame they may never attain, but happiness lies within their
+grasp at once, if only they could relinquish their Narcissism.</p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6">[6]</a> It may be of interest to readers to know that this
+physical over-sensitiveness has very largely disappeared from this
+particular lady as the result of partial psycho-analysis.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER IX</span> <span class="smaller">RATIONALIZATION</span></h2>
+
+<p>Having now briefly sketched the birth and some of the possible
+developments of Narcissism, it may be well to revert to the subject
+of rationalization, on which I have already touched briefly, before I
+deal with some of the methods with which we may combat our Narcissistic
+tendencies. The reason for reverting here to rationalization is this.
+Already I know that there are few readers who will not have discovered
+some material in this book which will have touched a tender spot in
+themselves. And since we know that the great effort of Narcissism is
+to cover up those tender spots, and to deceive ourselves in thinking
+that either they are not there, or better still, that they are virtues
+and really particularly healthy spots, it is as well to examine these
+tendencies and observe one of the chief methods by which we do produce
+such disguises successfully. Of these methods of disguise, our greatest
+comforter, yet our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> worst enemy, is rationalization. The term means
+&#8220;<i>finding apparently adequate reasons for things</i>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>One of the qualities which we highly cultured animals possess is that
+of reason. We have discovered that logic is one of the essential
+factors of law and order, and that the highest form of intellect
+possesses reason in a large measure. Among our gods, the god of reason
+and logic stands high, and our very Narcissism will not permit us to
+do and accept things which are contrary to logical reasoning. For that
+means in the first place, that they are contrary to what we have been
+taught to revere highly as a good quality, and yet more still it means
+that they are contrary to the magic of WORDS, for logic means words;
+logic is words which follow one another in irrefutable sequence. And
+we have already learnt that <i>the infant has early associated words and
+sounds with magic, since by the persistent use of these he has got what
+he wanted</i>. So that doubly are logic and reason revered.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the unhappy thing about life is that we are continually wishing
+to do things or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> feel things or believe things which do not follow
+logically upon other things which we have also had to feel or think or
+believe at some time. Some of our wishes are logically incompatible
+with other of our wishes. More over, we very often do not wish to
+believe or think things which do follow logically on actual facts which
+have gone before. How are we then, as reasonable people, to deal with
+the situation? By rationalization, by finding a reason which suits our
+purpose; and this can only be done, as a rule, by leaving out some
+important factor, by ignoring some truth, and by arguing from false
+premises. We do not do this consciously, that would be unworthy. Our
+unconscious censor manages to delete from consciousness the unpleasant
+truth, as we have already pointed out, and brings forth an array of
+facts which appear irrefutable, and he succeeds in giving us most
+plausible reasons so that we may believe that which is most convenient
+to us.</p>
+
+<p>Let us consider for a moment such a subject as religion. The Roman
+Catholic will adduce evidences of various kinds to show that his is
+the only right and proper form of religion to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> be accepted by any
+intellectual person. The Baptist will likewise do the same, and will
+probably hold that Papal institutions, in many instances, spring not
+from Heaven but from Hell. If you discuss it with either of them, you
+may be flooded with reasons, logical evidences of the correctness of
+their views. Obviously, they cannot both be right in so exclusive a
+manner, and a very little insight will show that the reasons they
+adduce have really very little to do with their beliefs, although they
+think they have. Reverence for their parents, early environment, and
+other factors of this kind, have really induced their present beliefs,
+but these would not appear to them as logical reasons and so they
+select others.</p>
+
+<p>So it is with any unpleasant theory which comes into being. At the
+time of Darwin, a large number of facts were discovered which led
+unbiassed persons to believe in the theory of evolution. This appeared
+contrary to many religious beliefs, and the general public did not
+want to accept such a theory. They could not, however, shut their
+eyes to facts; what were they to do? By carefully leaving out some of
+the facts, and introducing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> speculative material, which they called
+facts, but which were not facts, they succeeded in producing excellent
+reasons, or what seemed excellent reasons to them, for refuting the
+theory of evolution and retaining their old beliefs. In other words,
+they went through a process of rationalization.</p>
+
+<p>The same thing was taking place a few years ago with reference to
+psycho-analysis. People did not like their omnipotent feelings
+disturbed, did not like to find that the superior bricks of which
+their edifice had been built were originally made from clay, and they
+found excellent reasons for not believing it. This, fortunately for
+progress, is gradually passing away, just as the opposition to the idea
+of the evolution of the body passed away. But rationalization is a
+process which has been and is still going on continuously. When Harvey
+discovered the circulation of the blood, when Galileo discovered that
+the earth went round the sun, when psycho-analysts discovered that
+much which mothers thought kind was really cruel, and when you read a
+book which tends to point out that some of your cherished virtues may
+possibly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> be faults, the same tendency is at work. Your mind sorts out
+some of the reasons, refuses to look at others of them, and by such
+careful selection, by this unconscious process of rationalization,
+supports your belief in yourself, holds fast to that which has been,
+and attempts continuously to prevent further changes and disturbances.
+This rationalization, however, is much more widely distributed than
+I have so far indicated; in order that one fact may be justified by
+reason, all the lesser facts which come before it must be similarly
+justified, until even into the trivial details of everyday life the
+leaven of rationalization has penetrated. Examples of it may be seen
+every day in the newspapers, in politics, in even trifling arguments.
+Take for instance the subject of woman&#8217;s suffrage. One half of the
+country produced irrefutable arguments to prove how bad it was, the
+other half to prove how good it was. In both cases, the arguments were
+but straws in the wind, they were quite unnecessary, they were only
+rationalization. Long before the argument on either side came into
+being, the feelings were there, the desires were there;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> and desires
+must somehow be proved right with the magic of words, before we feel at
+liberty to fulfil them. In neither case in this argument was the root
+of the matter touched. If some philosopher had come forward and said,
+&#8220;The first question we have to ask before thinking about suffrage,
+is should a woman wear a skirt?&#8221; or some such similar fundamental
+question, it would probably have been said that it had nothing to
+do with matter, and yet this question of <i>artificial</i> difference
+between the sexes is really fundamental to the whole subject. But the
+rationalist will find that he will not meet me in this statement. The
+woman who wishes to retain certain privileges, and yet accept certain
+other privileges, will at once find reasons why she should wear a skirt
+and yet have the vote. She will tell me all sorts of things about her
+physical disabilities, things which she believes to be fundamental
+truths, many of which, in fact, are fundamentally wrong, but accepted
+as truths because they lead to rationalization being able to support
+her wishes.</p>
+
+<p>In a similar way, on the much discussed subject of &#8220;prohibition&#8221; the
+prohibitionist will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> rationalise on a certain few facts, in order to
+support his emotions and desires. A moderate drinker will do exactly
+the same, in the opposite direction. Neither of them will have the
+courage to ignore his personal feelings, nor may he have the power
+to do so, and to take all the facts into consideration and come to a
+conclusion, irrespective of his wishes on the subject.<a name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>Of course, one of the other difficulties in the way of coming to
+correct conclusions in all these things is that people will insist on
+arguing upon subjects, when the amount of real scientific knowledge
+they have on the subjects is extremely small. The newspaper editor will
+quote a few popular facts, in order to support some theory of his own,
+having but a limited knowledge of psychology, physiology, anatomy, or
+of some other science which has considerable bearing on the subject,
+he will end by producing a series of conclusions probably entirely
+wrong. This, of course, is inevitable in our limited <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>circumstances;
+but it should not be equally inevitable that we should hold firmly
+to our beliefs, when we realise how limited is our knowledge of
+any one subject. And in order to examine facts and to get rid of
+rationalization as far as possible, we must try, with the utmost power
+at our command to refuse that reaction of self-defence and self-pride,
+which prevents us from looking at ourselves and from realising that
+most of our opinions about ourselves may be completely erroneous. We
+must be prepared to accept temporary, not fixed, judgments, based
+upon the evidence which we have. We must be prepared to reverse those
+judgments in the light of new evidence. We must be careful not to
+reject this evidence merely because we do not like it.</p>
+
+<p>It will now be seen how very necessary it is, in dealing with
+Narcissism in particular, to understand something of rationalization,
+so that we may be on our guard in examining ourselves, against
+allowing this to play too great a part in our conclusions. Otherwise,
+with all the goodwill in the world, we may never succeed in making
+any improvement whatsoever, in ourselves. The greatest <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>scientists
+themselves have been amongst those who realised this.</p>
+
+<p>It was Darwin who wrote, as we have quoted in the earlier part of this
+book, &#8220;I had, during many years, followed a golden rule, namely, that
+whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across
+me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of
+it without fail and at once, for I had found by experience that such
+facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than
+favourable ones.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And it was the great scientist, Helmholtz, who said, &#8220;It is better to
+be in actual doubt, than to rock oneself in dogmatic ignorance.&#8221; </p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7">[7]</a> Of course this does not imply that no one is ever capable
+of putting his conscious feelings on one side, and examining a subject
+in spite of pre-conceived ideas and desires, but that this is the
+exception rather than the rule.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>PART II</h2>
+
+<p class="bold2">PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS </p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER X</span> <span class="smaller">SELF ANALYSIS</span></h2>
+
+<p>In attempting to cure ourselves of hyper-Narcissistic characteristics,
+there are several lines of treatment which may be followed, some of
+which depend upon the particular manifestation of Narcissism with
+which we have to deal. One, however, which should be followed in
+every case, we borrow from the methods of psycho-analysis. We cannot
+call it psycho-analysis because the technique employed by an amateur
+in examining himself must be vastly different from the technique
+employed by a psycho-analyst in dealing with his patient. But it is a
+modification of one detail of the technique of psycho-analysis which,
+if properly applied, may have far-reaching results. It is on the lines
+of that phenomenon which is known generally as ab-reaction, and is as
+follows.</p>
+
+<p>When an individual has come to the conclusion that he is suffering from
+some <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>characteristic of Narcissistic nature, which he would rather
+be without, he should, first of all, carefully call to mind, and if
+possible make historical notes of the situations which stimulate the
+particular temperamental reaction to which he objects. If he can, he
+should go further than this, and recall as many as possible of the
+actual situations of recent date, when this particular reaction has
+been called forth.</p>
+
+<p>If he have an ungovernable temper, for example, he should, in detail,
+go first into the type of situations which call forth that temper, and
+secondly, he should revise in detail the recent occasions upon which he
+has lost his temper, and thirdly, <i>he should attempt to find out the
+particular moment, the particular words, the particular occasion which
+first began to stir feelings of temper within him before he actually
+began to show violent manifestations of it</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Having all these things set forth satisfactorily, it would be well
+if he spent half-an-hour every day, for a considerable period, in
+performing the next part of the treatment. He should go into a room
+by himself, where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> he will not be disturbed, recline on a couch or
+a comfortable chair, and allow his mind to drift backwards, year by
+year, remembering as far as possible, every instance on which the
+unfavourable symptom has been called forth. He will find that if he
+does not concentrate too hard, but merely keeps in mind the various
+causes of his temper and recent manifestations of it, other times
+and instances will come into his mind unbidden. He will, in fact, be
+surprised at the amount of detail which he can remember concerning
+the matter. Things which he had not thought of for years, happenings
+which he had passed over as trivial, will come into his mind, and be
+found to have stimulated, in some way or the other, the ill-temper (or
+other Narcissistic trouble) which he is endeavouring to get rid of. He
+must take himself, as far as possible, right into childhood. He will
+not necessarily of course, go back as far as this on the first few
+occasions, but after he has been at work on himself in this way for
+some days, he should have no trouble whatever in beginning to recall
+some of the infantile occasions upon which his Narcissism called forth
+temper. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In all the instances which he brings up into his conscious mind, he
+should write down and study not only the facts remembered, but also the
+emotions which he felt. These he should examine from every possible
+point of view, and see what Narcissistic element appears to be present
+in them. Many memories will come into his mind of an infantile nature
+which do not express the particular symptom from which he now suffers,
+but will obviously have some bearing on it. These he should examine in
+the same way, because it is important for him to get into his conscious
+mind as much as possible of the various occasions in his life on which
+Narcissism acted, when he was not conscious of it. Not only must he
+see how these various occasions were exhibitions of Narcissism, but he
+must try and trace them back, and must compare them with his typical
+infantile methods of expression. These may be represented by shouting,
+crying, stamping, weeping or any other infantile manifestations
+of those omnipotent phantasies which now seem to him to be the
+starting-point of his more recent expression of them. He has, in fact,
+to lay bare<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> before himself, as much as possible of his previously
+unconscious Narcissistic life; its beginnings, its evolution, and its
+ultimate form. This making conscious of what was previously unconscious
+or but partly conscious, is, in itself, a most potent factor in
+improvement, if he will have the patience to steadily persevere and to
+go over daily, for a considerable period, the material he has brought
+to the surface. If he does not do this regularly, it is liable to sink
+back, and become once again an unconscious factor and a determinant to
+his actions over which he has no control.</p>
+
+<p>This bringing into consciousness the unconscious causes and motives
+under-lying behaviour is, in psycho-analysis, one of the powerful
+factors at work producing cures of neurotic obsessions and so forth,
+and it is equally potent with the minor temperamental abnormalities
+with which we are dealing here. For it means that previous mental
+conflicts which were either wholly or partially unconscious, are now
+rendered conscious habitually; and a conscious conflict, or rather a
+conflict in which the forces<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> at work become conscious, is far easier
+to direct than one in which the very forces themselves are hidden and
+unknown. Let us take a more material example for comparison. Suppose an
+officer to be in command of a company of soldiers out in the desert,
+and attacked on a dark night by savages. It might very well be that he
+was well armed, that his machine guns were efficient, but that he would
+be quite overwhelmed because he could neither see the savages nor know
+their numbers, their whereabouts nor their armaments. But supposing
+that the War Office had thoughtfully equipped him with one or two good
+search-lights, which he could direct upon the savages so that the
+number of savages, their armaments, position, and so forth, could be
+brought into his consciousness, he would be in a far better position,
+for he could direct his machine-guns at the threatened points, instead
+of being forced to fire them wildly and as likely as not miss his
+targets altogether.</p>
+
+<p>Exactly the same happens with these manifold feelings to which I
+have just been referring. The more one can see of them,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> their
+histories, their evolution, their beginnings, the more one holds them
+in consciousness, the easier does the conflict between good and evil
+become in the individual. Again, this method of self-help which I have
+given here, differs considerably from that pursued in psycho-analysis,
+in that it is following up only one unconscious factor, albeit, one
+of the most important factors; but in psycho-analysis we follow up in
+turn all the unconscious forces at work, great and small, and in any
+temperamental abnormality there are certainly many more unconscious
+factors than Narcissism concerned, although Narcissism may be the
+predominant one. Thus, for instance, alcoholism, though always
+possessing a Narcissistic element, frequently has other determinants
+present of an exceptionally strong<a name="FNanchor_8" id="FNanchor_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8">[8]</a> nature. So that while an
+analysis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> of Narcissism only, may be of the greatest value in some
+cases, in others, where Narcissism does not occupy so great a field,
+the other unconscious factors are too potent to allow much benefit to
+accrue from a partial self-analysis of this kind.</p>
+
+<p>In drug-taking, however, there is a slight difference from alcoholism,
+for, as a rule, Narcissism is nearly always the essential factor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> It
+will be understood that Narcissism links itself to almost any other
+characteristic, influencing it for the worse by fixing it more deeply,
+and holding it back from becoming conscious more strongly than would
+otherwise be the case.</p>
+
+<p>The patient will find himself, during this self-examination, repeatedly
+trying to excuse himself. He will find himself saying, &#8220;I remember on
+such an such an occasion losing my temper, but on that occasion I was
+perfectly justified.&#8221; Or in another instance, he may say, &#8220;I remember
+weeping (or I remember being depressed or angry, or impatient), but
+circumstances then existed which seem to me proper occasions for such a
+manifestation to have taken place.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Let me emphasise at the outset, that any such excuses will be
+rationalizing; that he must say to himself, &#8220;Whether they appear normal
+or abnormal, according to accepted standards, those occurrences most
+certainly had their Narcissistic factor.&#8221; For it must be understood
+that although there are many occasions when impatience or weeping may
+be looked upon, conventionally, as normal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> occurrences, that is only
+because everybody possesses certain imperfections due to Narcissism;
+and if one is going to attempt to improve one&#8217;s temperament in this
+way, every occasion must be examined without excuse or rationalization,
+otherwise the individual who is thus at work upon himself will only
+succeed in defeating himself to his own detriment, by putting up
+a resistance to his cure or improvement. And, indeed, one of the
+important factors in this work, just as in psycho-analysis itself, is
+the factor which comes into play in overcoming these resistances of
+seeing ourselves as we are, of seeing the evolution and beginnings of
+our temperament as it really was.</p>
+
+<p>This is bound to reveal in all of us without exception much that is
+unpleasant, and that we would rather not see. Resistance to seeing such
+material is inevitable, if the examination is sufficiently thorough. If
+no resistance has to be overcome, the individual may be certain that he
+is shirking the facts.</p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8">[8]</a> Alcoholism is further complicated by the fact that a habit
+of <i>physical</i> craving is formed, which as a rule cannot be overcome
+by mental treatment alone. This craving, fortunately, can now be
+eradicated by medicinal means. Indeed, patients of mine have been cured
+of all desire for alcohol in about one week as a rule. The patient
+is then in somewhat the same condition as a man who has never tasted
+alcohol, and he will have no craving for alcohol thereafter, unless he
+deliberately drinks it again. Herein, however, we see the importance of
+the psychic factor, for should the cured alcoholic begin again to take
+alcohol, either because he thinks that he has attained self control
+and can do so, or because he finds abstinence difficult on social
+grounds, he will almost inevitably regress to his old condition of
+uncontrolled desire, no matter how long has elapsed since he was cured
+of it. <i>The same causes which originally led him to excess, viz., his
+mental complexes, are still present and again produce similar results.</i>
+Of course, a very large proportion of those who have been cured by
+medicinal treatment do not relapse, because they have sufficient common
+sense not to experiment with themselves. In the other cases, however,
+the only hope of a permanent cure consists in following up the physical
+treatment with mental treatment, i.e., analysis.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, in most cases of drug taking a medicinal cure is
+generally sufficient, for there is no &#8220;social urge&#8221; to taking drugs as
+there is in the case of alcohol, and once the craving has been cured,
+the tendency to experiment again is the exception rather than the rule.
+But even here it is found that any indulgence in the drug, however
+slight, will again produce in the individual his old craving. <i>He has
+found a previous path of narcissistic regression and will inevitably
+follow it, for though the craving had been eradicated the complexes
+remain.</i> There are many potential alcoholics and potential drug-takers
+in the world, but they will never know it unless unfortunate chance
+induces them to open that particular channel of regression.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER XI</span> <span class="smaller">READJUSTMENT OF OBJECTIVES</span></h2>
+
+<p>In the last chapter we described a process of self-assistance of
+the kind which should be applied by any person, to any Narcissistic
+manifestation he may desire to improve. In the present chapter we are
+going to deal with a method of treatment which is by no means necessary
+in all cases, but is very necessary in a large proportion of them.</p>
+
+<p>We must bear in mind that the Narcissist&#8217;s inability to realise
+distinctly the difference between phantasy and fact will often lead
+him to suppose possible that which is impossible in the ordinary
+affairs of everyday life, and to ignore difficulties which may really
+be insuperable, which stand in the way of his aims and projects. He
+will thus be continually finding himself at a disadvantage, continually
+failing, from apparently trivial reasons, to accomplish an end, and
+as a result<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> he may become depressed, nervous, worried, and subject
+to that lassitude accompanied by headaches, which so frequently comes
+to the Narcissist when he struggles unavailingly with the ordinary
+aims and tasks of everyday life. Moreover, not only does he fail to
+recognise the difficulties in the way of any particular task, but he
+fails to recognise the fact that two projects which he has in his mind
+may be incompatible with one another; or he fails to recognise that
+great &#8220;<i>Time-factor</i>,&#8221; which I have mentioned before, and tries to
+condense more work and more visible results into a given period than is
+humanly possible.</p>
+
+<p>This type of Narcissist is always considerably addicted to day-dreams,
+with which, however, we shall deal in a further chapter. For the
+present, we are going to restrict ourselves to the question of
+arranging his aims and wishes on a sound and possible basis. In the
+first place, let it be understood that although the method of treatment
+so far carried out may have made clear to the patient the origin and
+development of his phantasy thought and phantastic aims, there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> yet
+remains the breaking of the habit, and this is rendered far more easy
+if we attempt to substitute another habit of a different nature. Let
+us further impress upon him the fact that a frequent examination of
+his aims in a directive manner by the method about to be discussed is
+in itself an exercise in directive thinking, helping to form a habit
+opposed to a former habit of phantasy thinking. And, lastly, let it be
+remembered that Narcissists are generally very averse from making real
+personal sacrifices which have no glamour attached to them; that they
+object to adapting themselves to reality which may be unpleasant, and
+that by the method I am about to describe, they will have to deal in
+trivial things, and the conscious adjustment which they will thus make
+towards reality will gradually become habitual.</p>
+
+<p>What we are attempting to do now is to substitute directive thought
+and directive aims, aims possible of attainment, for phantasy thoughts
+and impossible aims. Most people will find on self-examination that
+their aims are by no means clearly defined; they have an object in
+life, but it is vague in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> outline, and ill-defined; it is often only
+a question of getting somehow through life, with enough food to eat,
+and sufficient phantasy thought to keep them from boredom. This again,
+is especially the case with some women, whose household duties require
+but little directive thought, since they are daily repetitions of the
+same thing. Dusting a room is a habit which becomes pleasanter if
+accompanied by phantasy thinking; whereas, had that woman some definite
+aim, apart from the habit of house-cleaning, it would be possible to
+accompany the room-dusting with directive thought which revolved round
+the aim in question, and this would very much add to the pleasure and
+efficiency of the individual&#8217;s life. If a person, on self-examination,
+finds that his aims are not clearly defined, or are in conflict with
+one another, or, on the other hand, that his aims or thoughts are in
+part phantasy and impossible of fulfilment, that person should at once
+deliberately remould and re-state his aims, so that they become:</p>
+
+<p>(a) clearly defined,</p>
+
+<p>(b) clearly possible. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Moreover, the aims should be of two kinds:</p>
+
+<p>(1) immediate,</p>
+
+<p>(2) remote.</p>
+
+<p>The remote aim is the ideal for which he is striving; and however high
+that ideal be, it should be of a kind possible of fulfilment, not
+necessarily in the lifetime of the individual, in all cases, for he may
+be working for something of which he does not expect fulfilment for
+even hundreds of years, yet it may be perfectly legitimately termed a
+real aim, as opposed to a phantastic one.</p>
+
+<p><i>Now, the first thing which the individual should bear in mind is that
+an immediate aim should always be in harmony with the remote aim.</i> Let
+it also be borne in mind that when we state that the aim should be
+clearly possible, we do not only mean that the aims should be possible
+from a point of view of external environment and circumstances, but
+also having regard to the patient&#8217;s own intelligence, will-power,
+education, and physical health&mdash;in other words possible in the case of
+this particular individual.</p>
+
+<p>Now let us consider in detail the further course to be pursued by the
+person who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> proposes to treat himself on these lines. Let him take
+pencil and paper and write out in the fullest of details a list of
+his aims, great and small, in the first place, without any reference
+to their bearing upon one another, or any attempt at classification,
+keeping in mind that by aims in life, we mean wishes which he hopes
+will be fulfilled. Let him think of every conceivable wish in his mind,
+and write it down, whether phantastic in nature, or trivial, or whether
+both possible and important.</p>
+
+<p>In the next place, let him see that this list is written so clearly
+and accurately, that each of the aims is well defined and without
+ambiguity. Now let him run through the list again, and see whether
+any of the aims are in conflict with one another, and whether any of
+them are inconsistent from the view point of his, and are therefore
+impossible of fulfilment. Let him put his pencil definitely through
+such impossible aims, and cut them out of his life, with as full a
+realisation as possible of the fact that they are nothing but dreams,
+that he need never consider them again, that he must not regret them,
+for that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> is mere infantile crying after the impossible. He must
+replace them in due course with others possible of fulfilment.</p>
+
+<p>Now let him take the revised list and separate it into two divisions,
+writing the aims down again under the two headings, (1) immediate aims,
+and (2) remote aims. Here, he will have to bear in mind one of his
+chief faults, if he be strongly Narcissistic. Such persons in their
+phantasy carry their aims to completion long before reality can permit
+of it. The time-factor is not realised, and hence they have a great
+tendency to confuse remote aims with the immediate aims, in their
+desire to see immediate results; hence, also, because they cannot soon
+see such results, they give way to despair, become depressed, and have
+the tendency to regress to the infantile characteristics to which I
+have already referred. Here lies the importance of dividing the aims
+into immediate and remote. For as soon as the individual&#8217;s mind has
+grasped the fact that an aim is necessarily remote, and therefore
+impossible of immediate fulfilment, he is much more able to adjust
+himself to these facts, and to pay real and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> undivided attention to
+the immediate present. Apart from the fact that sorting and adjusting
+of the aims relieves the mind of many previous conflicts, it acts as
+a stimulus to a considerable amount of directive thinking. And the
+patient will be surprised at first to find the amount of time it is
+possible to spend in a really useful recasting of his life interests.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until the author, himself, took pencil and paper, and
+classified his own aims, and put down the points for and against each,
+and attempted to see the disharmonies existing amongst them, that he
+realised the full value of this procedure. It might be thought that in
+a very short period any person could put down all his aims, and that
+but little modification would take place in them from day to day. This,
+however, is very far from being true, as will be seen by anyone who
+carries out this method fully.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps at this point the details taken from a case of a woman
+suffering from a &#8220;nervous breakdown&#8221; in which I used this method as a
+subsidiary form of treatment, may not only be of interest, but will
+also throw some light on the practical working of the method.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> I may
+mention that her chief troubles were insomnia, constant worrying, great
+depression, and inability to settle down to work of any kind.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, this patient commenced by stating that she had no
+aim in life at all. She had to admit, however, immediately after, that
+she had at least the aim of wishing to get well, or otherwise she would
+not have come to me. On being asked why she wished to get well, several
+subsidiary aims appeared. For the most part, they were rationalization,
+and I knew these aims would be thrown over in due course, but that, for
+the purpose in view, did not matter. I told her to go home, and write
+down her aims, in the manner I have just indicated.</p>
+
+<p>The following was the list brought to me on the next day.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>(1) To be well.</p>
+
+<p>(2) To be married.</p>
+
+<p>(3) To become a doctor.</p>
+
+<p>(4) And if I cannot do that, to become a masseuse.</p>
+
+<p>(5) Or a psycho-analyst.</p>
+
+<p>(6) Or a private secretary. </p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>(7) And I should like to have two children.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>With this rather pathetic list in front of me, I asked her to give as
+far as possible the reasons she had for these various wishes, and to
+examine these on the lines I had indicated, with the following results.</p>
+
+<p>(1) <i>To get well.</i> &#8220;The reason for this aim is obvious; it is necessary
+in order to obtain the others,&#8221; said she.</p>
+
+<p>(2) <i>To get married.</i> &#8220;This aim has three subsidiary immediate aims,&#8221;
+she replied, &#8220;and there may be others. (a) I want a comfortable home of
+my own, (b) I want satisfaction of my natural instincts in accordance
+with the custom of ordinary adult life, (c) I could attain the later
+aim of having two children.&#8221; She immediately added, &#8220;In that case, the
+aim of having two children is a remote aim, and if I follow your advice
+I must no longer have day-dreams about them, I must put them out of my
+thoughts, I must not waste time on anything connected with them, until
+I am married.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>(3) <i>To become a doctor.</i> &#8220;Concerning this,&#8221; she added, &#8220;I have
+always liked studying Zoology, and microscopic work, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> diseases.
+Moreover, it is the only way in which one can make money in a really
+interesting manner.&#8221; She then stated that she realised this to be
+a double aim, and to consist, firstly, of the aim of earning a
+livelihood, and secondly, of that of having an interesting occupation.
+This aim was soon discovered to be phantastic, however, for she had to
+admit that her financial position would not permit of the necessary
+study, and that there was no prospect of any improvement in this. She
+therefore realised that although she had had it at the back of her
+mind for several months that somehow such an aim might be possible of
+fulfilment, she now clearly saw that it was not. She at once removed
+it from the list, and realised that neither regrets nor phantasy in
+connection with it would be of any avail, and again, that she must bear
+in mind possibilities and realities.</p>
+
+<p>(4) <i>To become a masseuse.</i> She at once stated her thoughts on this
+subject. &#8220;I have known one or two masseuses, who seem to make money,
+and who are very happy. Moreover, it is an occupation that a lady can
+take up.&#8221; She then discovered that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> this involved three aims: (a) to
+make money, (b) to be happy, (c) to remain genteel. On the opposite
+side, however, she added that she was not sufficiently physically
+strong for the work, and was afraid she would soon tire of it, because
+as an occupation itself, it did not appeal to her. This aim, also,
+immediately disappeared from the list.</p>
+
+<p>(5) <i>To become a psycho-analyst.</i> This, said she, was a very
+interesting subject, and she thought she could do much good by means of
+it. Moreover, she thought she would like psychology though she had not
+studied it much as yet. &#8220;Moreover,&#8221; said she, &#8220;psycho-analysts probably
+make a lot of money. And further, it would be very nice to sit at
+home in an arm-chair to do one&#8217;s work, and to let other people do the
+talking.&#8221; She at once recognised this latter idea to be a thoroughly
+Narcissistic regression. And then she found that all the other ideas
+contained multiple aims in themselves, each of which had to be thought
+out and classified, and into the details of which I need not go. Except
+to say that when she considered the matter from a practical point of
+view, the difficulties<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> of training, the time it would take, and more
+especially the fact that she feared that psycho-analysis might not be
+popular by the time she was ready, she determined that it was only a
+phantasy aim, upon which she had been wasting phantasy thought, and she
+ruled it out.</p>
+
+<p>(6) <i>To become a private secretary.</i> On this point, she considered that
+her personal appearance and general education would help her, and was
+quite compatible with the aim. But she knew no shorthand, book-keeping,
+nor typewriting. She, however, realised at once that the immediate aim
+in this case should be the shorthand, book-keeping, and typewriting,
+and she said, &#8220;I will go to-morrow and see where I can learn these
+things.&#8221; I pointed out to her that she might very possibly change
+her mind, when she considered things further, but that even if she
+did so, the mastery of shorthand, typewriting and book-keeping might
+stand her in good stead, and in any case that she would be working for
+an immediate object, in turning some of her phantasy into directive
+thought. And on the morrow, she actually did commence her studies on
+these subjects. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>(7) <i>The desire to have two children.</i> This was at once classified, as
+I have already said, as a remote aim; though, as a matter of fact, she
+got married shortly afterwards, and the remote aim is now on the way to
+being fulfilled, as she has one child.</p>
+
+<p>I have shown by this example the ill-considered, phantastic, and
+conflicting aims, which some persons may at first produce when they
+attempt deliberately to classify them. But it must be remembered that
+each of the subsidiary aims which she had discovered her primary aims
+to be divided into were, in turn, again capable of being divided into
+further subsidiary aims. And the next stage of this form of technique
+is to discover these. Day by day, the pencil and paper must be
+brought out, and a list of aims and wishes for that day compiled and
+considered. They must be in turn examined to show (1) whether they are
+compatible with one another, (2) whether they are compatible with other
+immediate aims, (3) whether they are compatible with the remote aims.</p>
+
+<p>A strong attempt must then be made to eradicate any aims or wishes
+which are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> antagonistic to one another, or to the primary aims of the
+individual, which have already been passed as real. As progress is
+made, definite and personal aims will be developed day by day, many of
+these, no doubt, apparently trivial, others at least important for the
+day in question, all important from the point of view of developing the
+habit of thinking in terms of reality.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, on one occasion, the lady above mentioned wrote on her
+list in the morning that she wished to work hard at her shorthand
+in the early part of the day, to go to a matinée in the afternoon,
+and to a dance in the evening. On consideration, however, she came
+to the conclusion that the dance in the evening, following after
+the day&#8217;s work and entertainment, would probably interfere with her
+next morning&#8217;s work, and it was not, moreover, compatible with that
+immediate aim of regaining complete health at the earliest possible
+moment. It was, therefore, rejected; the lesser aim was recast, and
+a quiet dinner with a friend substituted. Only by such rigorous and
+possibly painful self-treatment can the Narcissist&#8217;s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> conflicts be
+regulated and viewed in a proper perspective.</p>
+
+<p>Every daily aim has a further subsidiary aim appertaining to it. For
+instance, a man may have made up his mind to devote a certain part
+of the day to studying; the lesser aim includes the subject to be
+studied, the amount to be done, and the time to be occupied. It is
+important that he should not over-estimate the amount he can get done
+in a given time. One reason why so much detail should be considered,
+is that it is astounding how excessively a person, with a tendency to
+phantasy thought, over-estimates the amount of work it is possible
+to get through in a given time. No sooner is a task commenced than
+he expects it to be almost finished. The daily programme frequently
+includes far more than is possible, and he forms a habit of being late
+for everything; all this being merely the ordinary omnipotent idea of
+childhood, which fulfils a wish in phantasy as readily as it is formed.</p>
+
+<p>I must now give a warning, that those who follow this method are, at
+first, nearly always extremely impatient for results, for this very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+reason that they do not realise the time-factor; and they must realise,
+and consciously and patiently accept inevitable delay, with the
+assurance that if they can overcome their Narcissism sufficiently to
+persist in the method they will steadily and gradually develop a habit,
+an attitude of mind which devotes its energy to directive thought, to
+real aims, and to displacing from themselves the phantastic medley
+which was there before.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER XII</span> <span class="smaller">READJUSTMENT OF THOUGHT</span></h2>
+
+<p>We have seen in an earlier chapter how one of the ways in which
+Narcissism manifests itself is in day-dreams. We saw how a child would
+substitute a phantasy or day-dream for a reality, and so fulfil its
+wishes and desires in this unreal manner. And we saw how, if this were
+persisted in to excess, the same or a modified method of fulfilling
+one&#8217;s wishes in realms of phantasy would remain even in adult life.
+I may here remark that even <i>very little</i> day-dreaming constitutes
+excess, and is bound to have a deleterious effect upon the efficiency
+and happiness of the individual&#8217;s life; unless, perhaps, that
+individual is mixing sufficient directive thought with his phantasies
+as in the case of a novelist or artist, for instance. In realising
+this, it must be borne in mind, that time and energy spent in phantasy
+thinking are time and energy lost to reality and fact; that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+encouragement of the habit of phantasy thinking destroys the ability
+to think directively, or rather renders the full development of it
+impossible. Moreover, by encouraging day-dreams, we are simultaneously
+holding on to our Narcissism, and making it more likely that it
+will also find outlets in other deleterious ways. For instance, the
+&#8220;worrying nature&#8221; which is constantly thinking of possible troubles to
+come, and of how past troubles might have been avoided is indulging in
+a form of phantasy thinking. If the habit of phantasy thinking has been
+cultivated for pleasurable purposes, a channel has been opened which
+will be used without conscious intention for other kinds of phantasy
+as well. The habit of worrying to which we have just referred, is an
+example of this.</p>
+
+<p>Worry consists in weaving phantasies about something which cannot at
+the moment be influenced directively. It may be about something which
+<i>has</i> happened and therefore cannot be influenced at all by thinking
+about it, or about something which <i>may</i> happen but over which the
+thinker has no immediate control; and it consists in going over all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+the &#8220;mays&#8221; and &#8220;mights&#8221; connected with the case, and experiencing
+the unpleasant emotions belonging to each phantasied situation. In
+order to get rid of this worrying habit, to close the channel which
+permits of it, a person must simultaneously cut out pleasurable
+day-dreams also, and thus close the channel entirely. Therefore, let
+us recommend the individual who indulges largely in day-dreams, to get
+rid of the habit as soon as possible. Those who have other abnormal
+characteristics which they wish to eradicate, should understand that
+they must, simultaneously, get rid of their day-dreams. And this means
+pulling oneself up, not merely when one discovers oneself imagining
+some glorious vista in which one occupies a principle but impossible
+part, it means similarly pulling oneself up in a thousand little ways;
+it means catching oneself whenever one wanders from a type of directive
+thought to a type of phantastic thought.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, in the examination of one&#8217;s aims, one is thinking
+directively, and one comes to the conclusion that, say, a course
+of shorthand and typewriting shall be taken at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> once, that the aim
+of being a secretary is one suitable and compatible with one&#8217;s
+attainments. At this point, it is very easy for the individual to
+suddenly find that he or she has become, in day-dreams, the secretary
+of a duke or American millionaire. And if he does not pull himself up
+at this stage, he will find that the duke&#8217;s money has been left him,
+or she will find that she has married the American millionaire. And
+so the phantasy goes on. It starts in reality, but the Narcissistic
+temperament takes it right away from this. It must be nipped in the
+bud at the very beginning, if the habit of directive thought is to be
+established. As soon as the individual finds himself drifting in this
+way, wasting energy, fulfilling wishes by mere dreams, he must pull
+himself up short, and say to himself, &#8220;Here the real ends, there the
+phantasy begins. This is the point I must come back to, I must deal
+with this matter from the real point of view only, without allowing
+this phantasy to intrude itself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And here again, much patience will be needed, for if the habit has
+already been cultivated, he will soon be back in phantasy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> again,
+probably in less than five minutes. But phantasy thought does not only
+mean day-dreams in the sense in which we have spoken of them here. It
+may take all sort of disguises, and what would be phantasy thought in
+one person, would be directive thought in another. In one case, the
+environment and education and inherent ability would not be of that
+order which could make the thoughts come to be facts; in the other case
+the abilities of the person might be sufficient to do so. Thus, were an
+ordinary person to sit in his arm-chair, and phantasy a wonderful plan
+for the conquest of Europe, without having either the will or the means
+of carrying out his ambition, that would constitute phantasy thinking
+pure and simple. If, however, a Napoleon did the same, with the will
+and the possible means, with the near aim at hand in the conquest of
+a small country, and the subsequent conquest of Europe as an ultimate
+one, his method of thought would have to be described as directive
+thinking. So that similar thinking in two different individuals may
+really be classified as two different principles of thinking. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I have no doubt that many readers will be saying to themselves now,
+&#8220;But my greatest pleasure is to be found in day-dreams. I find in
+directive thinking nothing but hard work.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In such a case, if the individual cannot enjoy his directive
+thinking, and he gets no emotional discharge by means of it, it is
+possible that his aims in life are unsuited to him, or that he has
+not sufficient aims in life, that his time is not as fully occupied
+with interesting <i>acts</i> as it should be. In such a case, subsidiary
+aims should be formed deliberately, wherein he could take an interest
+in directive thinking. <i>For it may be accepted as a fact that, with
+proper cultivation and education, more real pleasure can be found in
+suitable directive thinking than in any amount of day-dreams.</i> It is
+also a further fact that the individual&#8217;s energy is not then wasted,
+but is more or less efficiently utilised. Moreover, instead of losing
+strength of character, he is now gaining it. Let it be borne in mind,
+always, that continual indulgence of phantasy thought, from its very
+ease, breeds the habit of inertia, for the individual&#8217;s aims and wishes
+attain fulfilment without any need for activity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> on his part; and here
+a vicious circle is produced, because the inertia, which he has thus
+encouraged, now in its turn tends to make him resort to phantasy the
+more.</p>
+
+<p>It is easy, of course, to say, &#8220;I will cut myself off from phantasy
+thought, I will pull myself up whenever this occurs, and leave it
+alone.&#8221; But it is by no means easy to act up to this resolution. If,
+however, another kind of directive thought is deliberately substituted
+for the phantasy, the task is made very much easier. If the water in
+the bath is too hot, and we want it to cool rapidly, we do not merely
+turn off the hot tap, we simultaneously turn on the cold.</p>
+
+<p>The task will be rendered more easy still, if the individual selects
+his subject of directive thought to replace phantasy beforehand, not
+waiting until the time comes. For instance, we will suppose that,
+as one subsidiary aim with which to fill in his time, a person has
+selected the collection of postage stamps. He will each day have in
+front of him some page which he wishes to arrange in chronological
+order, to consider from the point of view of water-marks and
+perforations; and he may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> make up his mind that as soon as he finds
+himself dealing in phantasy thought he will not only cut out the
+phantasy thought but will at once start arranging, in his mind, the
+stamps which he was shortly going to arrange in his book. It matters
+not in the least what form the substitute thought takes, so long as it
+possesses two qualities, (1) it is directive, <i>i.e.</i>, it is going to
+lead to some sort of actual change or action, and (2) that it bears
+a pleasurable interest. And for that reason, I have selected a very
+trivial form of directive thought as an example. The point is that
+the individual should select some subject in which he has a personal
+and active interest, as a subject with which he may replace phantasy
+thought, whenever the latter comes into his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Phantasy thought may, further, not be of necessity thoughts impossible
+of fulfilment, except in the immediate present. Thoughts of erotic
+or other desires which intrude themselves at untimely moments, are
+phantasy thoughts, and some people frequently complain that they are
+annoyed by them, especially when they have no intention of actually<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+fulfilling them in fact, or when the means of fulfilling them are
+not present. Here again, to have a subject ready at hand, or to
+have a substitute thought for the undesired thoughts is a very real
+assistance. Even a sentence thought out beforehand or a good maxim
+which can be repeated several times and considered, forms an excellent
+substitute thought with which to replace the unwanted phantasy.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now consider a few other examples. The majority of educated
+people, of a so-called normal type, when they have completed their
+day&#8217;s work, and are fatigued, require some sort of mental rest, and as
+a rule some kind of phantasy thought is resorted to in the evening.
+Also, when this fatigue is cumulative, they say, &#8220;We have worked
+eleven months, and now require one month&#8217;s holiday.&#8221; This is really an
+unconscious phantasy requiring a regressive reward. They are not really
+tired out, physically or mentally, but they have accumulated, after
+a series of postponements, a large number of Narcissistic efforts at
+phantasy; and the holiday which they now require is really to satisfy
+this. It is a return to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>childhood and the time of irresponsibility,
+and their occupations on the holiday may very likely be, to a large
+extent, similar to those with which they occupied themselves in
+childhood. They throw off their adult status and responsibility, and
+deliberately take this regressive reward. Even with normal people
+the idea of <i>rest</i> in the form of a holiday, often means nothing but
+phantasy thought, time disregarded, no effort of any sort to be made.</p>
+
+<p>But in the less Narcissistic type of person who still retains directive
+thought even on a holiday&mdash;a holiday means merely change in immediate
+aim, change in occupation, rather than rest from aim and occupation.</p>
+
+<p>Phantasy thinking may take many quite surreptitious forms. In old age,
+for instance, we know that type of person, who is quietly slipping
+into helpless imbecility. He is the same man, who, at an earlier age,
+lacked the habit of directive thought. On the other hand, there is
+our intellectual old man or woman, still full of the day&#8217;s problems
+or politics, who indulged, in early life, but little in phantasies.
+Experience shows us that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> influence of directive or undirective
+thought in youth may not only determine our happiness in declining
+years, but may even determine the actual age to which we live. For,
+paradoxically, it is the Narcissist, who of all people desires a long
+life, and who is, of all people, the least likely to attain old age. He
+frequently &#8220;worries himself into the grave.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>We have not yet exhausted the forms of phantasy thought. A casual
+conversation between acquaintances in which no information of value
+is imparted, in which merely some emotional material is brought to
+the surface and thrown out, is undirective thought. The first person,
+interested in some emotional experience, recounts to the second the
+facts of that experience, often without arousing any emotional feeling
+in the second person. Such is the type of conversation which takes
+place over a vast majority of tea-tables. It is wasted energy.</p>
+
+<p>Another example is that of conventional letter-writing, in certain
+cases. The duty letter which one person writes to another person is
+of the same type. The writer who deals with his or her experiences
+on a shopping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> expedition, who states a series of things which have
+happened, merely in order to enjoy them once again in phantasy, is
+performing the same waste of energy. There is no return for this
+expended energy, the rush of ideas produces no result. Perhaps the
+time is due for a letter to be written, and it is the turn of this
+person to write a letter. As a result of this conventional attitude,
+the writer has to resort to phantasy thought to satisfy the needs of
+the moment. We have pointed out that reading a novel is a form of
+phantasy thinking, in which we identify ourselves with the hero. The
+same occurs in our cinemas. Here, the pleasure of phantasy thinking is
+enhanced by the fact that the visual impression is produced direct,
+whereas in reading a novel the visual impression is by words only,
+and a certain amount of effort is needed to translate it in the mind
+into its pictorial form; and thus the cinematograph induces a form of
+phantasy thinking which needs the least effort of all to realise. It
+is within the reach of anyone possessing a few pence, and although the
+average person may regard it as educative and useful to the community,
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> magistrate who is dealing with the youthful delinquent knows the
+cinematograph to be very harmful to the child&#8217;s mind. And there is no
+doubt that the unconscious effect of such mental stimuli is excessively
+deleterious to the race in general. The indulgence in it encourages
+the habit of phantasy thinking at a small cost, and such a habit soon
+becomes established as part of the individual&#8217;s make-up. Nor does the
+evil stay itself here. For the phantasy in the cinematograph consists
+usually in the fulfilment of impossible wishes, and in this, as in
+other cases, the emotional output is increased out of all proportion
+to the real exciting causes. This results in a misplacement in the
+emotional output in the unconscious mind, which in its turn is the
+basis of many neurotic conditions which may even require a physician&#8217;s
+aid to eradicate. And one must remember that a neurotic condition need
+not merely be the illness of an individual, it may be, and often is,
+the disease of a nation. Hence, like the fairy-tale, the cinema, as it
+is at present, should not be used as a child&#8217;s pastime. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>§2</h3>
+
+<p>In other forms of Narcissism also, we shall find it easier to break
+away from phantasy if we substitute a reality; that is, if we turn our
+flow of energy into a real, instead of an imaginary channel, instead of
+merely trying to dam the flow in the original channel. In cases where
+this Narcissism involves a bad habit, such as irritability, impatience,
+weeping, etc., the line that should be followed differs rather from
+that suggested in the case of day-dreams. In the first place, not only
+should we pull ourselves up short, but we should also bear in mind,
+immediately, the first part of the technique which we suggested in
+a previous chapter. That is to say, we should call to mind what our
+abnormal act really means, and having done this, having realised it in
+consciousness, <i>we should then endeavour to use the same energy which
+we should have used for this abnormal act in an immediate and useful
+manner</i>. Now, in all these cases, our abnormal reaction takes place
+because our omnipotence or sense of perfection is disturbed; and since
+this sense of perfection is not real, the easiest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> and most convenient
+channel for us to turn our energy into is one which still satisfies the
+sense of perfection, that is to say, one in which we may feel that <i>we
+are, by our act, becoming more perfect in reality, instead of clinging
+to our perfection in phantasy</i>. It is impossible to give examples to
+cover the very many reactions which may take place, but one actual
+example, given in detail, should be sufficient to enable the individual
+to invent others to suit his own case. Let us again take the case
+of the impatient man, in which the Time-factor has never been fully
+realised.</p>
+
+<p>Let us say that he has entered a restaurant for lunch, and that
+having glanced down the menu, he then has to wait ten minutes before
+the waiter attends to him. Probably, after the first minute of that
+time, he has begun to get impatient; at the end of ten minutes he is
+either making up his mind to go without his lunch, so great is his
+irritability, or else he is, with great emotion, explaining to his
+neighbour how extremely inefficient this restaurant is, as regards
+management, service, and, in fact, everything connected with it. He is
+utterly unable to realise the facts of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> case. Let us again refer
+to the facts for a moment. The restaurant is a business, and must make
+a profit; in order to do this, only a limited number of waiters can
+possibly be kept, and the number of these has to be regulated by the
+<i>average</i> number of customers, by the profit which it is possible to
+make in the neighbourhood, and other factors. In the second place, the
+luncheon hour is one at which the number of customers is well above
+the average, and therefore in which the service is bound to be the
+slowest; however good the management, however skilful the waiters, they
+are obliged to devote a certain number of minutes to each customer;
+and the probability is that our Narcissistic individual is being as
+well attended to as anybody else. He does not realise this however, he
+is not dealing with the facts at all. He merely knows that he wishes
+for an immediate meal, that his sense of perfection is thoroughly
+disturbed, and his unconscious idea is that if he is sufficiently
+impatient, what he wants will come to him immediately, just as it did
+in childhood.</p>
+
+<p>Now let us see how he may deal with <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>himself. We will suppose that
+he has read this chapter before his next visit to the restaurant in
+question. Once again he sits down, once again he finds he is kept
+waiting. His impatience begins to manifest itself in its early stages.
+He pulls himself up, and the first thing that he does is to realise the
+causes of his impatience, as set out in the last paragraph. He must go
+quickly over the original causes of his Narcissism in infancy, and of
+how he obtained means of satisfaction, and so developed his present
+habit of thought. He must run over the facts concerning the restaurant,
+and realise that it is a business place, and that it is at its busiest
+hour. In other words, he must get into full consciousness the various
+factors associated with this Narcissistic outburst of impatience. Then,
+let him realise as a kind of summary, &#8220;What I am actually objecting
+to is the disturbance of my unconscious feeling of omnipotence and
+perfection. Let me, however, turn this energy, utilise this time
+during which I am waiting in attaining a step nearer real perfection
+instead of bemoaning the loss of my imaginary perfection. Now, a step
+towards<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> real perfection will be attained, if I overcome this habit
+of impatience. Let me, therefore, utilise this time in sitting here
+patiently, in worrying no longer about the time the waiter is taking,
+in being actually pleased with the fact that I am becoming more
+patient, and that my time is being usefully filled with a directive
+aim, which has as its object the same ultimate idea as the original
+phantastic one, namely, that of perfection.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Critics may here suggest that this long monologue on the part of the
+impatient individual might have been cut short by allowing him to say,
+&#8220;Obviously, the waiters are busy, it is no use being impatient, let me
+be patient.&#8221; I must point out, however, that the result would probably
+not have been the same. The longer method has its value in the fact
+that he brings into consciousness the two ideas of perfection, the
+Narcissistic idea which is being hurt, and the real idea which he is
+desiring consciously to obtain. <i>And it is very much easier to turn
+energy from one channel to another, if there are lines of similarity
+between the two channels.</i></p>
+
+<p>Hence, when one&#8217;s sense of perfection is <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>assailed, let one turn
+one&#8217;s energy into some form of thought which still satisfies the idea
+of perfection attained or attainable. A similar process can be gone
+through with any other Narcissistic form of trouble, and consists in
+recapitulating the causes, and in reaching a determined effort to
+deflect consciously the energy from the phantastic into the real. The
+same principle holds good for all temperamental troubles of this sort,
+but the individual will have to devise for himself a suitable formula
+to use to suit the needs of his own case.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER XIII</span> <span class="smaller">AUTO-SUGGESTION</span></h2>
+
+<p>Suggestion, in one form or another, plays an extremely important
+part in the life of everyone. Suggestion consists in impressing upon
+the unconscious mind some idea or thought in such a way that the
+unconscious mind will take it and absorb it as part of itself, and
+utilise it unconsciously and instinctively. Quite unconsciously,
+throughout childhood and adult life, we are receiving suggestions from
+the actions of those around us.</p>
+
+<p>For example, I remember as a boy going repeatedly with a relative
+to a friend&#8217;s house. At the time, I did not notice that my relative
+invariably used the knocker, and never rang the bell, or rather I did
+not consciously notice it. On one occasion I, myself, was sent with
+a message to this house, and although I was in the habit of ringing
+bells whenever I went to other houses, at this particular one, I
+instinctively knocked only. The suggestion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> that I should knock upon
+that particular door had been implanted in me by the fact that I had
+repeatedly seen the same action take place, although I had paid no
+conscious attention to it. It had impressed itself upon my mind as
+the right action to take place, under the particular circumstances
+attending a visit to this house, so that I performed the action itself
+automatically, without any further thought in the matter.</p>
+
+<p>The example impressed itself upon my mind, because while I was in the
+house, on this occasion, a man came to mend the bell, which had been
+out of order for many months. Hence, the reason my relative invariably
+knocked.</p>
+
+<p>Suggestion of various kinds is a very powerful factor, and as in
+the example given above, it is for the most part an unconscious
+factor in determining our actions. But it is possible for us to give
+ourselves <i>conscious</i> suggestions which will afterwards cause us to
+act automatically, in accordance with the suggestion. A great deal too
+much, however, has been claimed for suggestion in recent months. There
+are many circumstances in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> which suggestion is not likely to be any
+good at all, there are also circumstances when it may arouse an actual
+opposition in the unconscious mind, where a counter-suggestion is set
+at work immediately, and the condition of the individual may actually
+be worse than before he started giving himself suggestions.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from other things, one factor may be mentioned which is very
+antagonistic to suggestion, and that is <i>fear</i>, possibly fear which
+is for the most part unconscious. Thus, supposing that the alcoholic
+gives himself the suggestion that he shall pass a public-house without
+going into it, and he has a definite fear of the wish to go in; he
+will probably find that in suggesting that he shall not have the wish,
+he is actually re-enforcing the strength of the wish which is there.
+His unconscious counter-will is at work, and turning the force of the
+suggestion in the wrong direction, and he will very likely succumb
+to temptation more readily than before. Hence, in a subject where we
+have acute fear of failure, suggestion must be very carefully dealt
+with. Moreover, suggestion, to be efficient, must have other things in
+its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> favour, some knowledge, in fact, of the underlying causes of the
+deleterious action which we wish to eradicate. It is not impossible to
+improve oneself by suggestion, even though one may be ignorant of the
+cause of one&#8217;s trouble, but I have found that it is infinitely more
+easy to obtain this improvement if one has previously brought into
+consciousness the underlying cause, and can therefore direct one&#8217;s
+suggestion to this rather than merely to the effect or symptom. I have
+myself devised a method for the use of certain of my patients by means
+of which suggestion may be directed to both the cause and result,
+as indicated shortly. Ordinary methods of suggestion are frequently
+merely directed to the cure of the symptom rather than the disease; in
+fact, such auto-suggestion, popular as it has become, may frequently
+be likened to a doctor who treats small-pox by putting ointment on the
+spots, or appendicitis by giving morphia. It will be successful in
+those cases where the manifestations of the disease are worse than the
+disease itself; but when the causes are strong and virile, suggestion
+directed towards the symptom will not avail. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In an earlier chapter, we described how the individual suffering
+from deleterious abnormalities of temperament could, to some extent,
+trace the cause of this back to infancy. We told how this, in itself,
+would, if repeatedly brought to mind on succeeding occasions, produce
+considerable improvement. We have further discussed how he could
+consciously turn the energy from one form of reaction into another
+and more suitable form. All these methods, however, may be made
+considerably more efficient by the active use of auto-suggestion, as I
+have indicated, directed partially to the cause and partially to the
+result desired. Thus, the form which suggestion should take in the case
+of the man, whom we quoted in the last chapter as being over-impatient
+in the restaurant, would be somewhat as follows:</p>
+
+<p>He would have to impress upon himself several suggestions; and in the
+case of each of these suggestions he would be required to form a mental
+picture of himself in the conditions to which the suggestions referred.
+Firstly, &#8220;In circumstances in which I have been accustomed to react
+with impatience, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> will no longer act as I did when I was a little
+child.&#8221; (In repeating this to himself in the manner to be referred to
+shortly, he should hold a picture of himself reacting impatiently when
+a child, and contrast it with the manner in which he ought to have
+acted.) Secondly, &#8220;Under conditions which have previously caused me to
+react with impatience, I will in future, at once think out the <i>real</i>
+circumstances of the case.&#8221; (And another suitable mental picture should
+be visualised here, as also in each of the following suggestions.)
+Thirdly, &#8220;Under conditions which previously caused me to react with
+impatience, I will no longer be impatient.&#8221; Fourthly, &#8220;Under conditions
+to which I have been accustomed to react with impatience, I shall now
+devote my energy to perfecting myself, in reality.&#8221; Thus, he is taking
+himself through the stages from childhood onward, and re-educating
+himself in each stage by means of a forced education in which the
+individual &#8220;grows up&#8221; in reality from the point at which he stopped in
+childhood.</p>
+
+<p>Not one, but all these thoughts, and possibly even intermediate ones
+that may develop,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> should be impressed upon the unconscious mind, so
+that they may act automatically. As to the method which should be
+adopted by the patient in giving himself suggestions, I recommend the
+following. That he first of all write down briefly the results of his
+self-examination, that he should take those results in chronological
+order, and write down from them suitable suggestions dealing with
+the various stages, such as I have just written with regard to the
+impatient man. That every night and morning, or at any other time
+during the day, he should for five or ten minutes lie down, relax
+himself, and close his eyes; that he should then repeat to himself
+fifteen or twenty times each of the suggestions, taking the earliest
+first, then the next, and so on. They need not be repeated out loud,
+but if repeated under the breath and accompanied by a suitable movement
+of the lips, it will suffice. Effort should be avoided; suggestion
+is not an effort of will so much as an impression effected by the
+imagination. When an individual is giving himself suggestion, he is not
+fighting an active battle, he is merely allowing ideas to sink into his
+mind; and if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> they are repeated often enough, like drops of water which
+in time wear a channel in the stone, they will make their mark and
+produce their effects in due course.</p>
+
+<p>Suggestion, in fact, minimises the need for the use of will-power,
+at any given moment in a difficult situation. If the battle has been
+fought out beforehand in imagination, it will automatically succeed
+when the time comes. The will has played its part previously when
+adopting the method of suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>This is not a text-book on suggestion, and I do not propose to go
+further into the method here. I merely wish to point out the practical
+efficiency of the use of a certain amount of auto-suggestion when
+applied in conjunction with the other methods of combating Narcissism
+already outlined, and when applied in an intelligent manner, so that
+not merely the symptoms, but the original causes themselves shall be
+affected by it.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER XIV</span> <span class="smaller">CONCLUSION</span></h2>
+
+<p>The previous portion of this book has been devoted to showing how
+Narcissism may be harmful, and how in its endeavour to obtain
+satisfaction it may render the individual unhappy in the utmost
+degree. It is possible that the reader will have gathered that the
+author regards Narcissism as wholly and completely a useless and
+detrimental element in life; the more so, since at various points
+we have had to emphasise that in one form or another very little of
+it persisting in adult life may be a great deal too much. It should
+be realised, however, that Narcissism to a slight extent, and at
+certain periods, plays an important and also necessary part in the
+individual&#8217;s life. We mentioned at one place that a certain amount of
+identification was beneficial in choosing one&#8217;s life partner. Whereas
+too much identification might lead to one&#8217;s choosing a sexual partner
+of the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> sex, a small amount of identification might lead to one&#8217;s
+choosing a partner with the same tastes, and would further lead to a
+tendency to enjoy whatsoever the other one enjoyed, and to dislike what
+the other one disliked, and this similarity would lead to a certain
+harmony in life. <i>Narcissism is a normal thing in the new-born infant,
+and Narcissism is the root of many virtues; but its final adult form
+must be sublimated and very much attenuated.</i> It is like the salt in
+cooking; a little is essential to bring out the flavour, but a very
+little more spoils the whole dish.</p>
+
+<p>A certain amount of self-love, self-appreciation, self-importance, and
+self-consciousness of one&#8217;s own capacities is necessary in every one;
+without it he would be ill prepared to cope with men and circumstances.
+But this necessary self-importance and self-appreciation is not, as
+many might think, due to Narcissism alone. It has a slight Narcissistic
+element, but it is largely a resultant of other unconscious instincts,
+which we have not attempted to deal with here; and we only mention
+it, lest the reader should draw the conclusion that these necessary
+elements in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> our character are drawn purely from a Narcissistic
+basis, and that he should therefore be left puzzled as to how, if he
+should eradicate Narcissism, he would be able to retain necessary
+characteristics which apparently belong to this same instinct. It is
+also very necessary for the reader to bear in mind that much which
+may be developed from Narcissism is useful; even though the original
+from which it came may be dangerous and harmful. Moreover, a certain
+amount of enjoyment of phantasy such as is obtained from novels or
+theatres may be in many people quite a useful and adequate form of
+relaxation. With them it may be strictly cut off from real life, may
+be strictly limited as regards time and place, and, in fact, entirely
+under their control. In such persons it forms a useful element in their
+lives. I do not say that if their early education and environment had
+been different they might not possibly possess an even better form of
+recreation, but merely that, taking facts as they are, in certain cases
+it forms a useful factor in the working scheme of life.</p>
+
+<p>In others, however, in those where it has exceeded the limits of
+absolute control, it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> necessary, for the time being at least, to
+attempt to cut it out as completely as possible, because where it is
+allowed slight free play, it is liable to get out of hand, unless it
+can be dealt with absolutely at the will of the individual. Hence the
+necessity for such stringent treatment as I have laid down in the
+previous chapters of this book.</p>
+
+<p>I have attempted to show that happiness is, for the most part,
+within the individual&#8217;s own grasp. Happiness comes from within the
+individual and not from without. Unhappiness must not be confused
+with pain, either mental or physical, for pain is a normal reaction,
+to a harmful stimulus which all are liable to feel; it is for the
+most part beyond the individual&#8217;s control so long as the stimulus
+persists; but the peace of mind, the absence of worry, of irritability,
+of perpetual uneasiness, which we call unhappiness, lies within the
+control of everybody. It largely consists in continually recognising
+what facts are unchangeable, and ceasing to bemoan or phantasy about
+these unchangeable facts. It is true that the road to happiness may
+be difficult if we have long been accustomed to tread the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> path of
+Narcissism, but it is equally true that if the advice laid down in this
+book be followed patiently and systematically, a very much happier
+frame of mind will be attained as a result. In a few cases, Narcissism
+is not a predominant factor causing the temperamental disturbance
+although superficially it may appear to be so. In such cases (where
+other primitive instincts are really of paramount importance) the same
+degree of improvement will not be attained by this method of self
+treatment and only a more prolonged course of regular psycho-analysis
+is likely to produce the desired result.</p>
+
+<p>Happiness is not to be found by seeking happiness in the direct sense.
+This, I am aware, sounds very much like a mere high-sounding thought
+of a writer. It is the sort of phrase that people dismiss with the
+remark, &#8220;That is all very well in theory.&#8221; This statement, however,
+is not made from any moral or sentimental point of view, nor on any
+purely theoretical grounds, but as a scientific fact, which has been
+demonstrated as the result of psychological research. It may be
+interesting to note here how much the psychology<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> of happiness is in
+agreement with many of the teachings of the New Testament, although a
+different terminology and mode of expression may be used.</p>
+
+<p>It was pointed out earlier how the individual who employed too much
+phantasy thought in youth might worry himself into an early grave,
+although he was the same individual who most desired a long life. It
+has now been shown that happiness does not come to those who seek
+happiness, but to those who can adapt themselves to realities, that
+is, to those who can control their Narcissism. Narcissism is not so
+very different from the word &#8220;self,&#8221; as used in Christian teachings,
+and any who are interested enough to compare them will find that there
+is considerable parallelism between Christian teaching and certain
+psychological observations.</p>
+
+<p>I must emphasise the fact once more that patience, that is a
+realization of the time factor, is very necessary for those who attempt
+self-treatment on the lines indicated in this book. For since lack of
+this is often one of their faults to start with, they may otherwise
+involve themselves in a vicious circle, from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> which they do not
+escape. Patience and attention to detail will, however, enable them to
+accomplish that improvement which they have set out to achieve. In the
+words of Horace, &#8220;Happiness is here, happiness is everywhere, if only a
+well-regulated mind does not fail you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p class="center space-above">THE END</p>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 66496 ***</div>
+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The omnipotent self, a study in
+self-deception and self-cure, by Paul Bousfield
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The omnipotent self, a study in self-deception and self-cure
+
+Author: Paul Bousfield
+
+Release Date: October 8, 2021 [eBook #66496]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Turgut Dincer, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed
+             Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+             produced from images generously made available by The Internet
+             Archive)
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OMNIPOTENT SELF, A STUDY IN
+SELF-DECEPTION AND SELF-CURE ***
+
++-------------------------------------------------+
+|Transcriber’s note:                              |
+|                                                 |
+|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.  |
+|                                                 |
++-------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+THE OMNIPOTENT SELF
+
+A Study in Self-Deception and Self-Cure
+
+
+BY
+PAUL BOUSFIELD
+M.R.C.S. (ENG.), L.R.C.P. (LOND.)
+
+_Physician to the London Neurological Clinic (Ministry of Pensions),
+Late Demonstrator of Morbid Anatomy, St. George’s Hospital, Late
+M.O. American Women’s Hospital for Officers, etc., etc._
+
+Author of _The Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis_.
+
+
+LONDON
+KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.,
+BROADWAY HOUSE, 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.C.
+1923
+
+
+PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE DEVONSHIRE PRESS, TORQUAY.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+“_Nature has granted to all to be happy if we but knew how to use her
+gifts._”--CLAUDIUS.
+
+
+Many people, while not considering themselves as suffering from any
+nervous ailment, nor desiring the services of a physician, are yet far
+from being perfectly happy in their mental outlook and temperament.
+Either their feelings are too easily roused, or they are inclined to
+worry, to be depressed, irritable, nervous, or over-sensitive. Trifles
+which to them seem no trifles interfere with the smooth course of their
+daily lives, or this slight abnormality may manifest itself in an
+over-sensitiveness to physical pain or to mental or moral difficulties
+and conflicts. It is with the hope of helping a few such individuals
+to a better understanding of themselves, and through this to a more
+equable temperament and greater happiness, that this little book is
+written.
+
+There is no hard and fast line between the normal and the abnormal
+person, and indeed a very real difficulty exists in even defining a
+normal person. If we take our definition of normal as being “average
+or conforming to type or standard,” then the majority of people
+are normal. If, on the other hand, we take its other meaning, that
+of “performing the proper functions,” then there are few people
+approaching the normal under modern civilized conditions. A tendency
+to undue irritability or depression is a mild and very common form of
+abnormality. Hysterias, obsessions, and unreasonable fears are greater
+abnormalities, and fortunately of less frequent occurrence, while
+certain forms of insanity are still greater deviations from the normal.
+A similar combination of causes, however, may form the basis of all
+these abnormalities, and these various deviations from the normal are
+more of degree than of kind. But whereas in cases of obsessions and
+unreasonable fears or in such other abnormalities as homo-sexuality or
+sexual impotence, etc., the causes are deeply hidden and the forces at
+work somewhat complicated, in the lesser abnormalities there are causes
+frequently lying less deeply.
+
+In the case of obsessions, phobias, hysterias, sexual abnormalities,
+and so forth, we can only hope to effect an improvement by a thorough
+analysis of the unconscious causes and conflicts by a competent
+psycho-analyst. In the lesser troubles of the mind, however,
+considerable improvement can often be effected by means of a somewhat
+superficial self-analysis. This will be directed towards investigating
+one in particular of the primary causes which play an important part in
+all the minor unpleasant temperamental faults.
+
+In order to teach the patient to help himself, it will first of all be
+necessary to enlighten him to a considerable extent as to the general
+evolution of his character; at any rate in as far as one important
+mental complex known as “Narcissism” is concerned. In doing this, many
+other mental complexes will have to be superficially touched upon; but
+in order to simplify the work for the uninitiated, they will not be
+specifically named when they appear; for, although this would make the
+work more technically accurate, it would, at the same time, make it
+less clear, and in a book of this type this would be very undesirable.
+The first object I have in mind is that the work shall be lucid,
+concise, and readily understood by any person of ordinary education,
+so that he may gain an insight into the essential causes and growth
+of some of his abnormal characteristics without undue complication
+of ideas. It is further hoped that this small work may be of some
+assistance in suggesting to parents a few of the many things to be
+avoided in the early training of the child.
+
+PAUL BOUSFIELD
+
+_7, Harley Street, W._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PART I: THE OMNIPOTENT SELF
+
+CHAP.                               PAGE
+   I THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND              3
+
+  II REPRESSION                       19
+
+ III THE FORCES SHAPING CHARACTER     27
+
+  IV DETERMINISM AND WILL POWER       41
+
+   V NARCISSISM                       49
+
+  VI FACT AND PHANTASY                64
+
+ VII IDENTIFICATION                   74
+
+VIII THE IRRITABLE TEMPERAMENT        87
+
+  IX RATIONALIZATION                  98
+
+
+PART II: PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
+
+    X  SELF ANALYSIS                 111
+
+   XI  READJUSTMENT OF OBJECTIVES    121
+
+  XII READJUSTMENT OF THOUGHT        138
+
+XIII AUTO-SUGGESTION                 157
+
+ XIV CONCLUSION                      165
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+THE OMNIPOTENT SELF
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND
+
+
+§1
+
+In considering the question of character, with its various
+irregularities and idiosyncracies, we shall have to accustom ourselves
+to dealing with factors which do not exist in consciousness at all.
+Strange as it may seem to the uninitiated, many of our thoughts, ideas,
+and motives are quite outside our normal consciousness, and of them
+only the resulting emotions and actions appear on the surface. This
+may be taken as an absolute and indisputable fact, and one which the
+reader should try to appreciate at the outset, although it is somewhat
+difficult to realise, for we always find it hard to apprehend and
+understand something which we can neither see nor touch.
+
+If one were to tell the ordinary labourer that water is composed of
+two gases which when combined form a liquid, he would probably be
+quite incredulous, and possibly in his ignorance might even deny
+emphatically any such possibility, on the grounds that it was against
+all common-sense and experience; he failing to realise, of course, how
+very limited were both his sense and his experience. In spite of his
+feelings of absolute certainty, and in spite of complete faith in the
+unshakable logic behind his belief, he would be wrong.
+
+While it is not to be expected that many readers of this book will deny
+the existence of the unconscious part of the mind, it may well be that
+many will fail to realise that it is of more than theoretical value.
+It therefore becomes necessary for us to examine the matter somewhat
+carefully, and to familiarise ourselves with the ideas of the working
+of this unconscious mind.
+
+Without going into the further sub-divisions recognised in psychology,
+we will confine ourselves to dividing the mind into two parts--the
+conscious and the unconscious. _And of these, at any given moment, the
+conscious is by far the smaller part._ We are actually conscious at
+any moment of but very few things, such as the book we are reading,
+the chair we are sitting on, and dimly of our immediate surroundings.
+A thousand memories which we might conjure up of our childhood and
+our past are, for the time being, far from consciousness. Yet these
+matters exist somewhere in the mind, for we are able, if we choose,
+to search about in it, and bring them into consciousness, even though
+we may not have thought of them for many years. This leads us at once
+to a striking fact, namely, that while many things can be remembered
+at will, others which we feel we ought to remember, cannot be brought
+to mind at all. It is an extremely common experience to find that one
+has forgotten a name completely, and that no effort will bring it into
+consciousness, yet later on, apparently without effort, the name will
+“come back to us,” as we say. In fact, the very phrase we use--“come
+back to us”--implies that it has been somewhere away from us, that it
+has been lodged in some place that is foreign and unknown to us, yet
+which we are aware is somewhere within us.
+
+It is also common knowledge that a great many events and scenes of
+considerable importance to us at the time of action are forgotten, and
+that they can only be recollected if some sort of stimulus or reminder
+be given. For instance, a person may have forgotten completely where
+and how he spent a holiday ten years ago. No amount of racking his
+brain brings anything to light. But having been reminded of a single
+incident that occurred during that holiday, the whole of the rest may
+come up from the unconscious in full detail.
+
+There is a third kind of memory more important still, if one may
+be permitted to call it memory, and that is the memory of facts
+which no _ordinary_ stimulus of this sort will ever bring up into
+consciousness again. The term “memory” is used here because we have
+every reason to believe that somewhere in the unconscious all facts
+have been registered, and in many cases may be partially brought into
+consciousness again by suitable means, such for instance, as hypnotism
+or psycho-analysis, (two very different methods, by the way). Yet,
+though these impressions have been made on the mind, and though there
+is this unconscious memory still in existence, in the ordinary course
+of events we should never again be conscious of them.
+
+_We may, however, be very conscious of actions and emotions emanating
+from the unconscious memory._ Thus, suppose that as a child one had
+lived in the country, and on several very happy occasions a bonfire
+had been lighted at a picnic, and that later on one lived in a town,
+and that this picnic which happened at the age of three or four years
+had become completely forgotten, so much so that even photographs of
+the scenes or conversations on the subject carried on by other people
+brought no memory to light and seemed to touch no chord; it would still
+be quite likely that the mere smell of a bon-fire in the distance or
+any smell resembling this would be enough to cause a considerable
+feeling of elation and happiness in the person, a feeling that
+something pleasant was taking place, an idea that if only one could
+remember, a pleasant picture could be called up. This is because it is
+associated in the unconscious mind with these previous happy occasions.
+
+Or again, suppose a child at the age of two or three years has been
+dropped into a pond and nearly drowned. Although the incident may
+in later years be completely forgotten, the horror of deep water
+and all its associations may vividly persist. It seems probable,
+and a considerable amount of work has been done on this subject in
+psycho-analysis, that every action, thought, or idea that has ever
+been registered in the mind, even to some extent before birth, is
+permanently fixed; and that although much of this cannot be brought
+into consciousness by present methods, yet all the feelings and
+emotions, however slight, which attended these thoughts, ideas, and
+actions are perpetually being called forth by slight stimuli of which
+we are unaware, and these are playing their part in moulding our
+thoughts, feelings and actions in the present time.
+
+I had an interesting patient a short time ago who, owing to certain
+experiences in the war, was suffering from complete loss of memory; so
+complete that he did not know his own wife nor even his parents. Under
+hypnosis, the whole of his memory was rapidly brought back; and when it
+appeared to be normal and both he and his parents were quite confident
+that it was as good as it had ever been, I suggested that we might try
+an experiment to see if we could improve it still further. I asked him,
+amongst other things, if he could voluntarily remember the first time
+he wore knickerbockers. He had not the faintest recollection of the
+matter. I then hypnotised him, and told him to give me the details. He
+described the knickerbockers minutely, the number of buttons on them,
+the fact that he wore them on his third birthday, that his father had
+given him a penny, and told him that “now he was a little man, he must
+have money in his pocket,” together with a very large number of other
+details. I enquired of his father and mother and sisters, and they
+corroborated the details in every particular.
+
+I have tried several similar experiments with him and with one or two
+other patients under hypnosis with considerable success, and have even
+tried to take them back to the memory of their own birth. They have
+frequently produced many memories of events that occurred before the
+age of one year, but previous to that could only give reproductions of
+movements and pleasant and unpleasant emotions. Whether these latter
+are memories or not one has unfortunately no means of proving. But the
+fact that under hypnosis both educated and uneducated people alike
+exhibit extremely similar ideas as to types of movements, expressions,
+and feelings at the various stages of their very early life, inclines
+one to think that these reproductions may be memories. One has,
+however, to beware of the fact that observation and knowledge acquired
+in later periods of their lives might be the real factor underlying
+their apparent reproductions. Further evidence of a different nature
+will be given on this point, however, at a later stage in the book.
+
+
+§2
+
+So far, we have shown that there is an unconscious part of the mind
+which acts as a store-house for memories, ideas, and emotions of the
+past. We have not, however, shown that it is anything more than a
+store-house. But if we look into it from other points of view, we
+shall see that it is a great deal more than a mere store-house, for
+it thinks, reasons, comes to conclusions, and in fact assists in
+controlling our acts at every turn; indeed this unconscious part of our
+mind wields driving forces of the utmost potency in moulding our lives.
+
+Let us examine first the _reasoning_ faculty of the unconscious mind.
+
+Maeder gives a good example of this. A house-surgeon at a hospital
+wished particularly to keep a certain appointment, but he was not
+allowed to leave the hospital until his chief, who was out, should
+return later in the evening. As his appointment was of considerable
+importance, he decided to brave the anger of his chief. He therefore
+kept his appointment, but when he returned later, he found to his
+astonishment that he had left a light in his room, a thing he had
+never done before, although he had occupied that room for two years.
+He thought the matter over, and soon realised why he had done this.
+The chief, on going to his own house, would pass the window and would
+see the light burning within, and imagine that his house-surgeon was
+at home. The unconscious mind had rapidly reasoned this out and had
+determined that the conscious mind should forget to turn off the light.
+
+Another illustration of the persistent way in which the unconscious
+mind will reason and act can be given from my own experience. I had to
+attend a lecture given by a man, with whose views I totally disagreed.
+I had no wish to attend the lecture, but felt compelled to do so in
+an official capacity. Consciously, I determined to go; unconsciously
+when I made the note of the lecture, I wrote down the time of it in
+my engagement-book a week late. On discovering this, I consciously
+endeavoured to rectify the matter, but my unconscious mind wrote
+Tuesday instead of Thursday in my engagement-book, so it went down
+wrong once again. Later, having been forced to see my mistake by a
+friend mentioning the matter, I omitted for a short time to rectify it
+in my engagement-book, feeling sure that I should remember to do so a
+little later. But alas! for the determination of my conscious mind. I
+forthwith made an appointment for a patient at the real time appointed
+for the lecture, and so could not in the end attend it. Now, these
+lectures were held regularly on a particular day of the week, and I
+had generally looked forward to them, and attended them without any
+difficulty. It was only in this one case that I did not wish to go. My
+conscious mind decided to attend; but my unconscious mind played trick
+after trick in order that my real desires should be satisfied. Such
+examples could be multiplied indefinitely. It is possible that many
+would say that they do not actually prove unconscious reasoning nor
+power of thought. Let me, therefore, give one or two simple examples of
+a different nature.
+
+A friend of mine once told me that he had spent several days in trying
+to work out a chess problem without success. One morning, he woke
+up with a picture in his mind of the exact moves that he must make.
+The problem had been solved in his sleep unconsciously, and with no
+recollection on waking of any conscious effort at reaching the solution.
+
+In my own experience, as a school-boy, I failed to solve a problem in
+Euclid during an examination. On the morning afterwards, the solution
+flashed through my brain suddenly, as I lay in bed. Whether I had
+solved it in my sleep, or whether it was solved in bed as I lay awake,
+I am not prepared to say. Of this much, however, I am certain. I made
+no conscious effort; my mind merely wandered lazily in the direction
+of the previous day’s failure, and almost instantaneously the right
+solution appeared without effort.
+
+Let us now take another example of work which the unconscious mind is
+called upon to perform; an example which we are accustomed to view
+without question or thought, which is comparatively commonplace,
+and which we dismiss summarily by referring to it as “habit.” The
+accomplished pianist reads the music in front of him consciously, but
+he is not conscious of the extremely rapid translation which takes
+place from the brain to the fingers, so as to produce complicated
+movements on the key-board. And if we examine it carefully, we shall
+find that something very wonderful has actually taken place outside
+his consciousness. When he was first learning to play, he looked at
+the note on his music, and said to himself “That is C.” He looked at
+the key on the piano, and repeated “That is C.” He was taught that a
+particular finger must be placed on that particular note when playing
+in a certain key. He was taught that it had to be hit in a particular
+way and held down for a particular time, according to the size and
+shape of the note he was reading on the sheet of music in front of him.
+He was further taught that in order to modify any sound in a particular
+manner, he could use his feet on one or other of the pedals, and must
+be extremely careful to put his feet down and lift his feet up again
+at exactly the right moment. He was taught that when certain symbols,
+known as sharps and flats, preceded the notes at the beginning of his
+piece of music, the whole scheme of fingering would be different. And,
+at first, he had laboriously to go through the process of watching
+first the music and then the key-board, and of _thinking_ at each
+point what he should do with his fingers and with his feet, and how he
+should do it, and for what period he should keep on doing it. Now, the
+whole process is gone through with half-a-million notes which he has
+never seen before, many of them played simultaneously, and with an
+exactitude which he never attained when he was consciously thinking.
+Whatever may be the nature of the unconscious action which is taking
+place, all he has in consciousness is the music in front of him, and
+the final sound that he is producing, together with the emotions which
+these called forth in him as a result of the whole.
+
+Can there be any doubt left that a complicated unconscious process of
+the same kind is taking place?
+
+Or again, let us examine our own personal likes and dislikes.
+Frequently one can assign no reason whatsoever for these. They may
+exist, in fact, against what we call our better judgment. We may
+love a person in spite of certain faults, or dislike him in spite
+of his virtues. If the matter be examined further, however, we not
+infrequently find the reasons for our emotions towards him. Either
+his manner, dress, or tone of voice, or some other trivial feature
+may resemble someone we have liked before, or on the contrary, some
+mannerism may call to mind a similar mannerism which we associate
+either in ourselves or in some other person, with unpleasant
+characteristics. Our unconscious mind has rapidly sized up all these
+points, appraised them, and presented our conscious mind with the
+resulting emotions alone.
+
+So-called intuition is, to a large extent, merely rapid unconscious
+reasoning, in which minute details are taken into consideration by the
+unconscious, and only the final opinion presented to consciousness.
+One should beware of trusting intuition too much, however, in spite of
+popular prejudice to the contrary, for unconscious reasoning is just
+as liable to be wrong in its conclusions as is conscious reasoning;
+and it is just as liable to reach the conclusion which best serves its
+immediate purpose, and to suppress truth where it is unpleasant.[1]
+
+Some psychologists think that the unconscious mind is _infallible_
+in purely _deductive_ reasoning from the _premises_ from which it
+starts. But it provides its own premises from a secret store and also
+accepts any suggested premises which are not repugnant. The premises
+may therefore be wrong but the deductive reasoning is accurate. In this
+case the conclusions will only be wrong because the premises are wrong.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] Unconscious reasoning or intuition is found chiefly in those who
+have not been trained in subjects which induce and train logical
+conscious reasoning. It is not a prerogative of sex, but on the whole
+is found more amongst women, merely because of their method of training
+from childhood upwards. In children and savages intuition is found
+equally present in both sexes. The loss of intuition merely means
+that the training of the conscious mind has caused us to mistrust
+conclusions for which we cannot consciously see the reasons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+REPRESSION
+
+
+§1
+
+One other faculty of the unconscious mind requires special mention, and
+that is its power of obliterating memories from the conscious mind,
+or as it is better termed, of _repressing_, since this word not only
+implies pushing out of consciousness, but also preventing from coming
+into consciousness. It is found that all persons have formed a regular
+habit of forgetting or partially forgetting, (and so disguising),
+things which are unpleasant to them. This especially refers to those
+things which are unpleasant to their self-respect, their moral beliefs
+and ideas, and their general pride in themselves. The primitive
+immoralities and thoughts and actions of early childhood which would
+now offend their æsthetic and moral susceptibilities, are, more or
+less, completely put out of sight, together with a host of unpleasant
+ideas and thoughts which have cropped up from childhood onwards.
+Indeed, there is a general tendency for anything of an unpleasant
+nature to be pushed out of sight.
+
+Darwin, in his autobiography, states, “I had, during many years,
+followed a golden rule, namely that whenever a published fact, a new
+observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general
+results, to make a memorandum of it without fail, and at once, for I
+had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt
+to escape from the memory than favourable ones.”
+
+We had a further example in the case of the house-surgeon who “forgot”
+to put out his light, and examples are extremely common in everyday
+life. We forget to post letters entrusted to us against our will, but
+we do not forget to post our own love-letters. We mislay bills very
+readily, but rarely do we mislay a cheque.
+
+Amongst my patients suffering from shell-shock, I have had very many
+hundreds who have completely forgotten some of the most unpleasant
+and terrifying experiences which occurred to them out at the front.
+Others unconsciously had found the easiest method of dealing with
+the unpleasant past to be that of blotting the whole of it out,
+dissociating it completely from their conscious mind, and then stating
+that they remembered nothing of their lives until they woke up in
+hospital. It is not only memories, however, which are repressed and
+remain dormant in the unconscious mind. Most of our primitive instincts
+handed on from our savage forefathers before even the evolution of man
+in his present form, lie similarly buried in this unconscious part of
+the mind, and we are wont to deny emphatically that we possess these
+unpleasant instincts. Nevertheless, just as _in utero_ we repeat more
+or less in detail the history of our physical evolution, so do we at
+that period and in childhood repeat to a great extent the history of
+our psychic evolution; and just as during this early period we possess
+the physical attributes of many of our ancestors, such as the gills
+of the fish or the tail of the lower vertebrates, so psychically do
+we at a somewhat later period, possess the instincts and desires of
+our progenitors, and utilise them as the hidden foundation stones
+in building our adult mental constitution. These various primitive
+instincts include all kinds of desires which would consciously be
+regarded as sexual perversions and moral crimes of different kinds, and
+they are present in all of us without exception. Our upbringing and
+conscious outlook upon them, however, causes them to be so abhorrent to
+us, that we successfully keep the majority of such ideas and feelings
+_from ever coming out of the unconscious in their primitive form_.
+In other words, we repress them. Occasionally, however, there is a
+tendency for these ancestral instincts to become conscious, and in
+our further efforts to prevent this we may develop instead hysterias,
+obsessions and unreasonable fears, together with many other nervous
+and abnormal signs and symptoms, into the nature of which it is not
+my intention to inquire further in this present volume. Those who
+are interested in pursuing this line of investigation will find an
+elementary account of it in a previous work of mine, “The Elements
+of Practical Psycho-Analysis.” All that I wish to emphasise here
+is that we do push out from the conscious mind unpleasant thoughts
+and memories, that we do repress and keep in the unconscious mind
+unpleasant desires and instincts, and that we do, as a result of this,
+have many unconscious or semi-conscious conflicts within ourselves,
+which may lead to unpleasant feelings of depression, irritability,
+fear, or in more pronounced cases hysterias, obsessions, and even
+permanent mental derangement.
+
+
+§2
+
+A further and somewhat important result of our possessing so much
+which is unconscious and of having so many feelings and ideas in
+consciousness of which we do not know the origin, or of whose
+origins we have but the vaguest and haziest notion is known as
+_rationalization_. This word signifies that we find reasons for doing
+or believing things which are of a pleasant nature and agreeable to us,
+and _vice versa_.
+
+Following on this rationalisation comes also a certain conservatism,
+which tends to retard progress of any sort, which dislikes looking at
+new ideas, and this for a very obvious reason. Looking at new ideas,
+examining ourselves or our work very closely, has a tendency to bring
+to light, from time to time, the very primitive instincts and feelings
+which we have been at so much pains to repress. And rather than submit
+to the indignity of discovering how really imperfect we are, and having
+our pride in our divinely constituted natures shaken, we have acquired
+a habit of denying and fighting strenuously against discovering truths
+connected with either our moral or physical evolution which would be
+unpleasant to us. In the light of our upbringing, such new truths are
+often unpleasant, therefore we rationalise that they must be untrue.
+For having been educated to venerate logic and reason, we can only
+be satisfied with any given conclusion we come to when we feel that
+it is justifiable in the light of logic and reason. But the logic of
+rationalisation is false logic.
+
+For many years, scientific and popular thought denied strenuously the
+possibility of the now universally accepted theory of human evolution;
+and on scientific grounds it was urged, with much plausible reasoning,
+that it was not possible to develop a high type like man from any low
+form of animal. On religious grounds it was argued equally passionately
+that if evolution were true, the Bible was wrong, God disappeared, and
+therefore the theory of evolution was untrue. The real reasons lying
+behind those reasons advanced by both the scientist and the general
+public, however, were not the reasons so carefully thought out by
+them, but consisted largely in the fact that they did not wish to find
+that the body, which they had hitherto thought a special and divine
+creation partaking of the miraculous, to be merely a stage in the
+evolution of life on this planet, and possibly not a final stage at
+that. For in that case, no longer would man be able to flatter himself
+that he was almost divine, he would have to relegate himself to the
+possibility of being in a stage of semi-barbarism; he would no longer
+be a final perfect product, but merely a half-finished article. It was
+this blow to his pride that he could not stand. And it is the same
+to-day. Whenever there is a likelihood that examination, particularly
+through research work, has thrown light on his psychic evolution,
+on the imperfections of his moral laws, or on the crudity of some
+conventional custom, the process which takes place in him is much the
+same.
+
+Firstly, dislike of the idea. Secondly, on further examination of it,
+hatred of the idea. Thirdly, rationalisation directed against the idea.
+Fourthly, contentment, in that he has proved by logic and reason that
+the idea is wrong. Hence, it is that the truth takes long to emerge,
+and that obsessions and hysterias, and even trivial abnormalities are
+difficult to cure, for the cure involves seeing our own imperfections
+naked and undisguised.
+
+In all these cases, we are trying to keep out of consciousness those
+things which will distress us or cause us to have conflicts, or to have
+to readjust our views of ourselves, or in fact cause us unpleasantness
+in any form. It will be noticed that I have mentioned pride in the
+belief that we have reached a condition of final development, and in
+our superiority over the rest of nature, as being one of the important
+factors in preventing our advance. It is to the development of this
+pride, and its ramifications that I am devoting the major portion of
+this book.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE FORCES SHAPING CHARACTER
+
+
+It will be seen from the foregoing that evolution of the individual
+character may be the result of a very large number of forces at
+work, of which many are quite unconscious; and that any considerable
+disturbance or variation of the unconscious factors will considerably
+modify the character of the individual, in spite of conscious desires
+in some other direction. The character of an individual is the sum of
+his thoughts, ideas, capacities, desires, feelings and actions, and the
+general forces moulding it may be briefly summarised as follows:
+
+
+     1. The primitive instincts inherited from his ancestors, and held
+     back in the unconscious mind.
+
+     2. Environment and education.
+
+     3. That pride in his own greatness, to which we referred in
+     the last chapter, which modifies all the other forces at work,
+     according to the direction of its development. This force will
+     henceforth be called by the name of Narcissism, for a reason
+     shortly to be explained.
+
+
+§2
+
+Of the inherited instincts we have already said as much as is necessary
+here. It suffices for us to recognise that they are for the most part
+of a primitive erotic type, and that they are so repressed and modified
+as to be unrecognisable in the normal adult. When they have been
+ineffectually converted by environment and education, we have present
+the basis of many neurotic and functional conditions, and this again is
+a matter which is outside the scope of the present work.
+
+
+§3
+
+Environment and education are extremely comprehensive terms as used
+in psychology. Environment does not merely refer to the home with its
+visible surroundings, nor does education merely refer to the scholastic
+side of it. Environment and education include the treatment of the
+child by the nurse during the first week of life; for instance,
+whether she leaves it alone when it cries, or whether she soothes it
+and rocks it to sleep again. A trivial fact, the reader will think,
+especially in the first week of the child’s life, yet experience
+shows us that this environment and education of the first week is an
+extremely important factor in its after-life. The thousand little
+actions, the trivial chance words of anger or contempt, not merely
+of the parent but of strangers or of other children, all make their
+impressions on the infantile unconscious mind. They all belong, in the
+strictest sense, to what we term its environment and education. Any
+stimulus, in fact, however small, which is capable of reaching the
+brain forms part of this environment and education which is reacting
+on the child. Psychologists are now generally of the opinion that
+the essential elements of the individual character have all been
+definitely formed by the age of five, and that, important as training
+in successive years may be, the environment and education during those
+first five years are more important still.
+
+_It is the object of education and environment to modify and utilise
+the force of the primitive instincts with which the child comes into
+the world in the best possible way._
+
+_Three things may happen to any particular instinct._ Firstly, it may
+remain unchanged and unrepressed, in which case the individual will
+be said, on reaching adult life, to be perverted in some way. Let us
+take as an example that instinct which exists in some animals, and
+which urges them at the mating season to exhibit their genital organs
+to their fellows of the opposite sex, with the perfectly natural and
+proper end in view of propagating the species. We occasionally find
+adult human beings in whom this instinct has remained unchanged and
+uncontrolled, and they generally find their way, sooner or later,
+into prison. The psychological term for the offence they commit is
+“exhibitionism.” In the small child, however, we have often seen this
+instinct at work, without regarding it as objectionable in any way.
+We have laughed at the little child who delights in running about
+naked, or asks us to come and see it being bathed, or on occasion calls
+even more obvious attention to its state of nakedness. It is quite
+unconscious of the primitive instinct which it is displaying, and since
+it is a child and cannot in any way fulfil the sexual objects of the
+instinct, we pass the matter over, without further thought.
+
+Secondly, our primitive instincts may be _displaced_, and the
+displacement must be such as to conceal them from our conscious
+thoughts, in order that they may be tolerated by the conscious mind.
+For instance, the normal adult will not be guilty of exhibiting his
+nakedness in the way above referred to, nor will he display desires of
+sexual exhibitionism in a conscious manner. But he, or more frequently
+she, will _displace_ these ideas, and will only call attention to the
+sex of her body indirectly by exhibiting the neck or arms, or more
+indirectly still through the medium of clothes, designed to suggest,
+(for the most part unconsciously) erotic ideas.
+
+Thirdly, a much higher state may be reached by some people in which the
+primitive instinct has now lost entirely its erotic meaning, instead
+of being merely disguised and displaced as in the last case. The force
+and energy of it has all gone from the personal physical plane to
+serve a useful social purpose of a non-sexual nature. This is known as
+_sublimation_, and instead of the desire of our exhibitionist to show
+himself or herself physically, the person may attain the desire by
+showing a fine character, by designing a fine building, achieving some
+high position, or anything in fact of an ideal or non-erotic nature.
+
+Exactly the same process takes place in the opposite of exhibitionism,
+which in its primitive form we term observationism. “Peeping Tom” is a
+celebrated example of this. We have a _displacement_ of observationism
+in the fairly average young man, who likes to observe all that he can
+of the charms of every woman he comes into contact with, who takes
+an eager interest in her shoulders, breasts, underclothing, and any
+part she may exhibit. And we have the third or _sublimated_ stage in
+the scientist, who has turned most of his primitive sexual instinct
+of “looking” in the sexual sense into looking down the microscope, or
+searching for the secrets of Nature, and delving amidst her hidden
+laws, instead of using the same primitive desire to look in an
+unsublimated and rather more infantile manner.
+
+It is exactly the same with a large number of other primitive
+instincts, which even did I mention them here would not be grasped
+or understood at all by many without very much further explanation.
+Suffice it to say, that many of our higher activities and desires
+are sublimations of lower and more primitive instincts, which we are
+learning to develop and control; _and that education and environment
+have, as their object, the training of the child by turning the forces
+at work in his primitive instincts through the stage of displacement
+into the final one of sublimation_.
+
+It should be clearly grasped that the energy lying behind our primitive
+instincts, whether it be repressed, displaced or sublimated, is a
+very real force, comparable with the physical energy which we are
+accustomed to deal with in everyday life. _And this energy must find
+some outlet for its discharge._ Thus,[2]“We know as regards physical
+energy that there are not several kinds of energy, but merely several
+manifestations of it, and that it may be changed from one form of
+manifestation to another, but that still the sum total of the original
+energy remains without addition or loss.”
+
+Thus there is a given amount of energy stored in a ton of coal. This
+energy can manifest itself as _heat_ in the furnace and boiler. By
+means of an engine we can change the manifestation into that of
+_motion_, then with a dynamo to _electricity_; the electricity we can
+again change into _light_, or back again into _heat_ or _motion_. There
+is _one_ energy, but by suitable means we can turn it to different
+uses, and give different manifestations of it. Owing, however, to the
+imperfection of the boiler, machinery, etc., we never transform the
+_whole_ of our energy into another form. In transforming heat into
+electricity, there is always some heat wasted; it is not destroyed, but
+it remains as heat for a time, and is absorbed by surrounding objects.
+A complete transference of energy does not take place, and the less
+efficient the machinery the less is the transference.
+
+Now evidence tends to show a considerable similarity between psychic
+and physical energy. In all probability there is only one ultimate
+psychic energy which, like physical energy, can be directed into
+different channels. Thus, the energy of erotic desire can be directed
+to a large extent into the energy of desire for music, religion,
+science, or sport; or the energy of the desire for sport may be changed
+into the energy of the desire for mental exercise, such as chess,
+mathematics, or science. For example, an individual feels “restless,”
+he then desires to play tennis; the afternoon is wet: he plays chess
+instead. His psychic energy has been diverted from one channel into
+another with its accompanying excitement and satisfaction of desire:
+with its final feeling of fatigue and repletion.
+
+Psychic energy, like physical energy, can never be entirely diverted
+from one channel to another. There is always some, often a large
+quantity, which is not altered in character. The amount of this depends
+largely on the person concerned, just as the amount of physical energy,
+changed from one form to another depends on the efficiency of the
+engine or machinery.
+
+This possibility of transference of energy of desire from one form
+to another is of the utmost importance to the psycho-analyst. By the
+technique of psycho-analysis the energy of repressed desires is first
+freed from deleterious objectives, and then transferred to legitimate
+ones. The energy behind the conflicts which lead to alcoholism or
+drug-taking may, under suitable conditions, be transferred to energy of
+higher types of desire with more suitable outlets. These processes are
+known as _transference_ and _sublimation_ respectively.
+
+It may be taken that every mind has a given amount of psychic energy
+which _must_ find somewhere its suitable outlet in satisfying desire,
+whether for accomplishment or for enjoyment.
+
+We may here again take the opportunity of stating that the efficiency
+or lack of efficiency demonstrated in different individuals in their
+attempts to transfer the energy of desire from a lower to a higher
+channel depends not only on heredity and constitutional circumstances
+but to an extraordinary degree on the individual’s environment and the
+actions of the parents in the first three or four years of his life.
+The reason why seemingly excellent parents produce sometimes execrable
+progeny becomes clearer under psycho-analysis. The over-strict parent
+produces one type of inefficient children, the parent who spoils
+produces other inefficient types. The nurse, the nursery, the casual
+visitor, the trivial conversations, the unconsidered sights and
+experiences, all have a terrific influence in the first few years
+of the child’s life. Parents do not realise that conventional or
+arbitrary methods of education, whether in one direction or another,
+are not going to effect the results they expected. The primitive
+unconscious mind of the child understands and absorbs in a manner
+that civilised man does not recognise. The bad father may by accident
+or _neglect_ produce an excellent child--the good father with all
+his designs may produce a bad one. This is not an attempt to show
+that as the child grows up _all_ its actions are dependent on the
+early environment; merely that we can never compare the good or bad
+in individuals; that an apparent failure, owing to his inefficiency
+of powers of sublimation, may yet be devoting more energy to ascent
+than the successful saint whose early environment made for efficient
+transference of energy of desire. Some of the commonest of errors made
+by well-meaning parents will come to light at a later period. “_They
+teach their children to repress erotic and other desires but they omit
+at the same time to assist the development of that sublimation of them
+which is absolutely essential._”
+
+
+§4
+
+We now come to the third great factor in character formation, and as
+this particular factor is going to occupy the major portion of this
+book, I will not do more here than indicate briefly the symbolic
+meaning of the term Narcissism; the reason why this term is used in
+connection with our primitive feelings of pride will then gradually
+unfold itself.
+
+Narcissus was the son of the river god, Cephissus. In his mother’s
+eyes he was extremely beautiful, and later in the eyes of all others,
+including himself. It was his wont to walk abroad in solitary places
+lost in admiration of the graceful form which he thought no eyes
+worthy to behold, save his own. On one occasion, he wanted to drink
+from a cool spring and catching sight of his face in the water for
+the first time in his life, at once fell in love with it, not knowing
+it to be his own likeness. On his knees at the edge of the pool, he
+stretched himself, and looked down upon a face and form so entrancingly
+beautiful, that he was ready to leap into the water beside it.
+
+“Who art thou, who hast been made so fair?” cried Narcissus. And the
+lips of the image moved, yet there came no answer. He stretched out his
+hand towards it, and the beautiful form beckoned to him. But when his
+hand touched and broke the surface, it vanished like a dream, only to
+return in all its enchantment when he was content to gaze motionless,
+even then, again, growing dim beneath the tears of vexation he shed
+into the water. Repeatedly, he tried to gather the lovely image in his
+arms, but it always eluded him, but when he entreated and implored, it
+imitated his gestures with unfeeling silence.
+
+Maddened by the strong allurement of his own likeness, he could not
+tear himself away from the mirror which ever mocked his fancy. Hour
+after hour, day after day, he leant over the pool’s brink, crying in
+vain for that imaginary object of adoration. But at last from despair
+his heart ceased to throb, and he lay still among the water-lilies that
+made his shroud.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before proceeding further and examining the development of Narcissism,
+and those factors which come to preserve it, and make it forceful in
+our unconscious mind, we must first briefly consider the subject of
+determinism.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[2] “Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis,” by Paul Bousfield.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DETERMINISM AND WILL POWER
+
+
+Determinism is the doctrine that all things, including the will, are
+determined by causes. It is the antithesis of the doctrine of free
+will. In its complete form, it holds that the individual has no direct
+and voluntary control over his thoughts and actions but that every
+thought and action is inevitably the result of a large number of
+previous thoughts and actions which have gone before.
+
+There is a very large amount of evidence, and indeed, whether we admit
+it or not, the evidence is quite irrefutable, that in regard to the
+majority of our actions the doctrine of determinism holds good. But the
+evidence is by no means sufficient to enable us to conclude that we
+have no free will.
+
+[3]Freud in his book on the “Psychopathology of Everyday Life” and in
+other works gives many convincing examples that much in our character,
+that many of our actions, evil and good, are quite beyond our control
+at any given moment. But there is one thing that appears to have been
+overlooked, and that is, _that in all the examples given one could
+not conceivably utilise free will in any case_. If I ask you to think
+of a number what opportunity do you get of using your will power?
+If you put the wrong latch-key into the door by accident, have you
+made any effort to use will power? When a patient is suffering from
+hysteria due to repressions of various kinds, in that particular matter
+_the will power has already been lost_. When a chronic alcoholic is
+unable to cease from drinking his will power in reference to this has
+disappeared, therefore determinism holds the field completely. The
+will has no opportunity of working then. In all the examples which
+Freud gives one discovers on careful investigation that for some reason
+or another there is no opportunity for the use of free will. Such
+evidence as we have certainly does not prove the nonexistence of free
+will, but merely shows that in a very large number of our thoughts and
+actions we do not use any will at all, and that in other cases we are
+unable to use our will effectively.[4] When determinism does rule we
+may liken it physically to this: a patient sits down and crosses one
+leg over the other and leaves the one leg hanging free. On tapping
+it smartly beneath the patella the foot will kick; the knee jerk has
+been elicited. If this be done fifty times the result will be the
+same fifty times. There is movement of the leg, but this movement is
+predetermined. On the other hand this does not prove that no other
+movement of the leg is possible. Under the conditions just given the
+man’s will, or the freedom of the leg, is merely _eliminated during
+that period_. Or again, we may liken it to a locomotive standing at the
+top of a hill; if the brake be taken off, the locomotive will run down
+the hill, and will do it every time; but this will not prove that did
+somebody happen to put the brake on half-way down the hill the engine
+would still go on running. However, all actions which we may ascribe to
+our will are no doubt strictly limited by other determined conditions.
+The man on the engine may run it backwards or forwards, but only within
+_the very much prescribed limits which the rails allow_. We may safely
+accept this much determinism, that although the will exists, its
+capabilities are strictly circumscribed by determinism.
+
+It is rather in his general direction than in any specific act that
+a man has most control. We certainly have not the amount of free
+will which we like to believe we have. For example, the reader of
+this chapter may have returned home to-night and have said, “I will
+not have a meal to-night, it is too hot.” What are the factors (or
+determinants, as they are called) in this case? Perhaps external heat,
+producing langour by various physiological processes, combined with
+lack of appetite, in its turn produced by several causes, and added to
+this, depression, produced by a bad business deal, and in its turn the
+result of many other determinants outside the reader’s control. There
+is no desire to eat, and these various determinants, added together,
+prove stronger than the habit of eating the evening meal. Having,
+however, read this chapter as far as this point, the reader desiring to
+disprove my unpleasant suggestion, immediately says, “Ah! I will prove
+that I have free will. I will eat my meal in spite of not wanting it.”
+
+Alas! this does not _prove_ free will, new determinants have merely
+been added on the other side, and desire to prove strength of mind has
+now out-weighed accumulated efforts which prevented you from eating.
+
+Since it has been shown that a man’s control is constantly being
+limited by other determinants, it follows that the criminal whose
+environment and determinants, conscious and unconscious, have been
+manufactured for him from evil sources, yet who, on the whole, is
+progressing upwards in spite of these, may be forming a far better
+character than the arch-bishop whose environment from the beginning has
+been such as never to give him criminal characteristics, yet whose
+growth has been, on the whole, towards a more selfish position, even
+though this be not noticeable to the eyes of others.
+
+_Now many of the determinants forming our characters lie in the
+unconscious. They are unknown to us and only the results of their
+activities are visible. Herein lies the difficulty of controlling
+ourselves. How can we efficiently control that of which we do not know
+the existence? Herein, also, lies the value of psycho-analysis, for it
+brings many of these determinants to light, and we are thus able to
+control them consciously._ Only a part of all this can be accomplished
+by such self-analysis as may be indicated in this book. Yet even so, a
+much greater degree of self-control may be obtained.
+
+
+§2
+
+Let us now consider briefly why persons who have not previously been
+irritable, should suddenly become irritable; who have not previously
+been hysterical, should suddenly become hysterical; who have not
+previously been in the habit of weeping, should at some time after
+reaching adult life, revert to that infantile habit.
+
+The explanation of mental troubles of various kinds involves two
+factors. In the first place, any individual is capable of bearing a
+certain amount of conflict and a certain amount of repression. It is
+only when the accumulated force is more than he can control, _that is
+when new determinants are added_, that the symptoms begin to appear. He
+is like a steam engine in which as long as the steam is being used up
+in doing work, or as long as the safety valve is working efficiently
+when work is not being done, the boiler stands a pressure of 100lbs.
+very comfortably. If the safety valve gets jammed, and the energy
+cannot be transferred from the steam to the work, the pressure in the
+boiler rises higher and higher until it bursts from the joints and
+rivet-holes.
+
+The second factor which determines the mode of expression of this
+out-burst of repressed energy is known as the _law of regression_.
+This means that if the adult outlet of energy becomes dammed up or is
+insufficient, _the energy will flow through an earlier channel which
+has once been used_. The individual will, in fact, revert to some
+method which he was wont to use in earlier years, or in infancy. It
+is true that this may be disguised and not recognised as an infantile
+mode of expression until it is looked into more closely. This question
+of regression, however, need not be more than touched upon here. It
+will be much more fully dealt with when we come to actual examples at a
+later stage.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] “The Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis,” by Paul Bousfield.
+
+[4] The doctrines of determinism and free-will respectively can be
+brought entirely into line with one another if we include freewill
+itself as one of the determinants. Thus, if in the formula
+
+    S = a + b + c + d + etc.
+
+where S is the resultant action, and a, b, c, d, etc., are the several
+determinants, it happens that d = 0. The presence of d does not
+invalidate the formula. _But if_ d _does not happen to be zero, the
+absence of_ d _would invalidate the formula_. If d represents the
+“will” component there may be plenty, even a majority of cases in which
+d = 0, but there may be cases in which the omission of d will render
+the result erroneous.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+NARCISSISM
+
+
+The term Narcissism has already been mentioned and some slight
+indication of its importance in character development has been given.
+We have also examined the derivation of the term, and found that it
+implies self-interest, self-importance, self-worship; all of which
+characteristics are in modified degrees possessed by everybody. There
+are, however, many other manifestations of Narcissism, many tricks by
+which it gets past our conscious intentions, many ways in which it
+associates itself with other instincts, and unknown to us works our
+undoing. We shall therefore, in this chapter, examine the development
+of Narcissism from its very earliest stages, and trace out in some
+detail whither it may lead.
+
+Most people were they asked at what moment the child’s mind first
+began to register feelings, thoughts, and emotions, would probably at
+once and without hesitation say, “At the moment of birth.” It seems
+the obvious thing to say, but like many other obvious things such a
+statement appears to have but little evidence in support of it and much
+against it.
+
+The act of birth has performed no sudden or miraculous change upon the
+growth and tissues of the body. It is true that oxygen is now absorbed
+through the lungs instead of as originally through the mother’s blood,
+but the essential tissues, the brain, the muscles and the bones have
+undergone no sudden change. Before birth, they were living tissues,
+and we know that the muscles were at work, for we had felt the baby’s
+movements _in utero_; we know that the heart was at work, driving
+the blood through the child’s arteries. We had learnt this also by
+means of the stethoscope many weeks before the child was born. Why
+then should we assume that the brain had registered nothing at birth?
+We do indeed know that it must have been at work in part, for it was
+learning to regulate the action of the child’s heart and the child’s
+secretions, the blood pressure, and the motions of its limbs. We are
+therefore justified in assuming that it must be capable of registering
+impressions, even though it were incapable of reason or thought.
+
+It is true that at birth it commences to undergo many vivid new
+experiences, but that is no reason for assuming that it has not
+undergone any experiences _in utero_, and that these experiences have
+not made some impressions on the brain. Let us see for a moment what
+impressions it is likely to have received and registered. First of
+all, it would most certainly hear sounds, the sounds of the blood
+rushing through the mother’s arteries and the sounds from the outer
+world, muffled and indistinct when they had penetrated the mother’s
+body. All these sounds would be of a soft crooning nature, and those
+caused by the blood in the mother’s arteries would be of a rhythmic,
+humming, rising and falling nature, a kind of rhythmic lullaby very
+similar in many respects to the lullaby the mother will hum to the
+child when she wishes to put it to sleep at a later period. We should
+expect these sounds to be registered on the child’s brain so that if
+it ever heard their like again, some chord of _feeling-memory_ would
+be struck, and some emotional association brought to mind. In the
+second place, external movements would be registered on the child’s
+mind as the mother walked about. There would be a swaying or swinging
+movement. Again we should expect that when, in after life, the child
+experienced a swaying or swinging movement, a chord of memory would be
+touched again, and these earlier associations would be revived; not as
+a conscious memory or fact, of course, but as a feeling.
+
+Again, conscious movements of its own limbs might be impressed upon it.
+It would find, when it tried to move, that its movements were limited,
+and that it attained more perfect peace by refraining from attempting
+to struggle and change its position. It would be impressed by the
+pleasantness of inertia as opposed to the unpleasantness of making
+an effort. And finally, its general position with the knees drawn up
+and the chin bent down would be firmly registered, so that when in
+after-life it again assumed this position, once more the chord of
+memory would be struck, and the old feeling of repose would be likely
+to return.
+
+Now, we cannot assume that the child has any active mental state before
+its birth, but we know that its condition (taken in conjunction with
+its extremely limited experience) is one as near omnipotence (from its
+standpoint) as may be. It breathes, or rather absorbs oxygen without
+any effort of breathing. It is fed, it is kept warm and comfortable
+without any effort whatsoever. It lives in a world entirely its own,
+where everything works together for its comfort and well-being. It has
+to make no struggle for existence. It has to deal with nothing _real_,
+save perhaps that its voluntary movements are limited, and this perhaps
+is bad for its education, since at that period of its life it learns
+that it can be most comfortable by making least effort! And here we see
+the beginning of that which we all possess in after-life, _inertia_,
+the difficulty of making a beginning at anything, the objection which
+we have to making efforts.
+
+Now let us see what happens to this omnipotent little creature at
+birth. It goes through the probably painful process of having its
+position roughly changed and being thrust into an atmosphere which is
+cold and unusual to it. Moreover it has to make its first struggle for
+breath, its first effort to sustain existence. And in its struggle for
+breath it utters cries, which by experience it very soon finds to be
+magic sounds which enable it to fulfil its wishes. But of this, more
+later.
+
+After its first rude awakening, let us once more see what happens. It
+is wrapped up in something warm; that is, it is returned to a semblance
+of the womb, by having something round it which keeps out the cold. It
+is gently rocked to and fro by the nurse or other attendant, and again
+the semblance of the previous rocking in the womb is returned to it.
+Crooning sounds are murmured over it, and the semblance is still more
+complete. It frequently draws its knees up somewhat if it is placed in
+such a position that it can do so with ease, and falls asleep. It has
+attained as nearly as possible once more the semblance of its pre-birth
+condition, where it has no cares, and is warm and comfortable again.
+And though it has become acquainted with effort, it is quite obvious
+that its feeling of omnipotence, if we may so term it for the moment,
+is hardly yet disturbed, and the world it has come into differs but
+slightly from the world which it has left; it is still a world in which
+the infant is the centre and ruler, in which its every want is attended
+to without an effort on its part, save that it may sometimes have to
+call attention to its wants by means of that magical cry which it soon
+learns how and when to use, and which acts in a truly magical manner in
+accomplishing the fulfilment of all its desires.
+
+During the first few weeks of the infant’s life this delusion on the
+part of the child is largely kept up. Few people think there is any
+harm in attending to all a baby’s wants in the first month of its
+life. They do not think it could possibly be wrong to spoil it at that
+age, because its intellect has not developed. They forget entirely
+that its mental condition and attitude towards life, apart from actual
+thought, may inevitably be affected at this period. Hence, whenever
+the baby cries, it is not uncommonly rocked to sleep, or fed, or if
+it holds out its hand and shows its desire to possess anything, it is
+immediately allowed to possess it, and to play with it. It has to make
+but the faintest attempts to adjust itself to its environment, it has
+to face but the slightest reality; all its desires are immediately
+fulfilled, and kept in a condition of almost continual fulfilment. And
+it may remain for a considerable period as near being an omnipotent
+creature as it is possible for any living thing to be. Its omnipotence,
+however, is really a fallacy, or as I prefer to term it at a slightly
+later stage, a phantasy, for the world in which it lived before birth,
+which seemed to it as a world, was not really a world at all, but a
+very small and a very temporary abode, and the world in which it is
+living for the first few months after birth is again not really a world
+but a combination of extremely limited and carefully selected portions
+of the world, in which every attempt is made to disguise from it the
+realities of the actual world.
+
+Again let us emphasise the fact that the chief effort that the infant
+has to make is the effort of crying. And it may learn very quickly
+that this is so all-powerful as to practically efface the unpleasant
+task of having to adjust itself to the realities of life. This process
+is carried on with slight modifications for many months. The infant has
+but to wave a magic wand, as it were, has but to emit a little magic
+noise from its mouth, and all the world it knows is set in motion to
+give it satisfaction and some semblance of its pre-birth omnipotence.
+
+_This cry which brings it gratification, if it has been really
+effective over a too-prolonged period, will tend to fix permanently
+in the child’s mind the fact that either weeping or making a magic
+noise with the mouth will always attain for it gratification. And
+although at a later stage the conscious mind will be obliged to accept
+a considerable amount of reality and to reject the idea of omnipotence,
+yet the unconscious mind will persist in the struggle and will make
+futile efforts to forget reality, to change reality into phantasy, and
+to regain its omnipotent state._
+
+When a man uses expletives because some task of his has failed to
+result in success, he is really repeating the infant’s cry. He is
+really uttering a magic sound which his unconscious mind hopes may
+somehow remedy the failure. He has not definitely accepted the reality
+of failure as a commonplace hard fact of life at the moment at which he
+utters his expletive.
+
+When a person weeps at some unpleasant happening or in anger at
+something which has touched his pride, exactly the same is taking
+place. He, or she, has failed to make a complete adaptation of
+himself to the facts and realities of life. _He has obeyed the law
+of regression_, to which I referred in a previous chapter, and has
+returned to the infantile method of expression, namely weeping, with
+the unconscious hope that a magic compensation will result; that
+instead of his having to adapt himself to the facts of life, the facts
+of life will somehow adapt themselves to his phantasy.
+
+Hence, the first piece of advice that one must give to parents is
+that they should, from the earliest possible moment, train the
+infant to understand that the magic cries will not at once produce
+their expected result; and the first week in the infant’s life is
+all-important in this matter. The choosing of the nurse who has charge
+during that period should be done with great care, and what is required
+of her should be insisted on. Too great emphasis cannot be laid upon
+these points.
+
+The child should be fed at regular and proper intervals, and should
+be kept warm. But if it cries, as it will do naturally, it should be
+left to itself to cry. It should not be picked up, rocked to sleep,
+given another meal nor petted. If it is left to cry, it will learn very
+rapidly and at the right period of its life that the sounds which it
+emits are not magical, and it will begin to adapt itself to the fact
+that it lives in a real world which has not been built solely and only
+for its own delight.
+
+It is curious to note how regression, this instinct to return to the
+earlier mode of expression, to return apparently even to the pre-birth
+state, persists in the unconscious mind.
+
+During the war, I knew a youth who was intensely agitated by the
+air-raids. He felt perfectly safe, however, if he could crawl under
+the bed or table, where he would curl himself into practically the same
+position as that of a normal baby before birth. When questioned, he had
+not, of course, the slightest conscious knowledge of why he felt safe
+in such curious circumstances. But it does not seem improbable that
+the association of ideas produced by his position and by the confined
+space created a feeling akin to that feeling of safety which has been
+his in his pre-birth omnipotent position where nothing could harm him.
+A similar feeling of security was experienced by many normal persons in
+cellars and other confined spaces and was probably of the same origin;
+for there is no doubt that this safety was felt even though their
+reason told them that a bomb was as likely to reach their confined
+space as any other place in the neighbourhood.
+
+Again, I know of innumerable cases in which soldiers felt very much
+safer from bombs which fell at night when they were under cover of a
+canvas tent. Logically, of course, the thing was absurd; emotionally,
+it was a fact. And all were equally unconscious of any possible
+reasons for the feeling of security produced. An example of this same
+tendency at an earlier age is seen in children who cover their heads
+with the bedclothes when they are frightened.
+
+To return to our Narcissistic infant, we are now impressed with the
+fact that one thing of the utmost importance in the first years of its
+life is that it shall gradually come into contact with reality, shall
+discover that all things do not belong to it, that its omnipotent
+feelings are based purely upon phantasy and not upon reality; and upon
+the method of its disillusionment and the age at which this begins
+largely depend the future powers of adaptation of the child to its
+surroundings. It has now become obvious that the new-born infant lives
+in a world of phantasy, in which, the relative importance of itself to
+things outside itself is not merely distorted but is entirely absent.
+And if we can suppose a child kept artificially in this condition till
+it reached adult life, every wish satisfied instantaneously, every
+force it knows directed entirely towards gratifying its immediate
+desires, we do not require much imagination to understand how
+absolutely helpless and lost this omnipotent creature would be if
+suddenly turned into the world to face life and reality. His one desire
+would be to return to his omnipotent state, his one effort to keep at
+bay reality and turn it into the pleasant phantasy of the previous
+twenty years. For he would surely, before his disillusionment, have
+really come to believe himself omnipotent, the only real thing in a
+phantasy world of his own fashioning and dreaming.
+
+An extreme case of this kind is, of course, an impossibility. But there
+are many and various degrees in which it is approached. Probably the
+nearest approach to it may be found in cases where some sort of moral
+or mental conflict has been too much for an extremely Narcissistic
+mind, which has then completely regressed, refused to recognise the
+outer world, and developed a certain form of insanity; and from this
+stage of complete Narcissistic regression all degrees and kinds of
+manifestations of it may be found, until we reach at the other end of
+our list a person who expects everyone around to consult his wishes
+and peculiarities or who is merely somewhat impatient, or inclined to
+irritability, or merely over-sensitive to either mental or physical
+pain.
+
+There is no more certain fact than that if an infant be allowed to
+postpone its acquaintance with reality too long it becomes fixed in a
+more or less degree in conditions in which phantasy plays too prominent
+a part, and regression of some kind takes place as it meets with real
+difficulties.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+FACT AND PHANTASY
+
+
+In the last chapter we emphasised the fact that one of the first
+products of Narcissism was the infantile difficulty of distinguishing
+between fact and phantasy, of realising the world outside oneself. This
+tendency to mix up fact with phantasy is by no means only to be found
+in an abnormal mind. It is present in some degree in all persons; each
+one feels himself to be the most real thing present, and in feeling
+this he has a tendency to believe that others round him are in some way
+less real, though, fortunately, very few carry it far enough to imagine
+that all the others are merely part of a dream in which the dreamer is
+the only real figure, as the Red King in “Alice Through the Looking
+Glass” is supposed to have done, when the remark is made to Alice,
+“You’re only a sort of thing in his dream! If that there king was to
+wake you would go out bang--just like a candle!”
+
+And yet quite a large number of people find it difficult to realise
+firstly, that they must die, and secondly that the rest of the world
+will not die also when they die. They know, of course, that this
+latter is not the case, yet they cannot look upon it as a commonplace
+fact. Their Narcissism refuses to contemplate their own mortality. It
+represses the fact and leaves the idea vague and unreal to them.
+
+In children, the difficulty of distinguishing between phantasy and
+reality is quite normally much more accentuated than in adults.
+And since they start in a world of phantasy and their training is
+to lead them to a world of reality, it is obvious that the halfway
+stages will be obscured by a strange mixture of the two. All children
+go through the stage in which phantasy and reality are by no means
+clearly differentiated, and most young children succeed, day by day, in
+fulfilling impossible wishes in phantasies in a manner which a properly
+developed adult can never do.
+
+A little boy desires to possess a pony; if this be impossible his
+imagination gives life to a rocking-horse, and failing that he may
+tie a piece of string to a chair, and with great pleasure and much
+emotion urge on his fiery untamed steed across mountain and desert.
+He fulfils his wishes immediately by means of a phantasy, which, for
+the time being, successfully replaces reality. If this child grows up
+normally, this possibility of phantastic fulfilment should gradually
+disappear. How many adults, for instance, could take a bath-tub into
+their dining-room, sit in it, and with the aid of a vivid imagination
+thoroughly enjoy a pleasant sail at sea? We trust no one, at any
+rate of our readers, for they would be of that type which has no
+perspective, and they would most certainly fail in their vocation as
+practical men and women. Yet remnants of phantasy thinking remain with
+everyone, and in a moderate degree, so far as we know, such remnants do
+but little harm if they are present in small measure only, and kept in
+water-tight compartments.
+
+Adult phantasy thinking very largely consists in what is known as
+identification, which may be either conscious or unconscious. Of this,
+we shall have more to say shortly. At the moment let us trace out what
+should happen to the normal child as it grows older. Education and
+environment should be gradually convincing the child of the unreality
+of its phantastic thoughts and of its early world, should be inducing
+it to think in terms of facts and to adjust himself to these facts,
+instead of attempting the impossible task of adjusting these facts to
+suit his own phantastic conceptions of them. The method of thought
+which he should develop in order thus to fit himself to meet the
+world adequately has been conveniently termed “directive thinking.”
+Directive thinking is controlled thought based upon facts seen in their
+true perspective, and with a purpose in view which is both definite
+and possible. It is the very opposite of phantasy thinking, which is
+generally indefinite, based upon a lack of perspective, and attempts
+continually to obtain the fulfilment of wishes impossible of fulfilment.
+
+In directive thinking, the purpose in view must be purposive to the
+thinker, a change to be produced in the world, either in its happiness,
+its morals, its commercial prosperity or in other forms of progress
+or even of deterioration; or the purpose may be to effect changes in
+the individual’s own happiness or prosperity, or it may be directed
+towards a mental change in the thinker himself with no immediate idea
+of changes in his external surroundings.
+
+Thus a man may wish to improve his own character by eradicating a bad
+habit. He may do this by thinking carefully about it, by analysing the
+causes of the habit, by giving himself auto-suggestion in opposition to
+the habit. All this, even if the habit may not in the end be eradicated
+must be classed as directive thinking. _Directive thinking is thus
+obviously, controlled thinking requiring an effort of attention and
+concentration as opposed to phantasy thinking which knows but little
+control save that of desire, and little effort or concentration._
+
+In all the business of everyday life, directive thinking must be
+employed; whether we are merely using our minds to decide the most
+trivial problem, such as the best way of eradicating weeds from the
+garden, or whether we are deciding upon a policy to be pursued in some
+great commercial or political enterprise. Every time we use our brains
+in directive thinking we are establishing a habit which gradually gives
+us power to produce changes in our environment and in the world in
+general. Every time we indulge in phantasy thinking we encourage the
+habit of living in a world of our own ideas, and we are destroying the
+habit which enables us to create in reality.
+
+The two forms of thinking may, of course, overlap considerably. The
+novelist or playwright, for instance, is very largely a phantasy
+thinker. He may feel the emotions of the various phantasy characters
+which he evolves, but in order to arrange the words and sentences,
+and furthermore in having an idea to portray or in drawing attention
+to evils which he thinks should be remedied, he is using considerable
+energy in directive thought. So that it becomes obvious that directive
+thought need not merely apply to the things of the immediate present
+nor even the near future, and in trying to draw distinction between
+the two, one is often confronted with a superficial criticism, that
+certain ideas must pertain to phantasy thinking, because they can never
+come to pass. That, however, is quite incorrect. The possibility that
+an idea may come to fruition in two or three hundred years time, and
+that the thoughts which have been given to the idea must assist its
+growth and ripening, is sufficient to constitute these thoughts as
+directive.
+
+We must now look at the second important element in the child’s early
+education, which would follow logically upon the first one that it
+should be made to face the facts around it; and that is, that in its
+games and occupations it should be encouraged, as far as possible, to
+take lines of directive thought, and not obtain its pleasures through
+phantasies only.
+
+Thus, it would be much better to give him bricks to play with, so that
+he may use directive thought in designing and building a house, than
+to give him a ready-made toy, such as an engine wherewith he will
+merely carry out the phantasy of being a driver or a passenger and of
+travelling wheresoever he wishes. A toy wheel-barrow which he can take
+into the garden and fill with real stones and earth is far better than
+a doll which he will merely imagine to be something to be brought up
+like himself, which he will endow with phantastic life and feelings
+which are quite unreal. In fact, as far as possible, the child’s games
+and occupations should involve his _doing_ something, rather than
+merely imagining something. Of course, imagination and phantasy will
+come into its games, and are bound to do so, but as much directive
+thought as possible should be added.
+
+The ordinary fairy-tale should be swept from the nursery; here the
+child does nothing but identify himself with the hero or heroine in
+the most impossible of situations of a purely phantastic type. There
+is plenty of scope for giving a child an interest in stories from the
+fairy-land of science, or from the lives of famous persons in the
+centuries that have passed; all of which, if properly selected and
+dressed up, will assist the child’s directive thought. For though
+the facts with which the stories may deal are as wonderful as any of
+Grimm’s fairy-tales, _they are facts of which the child will never
+have to be undeceived, and he will never have to have his faith shaken
+in the stories which he has learnt_; thus the child will learn from the
+outset to think directively.
+
+I know that many mothers, when they read this, will be inclined to
+shake their heads and say to themselves, “Poor little darling, I could
+never treat it so.” And that they will be inclined, as is shown very
+early in this book, to say “These things cannot be true,” for they are
+not the ideas they are accustomed to. Yet I can assure them that by
+means of carrying out many of those actions and teachings which they
+think are pleasant and harmless, they are really damning the child,
+while many of these ideas which they might term cruel are really of
+the greatest value and kindness to it. Moreover, experience has shown
+that if diplomacy be used, the child will be as equally interested in
+wonderful facts as in wonderful phantasies. The only difference is
+that it is more trouble to the parent or educator to search out and
+deal with facts himself. It is quite true that the child’s imagination
+requires training, as part of its intellectual education. But there
+is vast difference between encouraging it to imagine the possibility
+of impossible things, and encouraging it to exercise its imagination
+in realisation of facts, however far they may be removed from the
+experience of everyday life. Many people have the idea that a child
+should be encouraged to use its imagination; whereas in fact the
+child’s imagination requires curbing, training, sublimating. Such
+people do not realise that the early life of a child is lived almost
+entirely in imagination, that it has no difficulty whatsoever in using
+its imagination, and that the real difficulty is in preventing it from
+using too much imagination directed into false channels and by-paths of
+permanent unreality.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+IDENTIFICATION
+
+
+We must now traverse another path through which Narcissism wanders. We
+have emphasised the fact that when a child comes into the world, he is
+to himself the only real thing; the rest of the world is merely seen
+from his phantastic view point, and at this stage he accepts himself as
+the one all-powerful centre of everything. Another important fact which
+arises from this, however, we have not dealt with, and that is, that he
+does not separate the outer world from himself as a separate entity.
+His unconscious view point is that the world is subordinate to himself,
+beneath his omnipotent control, if you like, that it is a dream of his
+own imagining, that it is something which belongs to him in every sense
+of the word. This, summed up, means that it is part of himself, that
+his identity and the identity of the dream-world around him are part of
+the same thing.
+
+Thus, the infant does not at first distinguish between himself and his
+mother. When he is hungry, he cries, and he probably has almost as
+ready access to his mother’s breasts as if they were part of his own
+body. And such imagination is more than encouraged when he is allowed
+the use of a rubber teat to suck in the intervals between his meals.
+
+It is generally a comparatively slow process through which the infant
+passes, this one of separating himself in thought and feeling from
+objects surrounding him. It is one which is hardly ever completely
+accomplished. We have already mentioned the fairy-tale which encourages
+the child’s phantasy thought. Let us now see how he really obtains
+pleasure from that fairy-tale. It is by identification. In imagination
+he is a fairy prince or princess, as the case may be; his pleasure in
+the triumphs and progress of the central figure of the story is that
+of performing his prodigious deeds by proxy; and if he thus identifies
+himself with the hero of the story, he is also encouraged to believe
+that he possesses the power and qualities of that hero. He is less able
+to realise that he, unlike the hero, cannot perform magic deeds with a
+mere wave of a wand. Indeed, when the story is over, he will probably
+play at being a fairy, and in phantasy perform the magic deeds again.
+
+This demonstrates the force of his identification with the hero of the
+story. _And it must be remembered that sooner or later the child will
+have to wake up, will have to realise that it possesses no magic power,
+and the struggle within it will be great._ It is obviously a mistaken
+form of kindness to enhance such pleasures of the moment, when you are
+merely accentuating the struggle which the child will have to make at
+a later period to overcome his Narcissism. In passing, I may mention
+that you have probably already done the child considerable damage by
+allowing him to have his rubber teat at the beginning of this period of
+identification, since he identifies it with the mother’s breast, and is
+thus encouraged to think that the breast is always with him.
+
+Let us now see where this Narcissistic identification may come out
+later in life.
+
+First of all, it is this which enables us to enjoy novels, just as
+we enjoyed fairy-tales as children. We identify ourselves with the
+hero or heroine of the book, and in phantasy perform their various
+wonderful feats. Thus we satisfy our Narcissistic desire to be great
+and powerful. If we lack cleverness, and the hero is clever, by
+identification and imputation we may attain the pleasures of feeling
+clever and superior. If the heroine is beautiful and everyone falls in
+love with her, we may by proxy be the same. If the hero is a sailor,
+and we have always desired to sail, yet have never been on the sea,
+our ambition is now attained--and see how easily attained--in a truly
+omnipotent fashion, without effort on our part, just by reading
+about it. Exactly the same thing takes place at theatres, where the
+Narcissist identifies himself with the actors on the stage. So far
+so good; if a person can content himself with an occasional theatre
+or occasional novel, wherewith to take a restful regression to an
+infantile outlet of energy, no harm is done. There are times when we
+must rest, and there are times when we must sleep, which also appears
+to be Narcissistic regression to a condition somewhat resembling
+our pre-birth state. But there are many who cannot control their
+identification in this way, who cannot confine it to the stage and the
+novel, who bring it into the affairs of life continuously. They may
+unconsciously identify themselves with their father or mother, their
+relations or friends, or even their enemies, and perhaps, in turn, with
+everyone with whom they come into contact. Like a looking-glass, they
+reflect everything that goes on around them. They feel the pleasures of
+their friends, they also feel their pains. They are called sympathetic,
+they are often ultra-sympathetic--they are a nuisance.
+
+I remember on one occasion I had asked a woman of strong Narcissistic
+temperament to take a fly out of the corner of my eye. She absolutely
+refused to do so under any consideration, as she was sure she would
+hurt me too much. Inquiry showed that Narcissism had exaggerated her
+own feelings, so that a speck of dust in her own eye was torture. Yet
+her eye was so tender and important to herself that she could not bear
+anyone to touch it even in order to get something out. _And she could
+not imagine that anybody else could have feelings that differed from
+hers_; and since she identified herself so much with other people, I
+have no doubt it would have been a real agony to her, had she attempted
+to extract the fly from my eye.
+
+Such people are by no means uncommon. We all know the person who cannot
+bear to hurt us, even for our good. For instance, some cannot bear to
+bandage a wound for us since they cannot bear to see pain in any form.
+They state that it is almost as if they felt it themselves, and they
+call themselves “sympathetic.” But in spite of popular belief to the
+contrary, such sympathy is not a virtue, there is nothing altruistic
+about it; it is an inconvenient fault of an entirely selfish kind. In
+order to help one’s friend, one does not need to feel his feelings and
+suffer his pains, one wants to understand them; the more one enters
+into his feelings, the more one’s judgment is biased, and the less one
+is able, as a rule, to be of assistance. Worse still, in connection
+with these people, they not only pour out sympathy in this way,
+but attribute it to themselves as a virtue, and they cannot bring
+themselves to believe their friends to be really good, unless their
+friends also can react in a similar way towards them. They call a
+normal person unsympathetic, perhaps exaggerate the term and call him
+brutal, wishing indeed that their friends who have climbed higher from
+Narcissism should regress to their lower stand-point.
+
+I have given here but one type of Narcissistic identification with
+other persons; it seems to me unnecessary to carry it further since
+any reader who chooses to think the matter out for himself will find
+endless modifications of such identifications. We all possess it in
+part, and on the whole women are more Narcissistic than men. Let it
+not be thought, however, that this is a reflection on women; it is a
+reflection on the way they have been brought up, for from the earliest
+times environment impresses them with the idea that “little boys are
+made of slugs and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails, and little girls are
+made of sugar and spice and all things nice!” And hence on such lines
+as these, their Narcissism is encouraged, and their capabilities of
+facing fact and reality discouraged from the very outset, until
+differences of temperament are produced in the adults of the two sexes,
+which in no way belong to Nature, but purely to our conventional and
+somewhat barbaric stand-point.
+
+There are yet more important results of Narcissistic identification
+than those already mentioned; Narcissism leads, in many instances, to
+the choice of a particular love-object. Narcissism is, of course, by no
+means the only or chief factor in the choice of love-objects, as anyone
+who has studied psycho-analysis will at once realise. It is, however,
+the only one I intend to touch on in this particular work.
+
+Just as the mythical Narcissus himself fell in love with his
+reflection, so does his prototype of to-day. An infant is not only
+the omnipotent centre of all, he is also the only interesting portion
+of the universe in his early days. His interests are entirely
+self-centred, and his joys and pleasures belong to himself alone; and
+as he grows older, everything that is like him is identified with
+himself. In the worst form of Narcissism in the adult, the individual
+remains entirely selfish, and is incapable of loving anybody outside
+himself at all.
+
+_By identification, however, he can love in a sense those attributes of
+his own personality which he sees in other persons._ Thus, he may love
+somebody for a facial similarity, for a voice which is like his, or for
+tastes which are like his own, but most commonly he loves them for a
+body like his own. And from this we see that he may fall in love with
+somebody of his own sex. Hence, homo-sexuality,[5] as it is called,
+is frequently one of the distressing results of an early Narcissistic
+upbringing. But it need not be necessary for such homo-sexuality to
+be of a grossly erotic type; such desires may be for the most part
+repressed in the unconscious, or appear only in minor ways such as
+the desire to kiss, fondle or touch favoured persons of the same sex.
+On the other hand, frequently the early education and environment of
+the Narcissistic person has been such as to leave him quite incapable
+of complete repression; and we then have expressed more or less
+open erotic desires and actions for persons of the same sex. Such
+persons, however, should not be treated as criminals in this particular
+matter; they are by this time as hopelessly incompetent to deal with
+themselves, as is the kleptomaniac or a person having any other form
+of so-called degenerate mentality. Here again, we see the reason why
+homo-sexuality is so much more rife amongst women than amongst men. The
+minor details of their early environment tend so much more to confirm
+them in Narcissism. It is partially repressed and partially displaced
+homo-sexuality which causes some women to kiss one another, to call one
+another by affectionate names and so forth, to delight in taking hold
+of one another’s hands on occasion; actions which normally, between
+persons of opposite sex, would at once be taken to indicate some sort
+of erotic affection, but which we are so used to seeing amongst women
+that we do not realise their repressed and unconscious significance.
+
+Let it not be thought, however, that this subject of homo-sexuality is
+based on this one simple problem; there are many other early infantile
+fixations, which play a very large part in causing persons to become
+homo-sexual. I only mention this one Narcissistic complex as being
+another example of how identification takes place as one of the chief
+results of the Narcissistic temperament, and to what lengths such
+identification may, on occasion, lead. Of course, all degrees of such
+identifications may be met with, and it is quite common to find persons
+who can love hetero-sexually as well as homo-sexually; that is to say,
+who can love persons of the opposite sex in the usual way, as well as
+persons of their own sex. But such people, even in their hetero-sexual
+love, tend to choose a love-object which resembles themselves in some
+manner or the other. However, a certain amount of Narcissism (which
+fortunately everyone still possesses), may be of value in this way,
+for it is certainly good for a man and woman to have similar interests
+when they marry; it is excessive Narcissism, excessive identification,
+excessive sympathy, which is deleterious, just as in other
+manifestations of Narcissism, with which we are going to deal shortly,
+it is excessive impatience, excessive anger, excessive tears which are
+really harmful, and lead to the greatest unhappiness. Although perhaps
+in these latter instances, to be without impatience, anger, or tears
+would be better still.
+
+Thirdly, there is yet another method of Narcissistic identification.
+Just as a child identifies itself with its living surroundings, so
+does it identify itself with its inanimate surroundings. As its mother
+and nurse are treated as part of it in the early stages, so also are
+its rubber teat, feeding bottle and toys treated. If you take away
+the baby’s rattle, it will cry or stamp or weep with as much vigour
+and display of emotion as if you had caused it bodily pain by means
+of rigorous physical punishment. You have in fact taken away part
+of itself from the little omnipotent person. In later stages in his
+career, if his Narcissism has been allowed to remain, the adult will
+still identify himself with his belongings. He will be absurdly upset
+at the breaking of a tea-cup which belongs to him, at the theft of
+some jewelry, at damage done to his clothing or property in some way,
+however trifling. He cannot realise that these things which belong to
+him are more or less unimportant trifles, which can be replaced, or
+if they cannot be replaced, can be equally well done without, if he
+has attained that philosophical attitude of mind which belongs to the
+person who has thrown off this uncomfortable spirit of Narcissistic
+identification. Moreover, the Narcissist who thinks himself to be the
+best and most important of beings, will attach similar importance to
+his property. If he drives an inferior motor-car, which breaks down on
+every journey he makes, he will excuse it in all sorts of irrational
+ways, he will praise it on every possible occasion as “the best car
+on the market,” and what seems more absurd still, he will very likely
+think it the best car on the market. It is the same with his house,
+his books, with his relations, with everything that is even distantly
+connected with him. He will speak in high praise of them all, and be
+anxious, at all times, to show them off, and to uphold their virtues
+to all comers. The Narcissist, indeed, rationalises about things in
+general considerably more than most people. The fuller meaning of
+rationalization and its methods of working, however, we shall leave
+till later on.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[5] Homo-sexuality--sensual love for a person of the same sex as
+oneself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE IRRITABLE TEMPERAMENT
+
+
+Irritability is not merely that quality in a person which makes his
+friends carefully guard their every word, lest inadvertently they
+should cause an outburst of temper, in its fullest sense it means
+over-sensitiveness to unpleasant stimuli, followed by over-reaction of
+any kind whatsoever. Thus, if a person by accident damage his clothing,
+his over-sensitiveness and over-reaction might result in an oath, in
+abusing the nail which tore his clothing or in abusing the workman who
+put the nail in place originally. It might again result in a feeling of
+depression, with anger displaced on to anyone who was present during
+the next hour, on the smallest pretext; or in an over-sensitive woman,
+it might result in an outburst of tears, or perhaps merely in volubly
+deploring the accident for half-an-hour with the next visitor who
+called; or she might merely “worry” about it, and keep turning the
+memory of it over and over in her mind, refusing to allow the fact to
+separate itself from her fancy.
+
+All these various results, with many others which may be imagined,
+can be gathered together under the one term “irritability,” or the
+term “over-sensitiveness” would do equally well. This irritability or
+over-sensitiveness may apply to material things or to purely mental
+ones. Narcissism may lead to an irritability of the body, and again it
+may lead to irritability merely of the mind. When Narcissism leads to
+an extremely sensitive body, it reacts to pain of every sort, however
+mild, as though it were acute. The omnipotent mind cannot bear to have
+its body disturbed. I gave an example a short while back of the lady
+who could not take a fly out of my eye, because her own eyes were so
+sensitive. Not only was this particular lady sensitive as regards her
+eyes, but at that period she was as afraid of the dentist touching a
+tooth as if it had been a serious abdominal operation. Pain of any sort
+or even slight accidents involving practically no pain, were reacted
+to as though they had been overwhelming misfortunes. Here we had
+an excellent example of one in whom Narcissism had produced extreme
+irritability of a physical nature.[6]
+
+On the other hand, one finds a mental sensitivity equally pronounced.
+People who are always in fear lest somebody should find fault with
+them, with their mode of behaviour, with their manner of dress, even
+with their habit of thought. Unconsciously, to themselves they are the
+acme of perfection, they are the centre of importance, and they are
+inclined to think that people are paying very much more attention to
+them than is actually the case. They may consciously realise that they
+are not important at all, that other people do not give them a thought;
+but their unconscious Narcissism will not accept this slight upon their
+importance, and they remain miserably self-conscious in all their acts,
+reacting with exaggerated feeling whenever some slight criticism of
+their thoughts and actions appear even to be implied.
+
+Pride, vanity, and self importance are other manifestations of this
+temperament. The person who feels slighted, or whose feelings are hurt
+when other persons think too little of his opinions, or pay too little
+attention to his actions, or, in fact, whose feelings are hurt easily
+by anything whatsoever, is for the most part a Narcissist, in whom once
+again the infantile omnipotence has been disturbed.
+
+Jealousy very often represents the Narcissistic idea. The
+“dog-in-the-manger” attitude, which finding it cannot possess for
+itself, cannot bear anybody else to possess, is largely the attitude
+of unconscious phantasy, in which the individual cannot relinquish the
+idea that somehow he will succeed by means of his omnipotent mind in
+possessing the desired object, and his unconscious mind retains this
+idea so long as the object has not become the property of somebody else
+in such a definite and irrefutable manner as to prove in spite of his
+unconscious phantasy that he cannot possibly possess it himself.
+
+The “dog-in-the-manger” attitude is one which simply refuses to
+recognise the impossibility of possessing something, although the
+desire for possession in any particular case may unconsciously mean
+nothing except the desire to prove to oneself one’s own omnipotence.
+And many a case of jealousy in love-affairs is nothing but this
+unconscious desire to prove to oneself the possession of power; it is
+the hatred of acknowledging the fact that one has not control where
+one desires to have it most. Curious as it may seem jealousy is bred
+mostly out of self-love rather than out of love for the other person,
+although, of course, except in extreme cases, love for the other person
+may also exist.
+
+The reaction which takes place whenever the Narcissistic element
+is hurt, almost always takes the form of a regression. It will be
+remembered that a regression implies a return to an infantile method
+of expression. The Narcissist unfailingly hopes, in his unconscious
+that his omnipotence will enable him to avoid an unpleasant fact, and
+to controvert it magically. He therefore falls back on those acts of
+infancy, which he found useful at that early period of his life as
+magical means of attaining his ends. Let us assume, for example, that
+our Narcissist has entered quietly into an argument with a friend, with
+full faith in himself and his argument that he will convert his friend
+to his own point of view. He finds, however, that he is getting the
+worst of the argument. This is unbelievable to him, he cannot realise
+it; his friend must be pig-headed. Rapidly his unconscious mind says to
+itself, “What methods did I employ in my childhood, what magic formula
+did I use then to obtain what I wished?” “Ah!” says the unconscious, “I
+remember; I used abusive terms to my nurse, and the dear thing did what
+I wanted at once.” Very soon he is using abusive terms to his friend,
+who, however does not later on remark, “Oh! that man is a Narcissist.”
+He merely says, “You know, So-and-So never can keep his temper in an
+argument.” And the poor Narcissist all the time feels and thinks that
+he has been hardly dealt with, that people do not understand him, that
+they deliberately will not follow his arguments.
+
+Of course, the last is very likely to be right, for in argument there
+is generally more rationalization than there is about most things in
+life. Nevertheless, the fact remains that it is not really important
+that his friend should understand either him or his argument as a
+rule, and if he were not Narcissistic he would not over-react to this
+stimulus.
+
+Other methods of reaction in a like manner are all regressions to
+infancy. Some Narcissists, when they ask their unconscious memory,
+“What magic did I employ as a child?” find that it was the magic of
+words, and they use expletives of various kinds, which correspond
+in every way to the magic words which a conjuror whispers over his
+tricks when he performs the apparently impossible. Others remember in
+their unconscious mind that they wept copiously, that when they wept
+the feeding bottle was returned to their lips, or the toy to their
+hands. Others go back a stage further. They withdraw in to themselves,
+they refuse to speak, or they say, “I am so upset, I must go and lie
+down.” They attempt to return, in fact, to the condition of isolation
+and rest, if not of pre-birth, at least of that period immediately
+following birth, when if they cried, they were rocked and crooned over
+and put to sleep.
+
+Another form of regression largely due to Narcissism is that of
+alcoholism. Here again, there are other causes at work in the
+unconscious, but Narcissism is one of the most important of them.
+The Narcissist does not like real responsibility; he certainly
+thinks that he is always desiring responsible posts and positions,
+but this is merely because to hold a responsible position or to have
+responsibility signifies importance and power. As a matter of fact,
+when responsibility is thrust upon him, he often has a strong tendency
+to avoid it, because responsibility entails dealing with facts as
+they are, and not with phantasies; and the responsibility which the
+Narcissist seeks is largely that of phantasy. In spite, therefore, of
+his statements to the contrary, we know that he wishes to run away from
+responsible positions, and alcohol has a peculiar power of enabling
+one to forget the responsibilities of the moment, and at the same time
+to give one a feeling of potency and well-being. Consequently, when
+the Narcissist comes up against an unpleasant fact, a responsibility
+which he does not wish to take, anything in fact which disturbs his
+sense of well-being, alcohol serves the purpose of allowing regression
+to infancy. It returns him very swiftly to that early period when he
+had no responsibility, when he need take no thought of the facts around
+him, when he had a sense of well-being and omnipotence. This potency
+is increased by the fact that it also removes, simultaneously, other
+repressions, that is, it allows other forms of infantile energy to be
+expressed without conscious criticism or hindrance.
+
+Exactly the same thing may be said of drug-taking. The drug-taker is
+simply habitually seeking something to remove his responsibilities, to
+lead him away from his conflicts which he does not wish to face, away
+from the world of reality into an infantile world, where whatever his
+surroundings, whatever the facts that exist, he is able to ignore them,
+and feel himself in phantasy their master.
+
+But the curious thing about all these regressions is that, in a sense,
+they serve to satisfy the individual. They comfort him with the
+unconscious assurance at the moment they are performed, that all will,
+somehow, be well, that these reactions will somehow bring about the
+desired end, that the abuse will succeed where the argument did not,
+that the tears will somehow perform their magic act, that a rest in bed
+will bring about new life, and that the new life will succeed where the
+old life failed.
+
+Never does the Narcissist realise facts as they are, deal with them as
+facts, see them in their proper proportions, and leave them alone when
+he cannot use them.
+
+Impatience of a different kind is also one of the common reactions. A
+man may go into a restaurant; he finds it is full, and quite naturally
+he is kept waiting a few minutes before the busy waiter can bring him
+the menu. He refuses to recognise the fact that he is only one of a
+hundred persons present, that the restaurant has to be run at a profit
+to the proprietor, that innumerable waiters cannot therefore be kept
+to serve his high omnipotence; he frets with impatience and he cannot
+resign himself to the inevitable waiting. He will not understand that
+_time_ is one of the factors over which he has no power. In fact,
+this difficulty to realise the _factor of time_ is an extremely common
+one with Narcissists. No sooner has a project entered their heads than
+they expect to see it fulfilled. Such fulfilment can only take place in
+phantasy, just as they did indeed attain their wishes in childhood. As
+children they could instantaneously create a chariot and horses from an
+arm-chair with complete neglect of the time-factor, and now as adults,
+they hope instantaneously to create an omelet without waiting for it to
+be cooked, to create a business or a character, or fame or happiness
+in the same instantaneous way, without reference to time. They are
+quite unable to see, completely and wholly, any difference between the
+phantasy of childhood and facts of adult life; and one of the most
+essential differences between the two is this _time factor_.
+
+It takes minutes for an omelet to be cooked, it takes years for a
+business to be created, it takes a lifetime for a character to be
+formed, fame they may never attain, but happiness lies within their
+grasp at once, if only they could relinquish their Narcissism.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[6] It may be of interest to readers to know that this physical
+over-sensitiveness has very largely disappeared from this particular
+lady as the result of partial psycho-analysis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+RATIONALIZATION
+
+
+Having now briefly sketched the birth and some of the possible
+developments of Narcissism, it may be well to revert to the subject
+of rationalization, on which I have already touched briefly, before I
+deal with some of the methods with which we may combat our Narcissistic
+tendencies. The reason for reverting here to rationalization is this.
+Already I know that there are few readers who will not have discovered
+some material in this book which will have touched a tender spot in
+themselves. And since we know that the great effort of Narcissism is
+to cover up those tender spots, and to deceive ourselves in thinking
+that either they are not there, or better still, that they are virtues
+and really particularly healthy spots, it is as well to examine these
+tendencies and observe one of the chief methods by which we do produce
+such disguises successfully. Of these methods of disguise, our greatest
+comforter, yet our worst enemy, is rationalization. The term means
+“_finding apparently adequate reasons for things_.”
+
+One of the qualities which we highly cultured animals possess is that
+of reason. We have discovered that logic is one of the essential
+factors of law and order, and that the highest form of intellect
+possesses reason in a large measure. Among our gods, the god of reason
+and logic stands high, and our very Narcissism will not permit us to
+do and accept things which are contrary to logical reasoning. For that
+means in the first place, that they are contrary to what we have been
+taught to revere highly as a good quality, and yet more still it means
+that they are contrary to the magic of WORDS, for logic means words;
+logic is words which follow one another in irrefutable sequence. And
+we have already learnt that _the infant has early associated words and
+sounds with magic, since by the persistent use of these he has got what
+he wanted_. So that doubly are logic and reason revered.
+
+Now, the unhappy thing about life is that we are continually wishing
+to do things or feel things or believe things which do not follow
+logically upon other things which we have also had to feel or think or
+believe at some time. Some of our wishes are logically incompatible
+with other of our wishes. More over, we very often do not wish to
+believe or think things which do follow logically on actual facts which
+have gone before. How are we then, as reasonable people, to deal with
+the situation? By rationalization, by finding a reason which suits our
+purpose; and this can only be done, as a rule, by leaving out some
+important factor, by ignoring some truth, and by arguing from false
+premises. We do not do this consciously, that would be unworthy. Our
+unconscious censor manages to delete from consciousness the unpleasant
+truth, as we have already pointed out, and brings forth an array of
+facts which appear irrefutable, and he succeeds in giving us most
+plausible reasons so that we may believe that which is most convenient
+to us.
+
+Let us consider for a moment such a subject as religion. The Roman
+Catholic will adduce evidences of various kinds to show that his is
+the only right and proper form of religion to be accepted by any
+intellectual person. The Baptist will likewise do the same, and will
+probably hold that Papal institutions, in many instances, spring not
+from Heaven but from Hell. If you discuss it with either of them, you
+may be flooded with reasons, logical evidences of the correctness of
+their views. Obviously, they cannot both be right in so exclusive a
+manner, and a very little insight will show that the reasons they
+adduce have really very little to do with their beliefs, although they
+think they have. Reverence for their parents, early environment, and
+other factors of this kind, have really induced their present beliefs,
+but these would not appear to them as logical reasons and so they
+select others.
+
+So it is with any unpleasant theory which comes into being. At the
+time of Darwin, a large number of facts were discovered which led
+unbiassed persons to believe in the theory of evolution. This appeared
+contrary to many religious beliefs, and the general public did not
+want to accept such a theory. They could not, however, shut their
+eyes to facts; what were they to do? By carefully leaving out some of
+the facts, and introducing speculative material, which they called
+facts, but which were not facts, they succeeded in producing excellent
+reasons, or what seemed excellent reasons to them, for refuting the
+theory of evolution and retaining their old beliefs. In other words,
+they went through a process of rationalization.
+
+The same thing was taking place a few years ago with reference to
+psycho-analysis. People did not like their omnipotent feelings
+disturbed, did not like to find that the superior bricks of which
+their edifice had been built were originally made from clay, and they
+found excellent reasons for not believing it. This, fortunately for
+progress, is gradually passing away, just as the opposition to the idea
+of the evolution of the body passed away. But rationalization is a
+process which has been and is still going on continuously. When Harvey
+discovered the circulation of the blood, when Galileo discovered that
+the earth went round the sun, when psycho-analysts discovered that
+much which mothers thought kind was really cruel, and when you read a
+book which tends to point out that some of your cherished virtues may
+possibly be faults, the same tendency is at work. Your mind sorts out
+some of the reasons, refuses to look at others of them, and by such
+careful selection, by this unconscious process of rationalization,
+supports your belief in yourself, holds fast to that which has been,
+and attempts continuously to prevent further changes and disturbances.
+This rationalization, however, is much more widely distributed than
+I have so far indicated; in order that one fact may be justified by
+reason, all the lesser facts which come before it must be similarly
+justified, until even into the trivial details of everyday life the
+leaven of rationalization has penetrated. Examples of it may be seen
+every day in the newspapers, in politics, in even trifling arguments.
+Take for instance the subject of woman’s suffrage. One half of the
+country produced irrefutable arguments to prove how bad it was, the
+other half to prove how good it was. In both cases, the arguments were
+but straws in the wind, they were quite unnecessary, they were only
+rationalization. Long before the argument on either side came into
+being, the feelings were there, the desires were there; and desires
+must somehow be proved right with the magic of words, before we feel at
+liberty to fulfil them. In neither case in this argument was the root
+of the matter touched. If some philosopher had come forward and said,
+“The first question we have to ask before thinking about suffrage,
+is should a woman wear a skirt?” or some such similar fundamental
+question, it would probably have been said that it had nothing to
+do with matter, and yet this question of _artificial_ difference
+between the sexes is really fundamental to the whole subject. But the
+rationalist will find that he will not meet me in this statement. The
+woman who wishes to retain certain privileges, and yet accept certain
+other privileges, will at once find reasons why she should wear a skirt
+and yet have the vote. She will tell me all sorts of things about her
+physical disabilities, things which she believes to be fundamental
+truths, many of which, in fact, are fundamentally wrong, but accepted
+as truths because they lead to rationalization being able to support
+her wishes.
+
+In a similar way, on the much discussed subject of “prohibition” the
+prohibitionist will rationalise on a certain few facts, in order to
+support his emotions and desires. A moderate drinker will do exactly
+the same, in the opposite direction. Neither of them will have the
+courage to ignore his personal feelings, nor may he have the power
+to do so, and to take all the facts into consideration and come to a
+conclusion, irrespective of his wishes on the subject.[7]
+
+Of course, one of the other difficulties in the way of coming to
+correct conclusions in all these things is that people will insist on
+arguing upon subjects, when the amount of real scientific knowledge
+they have on the subjects is extremely small. The newspaper editor will
+quote a few popular facts, in order to support some theory of his own,
+having but a limited knowledge of psychology, physiology, anatomy, or
+of some other science which has considerable bearing on the subject,
+he will end by producing a series of conclusions probably entirely
+wrong. This, of course, is inevitable in our limited circumstances;
+but it should not be equally inevitable that we should hold firmly
+to our beliefs, when we realise how limited is our knowledge of
+any one subject. And in order to examine facts and to get rid of
+rationalization as far as possible, we must try, with the utmost power
+at our command to refuse that reaction of self-defence and self-pride,
+which prevents us from looking at ourselves and from realising that
+most of our opinions about ourselves may be completely erroneous. We
+must be prepared to accept temporary, not fixed, judgments, based
+upon the evidence which we have. We must be prepared to reverse those
+judgments in the light of new evidence. We must be careful not to
+reject this evidence merely because we do not like it.
+
+It will now be seen how very necessary it is, in dealing with
+Narcissism in particular, to understand something of rationalization,
+so that we may be on our guard in examining ourselves, against
+allowing this to play too great a part in our conclusions. Otherwise,
+with all the goodwill in the world, we may never succeed in making
+any improvement whatsoever, in ourselves. The greatest scientists
+themselves have been amongst those who realised this.
+
+It was Darwin who wrote, as we have quoted in the earlier part of this
+book, “I had, during many years, followed a golden rule, namely, that
+whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across
+me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of
+it without fail and at once, for I had found by experience that such
+facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than
+favourable ones.”
+
+And it was the great scientist, Helmholtz, who said, “It is better to
+be in actual doubt, than to rock oneself in dogmatic ignorance.”
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[7] Of course this does not imply that no one is ever capable of
+putting his conscious feelings on one side, and examining a subject
+in spite of pre-conceived ideas and desires, but that this is the
+exception rather than the rule.
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+SELF ANALYSIS
+
+
+In attempting to cure ourselves of hyper-Narcissistic characteristics,
+there are several lines of treatment which may be followed, some of
+which depend upon the particular manifestation of Narcissism with
+which we have to deal. One, however, which should be followed in
+every case, we borrow from the methods of psycho-analysis. We cannot
+call it psycho-analysis because the technique employed by an amateur
+in examining himself must be vastly different from the technique
+employed by a psycho-analyst in dealing with his patient. But it is a
+modification of one detail of the technique of psycho-analysis which,
+if properly applied, may have far-reaching results. It is on the lines
+of that phenomenon which is known generally as ab-reaction, and is as
+follows.
+
+When an individual has come to the conclusion that he is suffering from
+some characteristic of Narcissistic nature, which he would rather
+be without, he should, first of all, carefully call to mind, and if
+possible make historical notes of the situations which stimulate the
+particular temperamental reaction to which he objects. If he can, he
+should go further than this, and recall as many as possible of the
+actual situations of recent date, when this particular reaction has
+been called forth.
+
+If he have an ungovernable temper, for example, he should, in detail,
+go first into the type of situations which call forth that temper, and
+secondly, he should revise in detail the recent occasions upon which he
+has lost his temper, and thirdly, _he should attempt to find out the
+particular moment, the particular words, the particular occasion which
+first began to stir feelings of temper within him before he actually
+began to show violent manifestations of it_.
+
+Having all these things set forth satisfactorily, it would be well
+if he spent half-an-hour every day, for a considerable period, in
+performing the next part of the treatment. He should go into a room
+by himself, where he will not be disturbed, recline on a couch or
+a comfortable chair, and allow his mind to drift backwards, year by
+year, remembering as far as possible, every instance on which the
+unfavourable symptom has been called forth. He will find that if he
+does not concentrate too hard, but merely keeps in mind the various
+causes of his temper and recent manifestations of it, other times
+and instances will come into his mind unbidden. He will, in fact, be
+surprised at the amount of detail which he can remember concerning
+the matter. Things which he had not thought of for years, happenings
+which he had passed over as trivial, will come into his mind, and be
+found to have stimulated, in some way or the other, the ill-temper (or
+other Narcissistic trouble) which he is endeavouring to get rid of. He
+must take himself, as far as possible, right into childhood. He will
+not necessarily of course, go back as far as this on the first few
+occasions, but after he has been at work on himself in this way for
+some days, he should have no trouble whatever in beginning to recall
+some of the infantile occasions upon which his Narcissism called forth
+temper.
+
+In all the instances which he brings up into his conscious mind, he
+should write down and study not only the facts remembered, but also the
+emotions which he felt. These he should examine from every possible
+point of view, and see what Narcissistic element appears to be present
+in them. Many memories will come into his mind of an infantile nature
+which do not express the particular symptom from which he now suffers,
+but will obviously have some bearing on it. These he should examine in
+the same way, because it is important for him to get into his conscious
+mind as much as possible of the various occasions in his life on which
+Narcissism acted, when he was not conscious of it. Not only must he
+see how these various occasions were exhibitions of Narcissism, but he
+must try and trace them back, and must compare them with his typical
+infantile methods of expression. These may be represented by shouting,
+crying, stamping, weeping or any other infantile manifestations
+of those omnipotent phantasies which now seem to him to be the
+starting-point of his more recent expression of them. He has, in fact,
+to lay bare before himself, as much as possible of his previously
+unconscious Narcissistic life; its beginnings, its evolution, and its
+ultimate form. This making conscious of what was previously unconscious
+or but partly conscious, is, in itself, a most potent factor in
+improvement, if he will have the patience to steadily persevere and to
+go over daily, for a considerable period, the material he has brought
+to the surface. If he does not do this regularly, it is liable to sink
+back, and become once again an unconscious factor and a determinant to
+his actions over which he has no control.
+
+This bringing into consciousness the unconscious causes and motives
+under-lying behaviour is, in psycho-analysis, one of the powerful
+factors at work producing cures of neurotic obsessions and so forth,
+and it is equally potent with the minor temperamental abnormalities
+with which we are dealing here. For it means that previous mental
+conflicts which were either wholly or partially unconscious, are now
+rendered conscious habitually; and a conscious conflict, or rather a
+conflict in which the forces at work become conscious, is far easier
+to direct than one in which the very forces themselves are hidden and
+unknown. Let us take a more material example for comparison. Suppose an
+officer to be in command of a company of soldiers out in the desert,
+and attacked on a dark night by savages. It might very well be that he
+was well armed, that his machine guns were efficient, but that he would
+be quite overwhelmed because he could neither see the savages nor know
+their numbers, their whereabouts nor their armaments. But supposing
+that the War Office had thoughtfully equipped him with one or two good
+search-lights, which he could direct upon the savages so that the
+number of savages, their armaments, position, and so forth, could be
+brought into his consciousness, he would be in a far better position,
+for he could direct his machine-guns at the threatened points, instead
+of being forced to fire them wildly and as likely as not miss his
+targets altogether.
+
+Exactly the same happens with these manifold feelings to which I
+have just been referring. The more one can see of them, their
+histories, their evolution, their beginnings, the more one holds them
+in consciousness, the easier does the conflict between good and evil
+become in the individual. Again, this method of self-help which I have
+given here, differs considerably from that pursued in psycho-analysis,
+in that it is following up only one unconscious factor, albeit, one
+of the most important factors; but in psycho-analysis we follow up in
+turn all the unconscious forces at work, great and small, and in any
+temperamental abnormality there are certainly many more unconscious
+factors than Narcissism concerned, although Narcissism may be the
+predominant one. Thus, for instance, alcoholism, though always
+possessing a Narcissistic element, frequently has other determinants
+present of an exceptionally strong[8] nature. So that while an
+analysis of Narcissism only, may be of the greatest value in some
+cases, in others, where Narcissism does not occupy so great a field,
+the other unconscious factors are too potent to allow much benefit to
+accrue from a partial self-analysis of this kind.
+
+In drug-taking, however, there is a slight difference from alcoholism,
+for, as a rule, Narcissism is nearly always the essential factor. It
+will be understood that Narcissism links itself to almost any other
+characteristic, influencing it for the worse by fixing it more deeply,
+and holding it back from becoming conscious more strongly than would
+otherwise be the case.
+
+The patient will find himself, during this self-examination, repeatedly
+trying to excuse himself. He will find himself saying, “I remember on
+such an such an occasion losing my temper, but on that occasion I was
+perfectly justified.” Or in another instance, he may say, “I remember
+weeping (or I remember being depressed or angry, or impatient), but
+circumstances then existed which seem to me proper occasions for such a
+manifestation to have taken place.”
+
+Let me emphasise at the outset, that any such excuses will be
+rationalizing; that he must say to himself, “Whether they appear normal
+or abnormal, according to accepted standards, those occurrences most
+certainly had their Narcissistic factor.” For it must be understood
+that although there are many occasions when impatience or weeping may
+be looked upon, conventionally, as normal occurrences, that is only
+because everybody possesses certain imperfections due to Narcissism;
+and if one is going to attempt to improve one’s temperament in this
+way, every occasion must be examined without excuse or rationalization,
+otherwise the individual who is thus at work upon himself will only
+succeed in defeating himself to his own detriment, by putting up
+a resistance to his cure or improvement. And, indeed, one of the
+important factors in this work, just as in psycho-analysis itself, is
+the factor which comes into play in overcoming these resistances of
+seeing ourselves as we are, of seeing the evolution and beginnings of
+our temperament as it really was.
+
+This is bound to reveal in all of us without exception much that is
+unpleasant, and that we would rather not see. Resistance to seeing such
+material is inevitable, if the examination is sufficiently thorough. If
+no resistance has to be overcome, the individual may be certain that he
+is shirking the facts.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[8] Alcoholism is further complicated by the fact that a habit of
+_physical_ craving is formed, which as a rule cannot be overcome
+by mental treatment alone. This craving, fortunately, can now be
+eradicated by medicinal means. Indeed, patients of mine have been cured
+of all desire for alcohol in about one week as a rule. The patient
+is then in somewhat the same condition as a man who has never tasted
+alcohol, and he will have no craving for alcohol thereafter, unless he
+deliberately drinks it again. Herein, however, we see the importance of
+the psychic factor, for should the cured alcoholic begin again to take
+alcohol, either because he thinks that he has attained self control
+and can do so, or because he finds abstinence difficult on social
+grounds, he will almost inevitably regress to his old condition of
+uncontrolled desire, no matter how long has elapsed since he was cured
+of it. _The same causes which originally led him to excess, viz., his
+mental complexes, are still present and again produce similar results._
+Of course, a very large proportion of those who have been cured by
+medicinal treatment do not relapse, because they have sufficient common
+sense not to experiment with themselves. In the other cases, however,
+the only hope of a permanent cure consists in following up the physical
+treatment with mental treatment, i.e., analysis.
+
+On the other hand, in most cases of drug taking a medicinal cure is
+generally sufficient, for there is no “social urge” to taking drugs as
+there is in the case of alcohol, and once the craving has been cured,
+the tendency to experiment again is the exception rather than the rule.
+But even here it is found that any indulgence in the drug, however
+slight, will again produce in the individual his old craving. _He has
+found a previous path of narcissistic regression and will inevitably
+follow it, for though the craving had been eradicated the complexes
+remain._ There are many potential alcoholics and potential drug-takers
+in the world, but they will never know it unless unfortunate chance
+induces them to open that particular channel of regression.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+READJUSTMENT OF OBJECTIVES
+
+
+In the last chapter we described a process of self-assistance of
+the kind which should be applied by any person, to any Narcissistic
+manifestation he may desire to improve. In the present chapter we are
+going to deal with a method of treatment which is by no means necessary
+in all cases, but is very necessary in a large proportion of them.
+
+We must bear in mind that the Narcissist’s inability to realise
+distinctly the difference between phantasy and fact will often lead
+him to suppose possible that which is impossible in the ordinary
+affairs of everyday life, and to ignore difficulties which may really
+be insuperable, which stand in the way of his aims and projects. He
+will thus be continually finding himself at a disadvantage, continually
+failing, from apparently trivial reasons, to accomplish an end, and
+as a result he may become depressed, nervous, worried, and subject
+to that lassitude accompanied by headaches, which so frequently comes
+to the Narcissist when he struggles unavailingly with the ordinary
+aims and tasks of everyday life. Moreover, not only does he fail to
+recognise the difficulties in the way of any particular task, but he
+fails to recognise the fact that two projects which he has in his mind
+may be incompatible with one another; or he fails to recognise that
+great “_Time-factor_,” which I have mentioned before, and tries to
+condense more work and more visible results into a given period than is
+humanly possible.
+
+This type of Narcissist is always considerably addicted to day-dreams,
+with which, however, we shall deal in a further chapter. For the
+present, we are going to restrict ourselves to the question of
+arranging his aims and wishes on a sound and possible basis. In the
+first place, let it be understood that although the method of treatment
+so far carried out may have made clear to the patient the origin and
+development of his phantasy thought and phantastic aims, there yet
+remains the breaking of the habit, and this is rendered far more easy
+if we attempt to substitute another habit of a different nature. Let
+us further impress upon him the fact that a frequent examination of
+his aims in a directive manner by the method about to be discussed is
+in itself an exercise in directive thinking, helping to form a habit
+opposed to a former habit of phantasy thinking. And, lastly, let it be
+remembered that Narcissists are generally very averse from making real
+personal sacrifices which have no glamour attached to them; that they
+object to adapting themselves to reality which may be unpleasant, and
+that by the method I am about to describe, they will have to deal in
+trivial things, and the conscious adjustment which they will thus make
+towards reality will gradually become habitual.
+
+What we are attempting to do now is to substitute directive thought
+and directive aims, aims possible of attainment, for phantasy thoughts
+and impossible aims. Most people will find on self-examination that
+their aims are by no means clearly defined; they have an object in
+life, but it is vague in outline, and ill-defined; it is often only
+a question of getting somehow through life, with enough food to eat,
+and sufficient phantasy thought to keep them from boredom. This again,
+is especially the case with some women, whose household duties require
+but little directive thought, since they are daily repetitions of the
+same thing. Dusting a room is a habit which becomes pleasanter if
+accompanied by phantasy thinking; whereas, had that woman some definite
+aim, apart from the habit of house-cleaning, it would be possible to
+accompany the room-dusting with directive thought which revolved round
+the aim in question, and this would very much add to the pleasure and
+efficiency of the individual’s life. If a person, on self-examination,
+finds that his aims are not clearly defined, or are in conflict with
+one another, or, on the other hand, that his aims or thoughts are in
+part phantasy and impossible of fulfilment, that person should at once
+deliberately remould and re-state his aims, so that they become:
+
+(a) clearly defined,
+
+(b) clearly possible.
+
+Moreover, the aims should be of two kinds:
+
+(1) immediate,
+
+(2) remote.
+
+The remote aim is the ideal for which he is striving; and however high
+that ideal be, it should be of a kind possible of fulfilment, not
+necessarily in the lifetime of the individual, in all cases, for he may
+be working for something of which he does not expect fulfilment for
+even hundreds of years, yet it may be perfectly legitimately termed a
+real aim, as opposed to a phantastic one.
+
+_Now, the first thing which the individual should bear in mind is that
+an immediate aim should always be in harmony with the remote aim._ Let
+it also be borne in mind that when we state that the aim should be
+clearly possible, we do not only mean that the aims should be possible
+from a point of view of external environment and circumstances, but
+also having regard to the patient’s own intelligence, will-power,
+education, and physical health--in other words possible in the case of
+this particular individual.
+
+Now let us consider in detail the further course to be pursued by the
+person who proposes to treat himself on these lines. Let him take
+pencil and paper and write out in the fullest of details a list of
+his aims, great and small, in the first place, without any reference
+to their bearing upon one another, or any attempt at classification,
+keeping in mind that by aims in life, we mean wishes which he hopes
+will be fulfilled. Let him think of every conceivable wish in his mind,
+and write it down, whether phantastic in nature, or trivial, or whether
+both possible and important.
+
+In the next place, let him see that this list is written so clearly
+and accurately, that each of the aims is well defined and without
+ambiguity. Now let him run through the list again, and see whether
+any of the aims are in conflict with one another, and whether any of
+them are inconsistent from the view point of his, and are therefore
+impossible of fulfilment. Let him put his pencil definitely through
+such impossible aims, and cut them out of his life, with as full a
+realisation as possible of the fact that they are nothing but dreams,
+that he need never consider them again, that he must not regret them,
+for that is mere infantile crying after the impossible. He must
+replace them in due course with others possible of fulfilment.
+
+Now let him take the revised list and separate it into two divisions,
+writing the aims down again under the two headings, (1) immediate aims,
+and (2) remote aims. Here, he will have to bear in mind one of his
+chief faults, if he be strongly Narcissistic. Such persons in their
+phantasy carry their aims to completion long before reality can permit
+of it. The time-factor is not realised, and hence they have a great
+tendency to confuse remote aims with the immediate aims, in their
+desire to see immediate results; hence, also, because they cannot soon
+see such results, they give way to despair, become depressed, and have
+the tendency to regress to the infantile characteristics to which I
+have already referred. Here lies the importance of dividing the aims
+into immediate and remote. For as soon as the individual’s mind has
+grasped the fact that an aim is necessarily remote, and therefore
+impossible of immediate fulfilment, he is much more able to adjust
+himself to these facts, and to pay real and undivided attention to
+the immediate present. Apart from the fact that sorting and adjusting
+of the aims relieves the mind of many previous conflicts, it acts as
+a stimulus to a considerable amount of directive thinking. And the
+patient will be surprised at first to find the amount of time it is
+possible to spend in a really useful recasting of his life interests.
+
+It was not until the author, himself, took pencil and paper, and
+classified his own aims, and put down the points for and against each,
+and attempted to see the disharmonies existing amongst them, that he
+realised the full value of this procedure. It might be thought that in
+a very short period any person could put down all his aims, and that
+but little modification would take place in them from day to day. This,
+however, is very far from being true, as will be seen by anyone who
+carries out this method fully.
+
+Perhaps at this point the details taken from a case of a woman
+suffering from a “nervous breakdown” in which I used this method as a
+subsidiary form of treatment, may not only be of interest, but will
+also throw some light on the practical working of the method. I may
+mention that her chief troubles were insomnia, constant worrying, great
+depression, and inability to settle down to work of any kind.
+
+In the first place, this patient commenced by stating that she had no
+aim in life at all. She had to admit, however, immediately after, that
+she had at least the aim of wishing to get well, or otherwise she would
+not have come to me. On being asked why she wished to get well, several
+subsidiary aims appeared. For the most part, they were rationalization,
+and I knew these aims would be thrown over in due course, but that, for
+the purpose in view, did not matter. I told her to go home, and write
+down her aims, in the manner I have just indicated.
+
+The following was the list brought to me on the next day.
+
+
+     (1) To be well.
+
+     (2) To be married.
+
+     (3) To become a doctor.
+
+     (4) And if I cannot do that, to become a masseuse.
+
+     (5) Or a psycho-analyst.
+
+     (6) Or a private secretary.
+
+     (7) And I should like to have two children.
+
+
+With this rather pathetic list in front of me, I asked her to give as
+far as possible the reasons she had for these various wishes, and to
+examine these on the lines I had indicated, with the following results.
+
+(1) _To get well._ “The reason for this aim is obvious; it is necessary
+in order to obtain the others,” said she.
+
+(2) _To get married._ “This aim has three subsidiary immediate aims,”
+she replied, “and there may be others. (a) I want a comfortable home of
+my own, (b) I want satisfaction of my natural instincts in accordance
+with the custom of ordinary adult life, (c) I could attain the later
+aim of having two children.” She immediately added, “In that case, the
+aim of having two children is a remote aim, and if I follow your advice
+I must no longer have day-dreams about them, I must put them out of my
+thoughts, I must not waste time on anything connected with them, until
+I am married.”
+
+(3) _To become a doctor._ “Concerning this,” she added, “I have
+always liked studying Zoology, and microscopic work, and diseases.
+Moreover, it is the only way in which one can make money in a really
+interesting manner.” She then stated that she realised this to be
+a double aim, and to consist, firstly, of the aim of earning a
+livelihood, and secondly, of that of having an interesting occupation.
+This aim was soon discovered to be phantastic, however, for she had to
+admit that her financial position would not permit of the necessary
+study, and that there was no prospect of any improvement in this. She
+therefore realised that although she had had it at the back of her
+mind for several months that somehow such an aim might be possible of
+fulfilment, she now clearly saw that it was not. She at once removed
+it from the list, and realised that neither regrets nor phantasy in
+connection with it would be of any avail, and again, that she must bear
+in mind possibilities and realities.
+
+(4) _To become a masseuse._ She at once stated her thoughts on this
+subject. “I have known one or two masseuses, who seem to make money,
+and who are very happy. Moreover, it is an occupation that a lady can
+take up.” She then discovered that this involved three aims: (a) to
+make money, (b) to be happy, (c) to remain genteel. On the opposite
+side, however, she added that she was not sufficiently physically
+strong for the work, and was afraid she would soon tire of it, because
+as an occupation itself, it did not appeal to her. This aim, also,
+immediately disappeared from the list.
+
+(5) _To become a psycho-analyst._ This, said she, was a very
+interesting subject, and she thought she could do much good by means of
+it. Moreover, she thought she would like psychology though she had not
+studied it much as yet. “Moreover,” said she, “psycho-analysts probably
+make a lot of money. And further, it would be very nice to sit at
+home in an arm-chair to do one’s work, and to let other people do the
+talking.” She at once recognised this latter idea to be a thoroughly
+Narcissistic regression. And then she found that all the other ideas
+contained multiple aims in themselves, each of which had to be thought
+out and classified, and into the details of which I need not go. Except
+to say that when she considered the matter from a practical point of
+view, the difficulties of training, the time it would take, and more
+especially the fact that she feared that psycho-analysis might not be
+popular by the time she was ready, she determined that it was only a
+phantasy aim, upon which she had been wasting phantasy thought, and she
+ruled it out.
+
+(6) _To become a private secretary._ On this point, she considered that
+her personal appearance and general education would help her, and was
+quite compatible with the aim. But she knew no shorthand, book-keeping,
+nor typewriting. She, however, realised at once that the immediate aim
+in this case should be the shorthand, book-keeping, and typewriting,
+and she said, “I will go to-morrow and see where I can learn these
+things.” I pointed out to her that she might very possibly change
+her mind, when she considered things further, but that even if she
+did so, the mastery of shorthand, typewriting and book-keeping might
+stand her in good stead, and in any case that she would be working for
+an immediate object, in turning some of her phantasy into directive
+thought. And on the morrow, she actually did commence her studies on
+these subjects.
+
+(7) _The desire to have two children._ This was at once classified, as
+I have already said, as a remote aim; though, as a matter of fact, she
+got married shortly afterwards, and the remote aim is now on the way to
+being fulfilled, as she has one child.
+
+I have shown by this example the ill-considered, phantastic, and
+conflicting aims, which some persons may at first produce when they
+attempt deliberately to classify them. But it must be remembered that
+each of the subsidiary aims which she had discovered her primary aims
+to be divided into were, in turn, again capable of being divided into
+further subsidiary aims. And the next stage of this form of technique
+is to discover these. Day by day, the pencil and paper must be
+brought out, and a list of aims and wishes for that day compiled and
+considered. They must be in turn examined to show (1) whether they are
+compatible with one another, (2) whether they are compatible with other
+immediate aims, (3) whether they are compatible with the remote aims.
+
+A strong attempt must then be made to eradicate any aims or wishes
+which are antagonistic to one another, or to the primary aims of the
+individual, which have already been passed as real. As progress is
+made, definite and personal aims will be developed day by day, many of
+these, no doubt, apparently trivial, others at least important for the
+day in question, all important from the point of view of developing the
+habit of thinking in terms of reality.
+
+For instance, on one occasion, the lady above mentioned wrote on her
+list in the morning that she wished to work hard at her shorthand
+in the early part of the day, to go to a matinée in the afternoon,
+and to a dance in the evening. On consideration, however, she came
+to the conclusion that the dance in the evening, following after
+the day’s work and entertainment, would probably interfere with her
+next morning’s work, and it was not, moreover, compatible with that
+immediate aim of regaining complete health at the earliest possible
+moment. It was, therefore, rejected; the lesser aim was recast, and
+a quiet dinner with a friend substituted. Only by such rigorous and
+possibly painful self-treatment can the Narcissist’s conflicts be
+regulated and viewed in a proper perspective.
+
+Every daily aim has a further subsidiary aim appertaining to it. For
+instance, a man may have made up his mind to devote a certain part
+of the day to studying; the lesser aim includes the subject to be
+studied, the amount to be done, and the time to be occupied. It is
+important that he should not over-estimate the amount he can get done
+in a given time. One reason why so much detail should be considered,
+is that it is astounding how excessively a person, with a tendency to
+phantasy thought, over-estimates the amount of work it is possible
+to get through in a given time. No sooner is a task commenced than
+he expects it to be almost finished. The daily programme frequently
+includes far more than is possible, and he forms a habit of being late
+for everything; all this being merely the ordinary omnipotent idea of
+childhood, which fulfils a wish in phantasy as readily as it is formed.
+
+I must now give a warning, that those who follow this method are, at
+first, nearly always extremely impatient for results, for this very
+reason that they do not realise the time-factor; and they must realise,
+and consciously and patiently accept inevitable delay, with the
+assurance that if they can overcome their Narcissism sufficiently to
+persist in the method they will steadily and gradually develop a habit,
+an attitude of mind which devotes its energy to directive thought, to
+real aims, and to displacing from themselves the phantastic medley
+which was there before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+READJUSTMENT OF THOUGHT
+
+
+We have seen in an earlier chapter how one of the ways in which
+Narcissism manifests itself is in day-dreams. We saw how a child would
+substitute a phantasy or day-dream for a reality, and so fulfil its
+wishes and desires in this unreal manner. And we saw how, if this were
+persisted in to excess, the same or a modified method of fulfilling
+one’s wishes in realms of phantasy would remain even in adult life.
+I may here remark that even _very little_ day-dreaming constitutes
+excess, and is bound to have a deleterious effect upon the efficiency
+and happiness of the individual’s life; unless, perhaps, that
+individual is mixing sufficient directive thought with his phantasies
+as in the case of a novelist or artist, for instance. In realising
+this, it must be borne in mind, that time and energy spent in phantasy
+thinking are time and energy lost to reality and fact; that the
+encouragement of the habit of phantasy thinking destroys the ability
+to think directively, or rather renders the full development of it
+impossible. Moreover, by encouraging day-dreams, we are simultaneously
+holding on to our Narcissism, and making it more likely that it
+will also find outlets in other deleterious ways. For instance, the
+“worrying nature” which is constantly thinking of possible troubles to
+come, and of how past troubles might have been avoided is indulging in
+a form of phantasy thinking. If the habit of phantasy thinking has been
+cultivated for pleasurable purposes, a channel has been opened which
+will be used without conscious intention for other kinds of phantasy
+as well. The habit of worrying to which we have just referred, is an
+example of this.
+
+Worry consists in weaving phantasies about something which cannot at
+the moment be influenced directively. It may be about something which
+_has_ happened and therefore cannot be influenced at all by thinking
+about it, or about something which _may_ happen but over which the
+thinker has no immediate control; and it consists in going over all
+the “mays” and “mights” connected with the case, and experiencing
+the unpleasant emotions belonging to each phantasied situation. In
+order to get rid of this worrying habit, to close the channel which
+permits of it, a person must simultaneously cut out pleasurable
+day-dreams also, and thus close the channel entirely. Therefore, let
+us recommend the individual who indulges largely in day-dreams, to get
+rid of the habit as soon as possible. Those who have other abnormal
+characteristics which they wish to eradicate, should understand that
+they must, simultaneously, get rid of their day-dreams. And this means
+pulling oneself up, not merely when one discovers oneself imagining
+some glorious vista in which one occupies a principle but impossible
+part, it means similarly pulling oneself up in a thousand little ways;
+it means catching oneself whenever one wanders from a type of directive
+thought to a type of phantastic thought.
+
+For instance, in the examination of one’s aims, one is thinking
+directively, and one comes to the conclusion that, say, a course
+of shorthand and typewriting shall be taken at once, that the aim
+of being a secretary is one suitable and compatible with one’s
+attainments. At this point, it is very easy for the individual to
+suddenly find that he or she has become, in day-dreams, the secretary
+of a duke or American millionaire. And if he does not pull himself up
+at this stage, he will find that the duke’s money has been left him,
+or she will find that she has married the American millionaire. And
+so the phantasy goes on. It starts in reality, but the Narcissistic
+temperament takes it right away from this. It must be nipped in the
+bud at the very beginning, if the habit of directive thought is to be
+established. As soon as the individual finds himself drifting in this
+way, wasting energy, fulfilling wishes by mere dreams, he must pull
+himself up short, and say to himself, “Here the real ends, there the
+phantasy begins. This is the point I must come back to, I must deal
+with this matter from the real point of view only, without allowing
+this phantasy to intrude itself.”
+
+And here again, much patience will be needed, for if the habit has
+already been cultivated, he will soon be back in phantasy again,
+probably in less than five minutes. But phantasy thought does not only
+mean day-dreams in the sense in which we have spoken of them here. It
+may take all sort of disguises, and what would be phantasy thought in
+one person, would be directive thought in another. In one case, the
+environment and education and inherent ability would not be of that
+order which could make the thoughts come to be facts; in the other case
+the abilities of the person might be sufficient to do so. Thus, were an
+ordinary person to sit in his arm-chair, and phantasy a wonderful plan
+for the conquest of Europe, without having either the will or the means
+of carrying out his ambition, that would constitute phantasy thinking
+pure and simple. If, however, a Napoleon did the same, with the will
+and the possible means, with the near aim at hand in the conquest of
+a small country, and the subsequent conquest of Europe as an ultimate
+one, his method of thought would have to be described as directive
+thinking. So that similar thinking in two different individuals may
+really be classified as two different principles of thinking.
+
+I have no doubt that many readers will be saying to themselves now,
+“But my greatest pleasure is to be found in day-dreams. I find in
+directive thinking nothing but hard work.”
+
+In such a case, if the individual cannot enjoy his directive
+thinking, and he gets no emotional discharge by means of it, it is
+possible that his aims in life are unsuited to him, or that he has
+not sufficient aims in life, that his time is not as fully occupied
+with interesting _acts_ as it should be. In such a case, subsidiary
+aims should be formed deliberately, wherein he could take an interest
+in directive thinking. _For it may be accepted as a fact that, with
+proper cultivation and education, more real pleasure can be found in
+suitable directive thinking than in any amount of day-dreams._ It is
+also a further fact that the individual’s energy is not then wasted,
+but is more or less efficiently utilised. Moreover, instead of losing
+strength of character, he is now gaining it. Let it be borne in mind,
+always, that continual indulgence of phantasy thought, from its very
+ease, breeds the habit of inertia, for the individual’s aims and wishes
+attain fulfilment without any need for activity on his part; and here
+a vicious circle is produced, because the inertia, which he has thus
+encouraged, now in its turn tends to make him resort to phantasy the
+more.
+
+It is easy, of course, to say, “I will cut myself off from phantasy
+thought, I will pull myself up whenever this occurs, and leave it
+alone.” But it is by no means easy to act up to this resolution. If,
+however, another kind of directive thought is deliberately substituted
+for the phantasy, the task is made very much easier. If the water in
+the bath is too hot, and we want it to cool rapidly, we do not merely
+turn off the hot tap, we simultaneously turn on the cold.
+
+The task will be rendered more easy still, if the individual selects
+his subject of directive thought to replace phantasy beforehand, not
+waiting until the time comes. For instance, we will suppose that,
+as one subsidiary aim with which to fill in his time, a person has
+selected the collection of postage stamps. He will each day have in
+front of him some page which he wishes to arrange in chronological
+order, to consider from the point of view of water-marks and
+perforations; and he may make up his mind that as soon as he finds
+himself dealing in phantasy thought he will not only cut out the
+phantasy thought but will at once start arranging, in his mind, the
+stamps which he was shortly going to arrange in his book. It matters
+not in the least what form the substitute thought takes, so long as it
+possesses two qualities, (1) it is directive, _i.e._, it is going to
+lead to some sort of actual change or action, and (2) that it bears
+a pleasurable interest. And for that reason, I have selected a very
+trivial form of directive thought as an example. The point is that
+the individual should select some subject in which he has a personal
+and active interest, as a subject with which he may replace phantasy
+thought, whenever the latter comes into his mind.
+
+Phantasy thought may, further, not be of necessity thoughts impossible
+of fulfilment, except in the immediate present. Thoughts of erotic
+or other desires which intrude themselves at untimely moments, are
+phantasy thoughts, and some people frequently complain that they are
+annoyed by them, especially when they have no intention of actually
+fulfilling them in fact, or when the means of fulfilling them are
+not present. Here again, to have a subject ready at hand, or to
+have a substitute thought for the undesired thoughts is a very real
+assistance. Even a sentence thought out beforehand or a good maxim
+which can be repeated several times and considered, forms an excellent
+substitute thought with which to replace the unwanted phantasy.
+
+Let us now consider a few other examples. The majority of educated
+people, of a so-called normal type, when they have completed their
+day’s work, and are fatigued, require some sort of mental rest, and as
+a rule some kind of phantasy thought is resorted to in the evening.
+Also, when this fatigue is cumulative, they say, “We have worked
+eleven months, and now require one month’s holiday.” This is really an
+unconscious phantasy requiring a regressive reward. They are not really
+tired out, physically or mentally, but they have accumulated, after
+a series of postponements, a large number of Narcissistic efforts at
+phantasy; and the holiday which they now require is really to satisfy
+this. It is a return to childhood and the time of irresponsibility,
+and their occupations on the holiday may very likely be, to a large
+extent, similar to those with which they occupied themselves in
+childhood. They throw off their adult status and responsibility, and
+deliberately take this regressive reward. Even with normal people
+the idea of _rest_ in the form of a holiday, often means nothing but
+phantasy thought, time disregarded, no effort of any sort to be made.
+
+But in the less Narcissistic type of person who still retains directive
+thought even on a holiday--a holiday means merely change in immediate
+aim, change in occupation, rather than rest from aim and occupation.
+
+Phantasy thinking may take many quite surreptitious forms. In old age,
+for instance, we know that type of person, who is quietly slipping
+into helpless imbecility. He is the same man, who, at an earlier age,
+lacked the habit of directive thought. On the other hand, there is
+our intellectual old man or woman, still full of the day’s problems
+or politics, who indulged, in early life, but little in phantasies.
+Experience shows us that the influence of directive or undirective
+thought in youth may not only determine our happiness in declining
+years, but may even determine the actual age to which we live. For,
+paradoxically, it is the Narcissist, who of all people desires a long
+life, and who is, of all people, the least likely to attain old age. He
+frequently “worries himself into the grave.”
+
+We have not yet exhausted the forms of phantasy thought. A casual
+conversation between acquaintances in which no information of value
+is imparted, in which merely some emotional material is brought to
+the surface and thrown out, is undirective thought. The first person,
+interested in some emotional experience, recounts to the second the
+facts of that experience, often without arousing any emotional feeling
+in the second person. Such is the type of conversation which takes
+place over a vast majority of tea-tables. It is wasted energy.
+
+Another example is that of conventional letter-writing, in certain
+cases. The duty letter which one person writes to another person is
+of the same type. The writer who deals with his or her experiences
+on a shopping expedition, who states a series of things which have
+happened, merely in order to enjoy them once again in phantasy, is
+performing the same waste of energy. There is no return for this
+expended energy, the rush of ideas produces no result. Perhaps the
+time is due for a letter to be written, and it is the turn of this
+person to write a letter. As a result of this conventional attitude,
+the writer has to resort to phantasy thought to satisfy the needs of
+the moment. We have pointed out that reading a novel is a form of
+phantasy thinking, in which we identify ourselves with the hero. The
+same occurs in our cinemas. Here, the pleasure of phantasy thinking is
+enhanced by the fact that the visual impression is produced direct,
+whereas in reading a novel the visual impression is by words only,
+and a certain amount of effort is needed to translate it in the mind
+into its pictorial form; and thus the cinematograph induces a form of
+phantasy thinking which needs the least effort of all to realise. It
+is within the reach of anyone possessing a few pence, and although the
+average person may regard it as educative and useful to the community,
+the magistrate who is dealing with the youthful delinquent knows the
+cinematograph to be very harmful to the child’s mind. And there is no
+doubt that the unconscious effect of such mental stimuli is excessively
+deleterious to the race in general. The indulgence in it encourages
+the habit of phantasy thinking at a small cost, and such a habit soon
+becomes established as part of the individual’s make-up. Nor does the
+evil stay itself here. For the phantasy in the cinematograph consists
+usually in the fulfilment of impossible wishes, and in this, as in
+other cases, the emotional output is increased out of all proportion
+to the real exciting causes. This results in a misplacement in the
+emotional output in the unconscious mind, which in its turn is the
+basis of many neurotic conditions which may even require a physician’s
+aid to eradicate. And one must remember that a neurotic condition need
+not merely be the illness of an individual, it may be, and often is,
+the disease of a nation. Hence, like the fairy-tale, the cinema, as it
+is at present, should not be used as a child’s pastime.
+
+
+§2
+
+In other forms of Narcissism also, we shall find it easier to break
+away from phantasy if we substitute a reality; that is, if we turn our
+flow of energy into a real, instead of an imaginary channel, instead of
+merely trying to dam the flow in the original channel. In cases where
+this Narcissism involves a bad habit, such as irritability, impatience,
+weeping, etc., the line that should be followed differs rather from
+that suggested in the case of day-dreams. In the first place, not only
+should we pull ourselves up short, but we should also bear in mind,
+immediately, the first part of the technique which we suggested in
+a previous chapter. That is to say, we should call to mind what our
+abnormal act really means, and having done this, having realised it in
+consciousness, _we should then endeavour to use the same energy which
+we should have used for this abnormal act in an immediate and useful
+manner_. Now, in all these cases, our abnormal reaction takes place
+because our omnipotence or sense of perfection is disturbed; and since
+this sense of perfection is not real, the easiest and most convenient
+channel for us to turn our energy into is one which still satisfies the
+sense of perfection, that is to say, one in which we may feel that _we
+are, by our act, becoming more perfect in reality, instead of clinging
+to our perfection in phantasy_. It is impossible to give examples to
+cover the very many reactions which may take place, but one actual
+example, given in detail, should be sufficient to enable the individual
+to invent others to suit his own case. Let us again take the case
+of the impatient man, in which the Time-factor has never been fully
+realised.
+
+Let us say that he has entered a restaurant for lunch, and that
+having glanced down the menu, he then has to wait ten minutes before
+the waiter attends to him. Probably, after the first minute of that
+time, he has begun to get impatient; at the end of ten minutes he is
+either making up his mind to go without his lunch, so great is his
+irritability, or else he is, with great emotion, explaining to his
+neighbour how extremely inefficient this restaurant is, as regards
+management, service, and, in fact, everything connected with it. He is
+utterly unable to realise the facts of the case. Let us again refer
+to the facts for a moment. The restaurant is a business, and must make
+a profit; in order to do this, only a limited number of waiters can
+possibly be kept, and the number of these has to be regulated by the
+_average_ number of customers, by the profit which it is possible to
+make in the neighbourhood, and other factors. In the second place, the
+luncheon hour is one at which the number of customers is well above
+the average, and therefore in which the service is bound to be the
+slowest; however good the management, however skilful the waiters, they
+are obliged to devote a certain number of minutes to each customer;
+and the probability is that our Narcissistic individual is being as
+well attended to as anybody else. He does not realise this however, he
+is not dealing with the facts at all. He merely knows that he wishes
+for an immediate meal, that his sense of perfection is thoroughly
+disturbed, and his unconscious idea is that if he is sufficiently
+impatient, what he wants will come to him immediately, just as it did
+in childhood.
+
+Now let us see how he may deal with himself. We will suppose that
+he has read this chapter before his next visit to the restaurant in
+question. Once again he sits down, once again he finds he is kept
+waiting. His impatience begins to manifest itself in its early stages.
+He pulls himself up, and the first thing that he does is to realise the
+causes of his impatience, as set out in the last paragraph. He must go
+quickly over the original causes of his Narcissism in infancy, and of
+how he obtained means of satisfaction, and so developed his present
+habit of thought. He must run over the facts concerning the restaurant,
+and realise that it is a business place, and that it is at its busiest
+hour. In other words, he must get into full consciousness the various
+factors associated with this Narcissistic outburst of impatience. Then,
+let him realise as a kind of summary, “What I am actually objecting
+to is the disturbance of my unconscious feeling of omnipotence and
+perfection. Let me, however, turn this energy, utilise this time
+during which I am waiting in attaining a step nearer real perfection
+instead of bemoaning the loss of my imaginary perfection. Now, a step
+towards real perfection will be attained, if I overcome this habit
+of impatience. Let me, therefore, utilise this time in sitting here
+patiently, in worrying no longer about the time the waiter is taking,
+in being actually pleased with the fact that I am becoming more
+patient, and that my time is being usefully filled with a directive
+aim, which has as its object the same ultimate idea as the original
+phantastic one, namely, that of perfection.”
+
+Critics may here suggest that this long monologue on the part of the
+impatient individual might have been cut short by allowing him to say,
+“Obviously, the waiters are busy, it is no use being impatient, let me
+be patient.” I must point out, however, that the result would probably
+not have been the same. The longer method has its value in the fact
+that he brings into consciousness the two ideas of perfection, the
+Narcissistic idea which is being hurt, and the real idea which he is
+desiring consciously to obtain. _And it is very much easier to turn
+energy from one channel to another, if there are lines of similarity
+between the two channels._
+
+Hence, when one’s sense of perfection is assailed, let one turn
+one’s energy into some form of thought which still satisfies the idea
+of perfection attained or attainable. A similar process can be gone
+through with any other Narcissistic form of trouble, and consists in
+recapitulating the causes, and in reaching a determined effort to
+deflect consciously the energy from the phantastic into the real. The
+same principle holds good for all temperamental troubles of this sort,
+but the individual will have to devise for himself a suitable formula
+to use to suit the needs of his own case.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+AUTO-SUGGESTION
+
+
+Suggestion, in one form or another, plays an extremely important
+part in the life of everyone. Suggestion consists in impressing upon
+the unconscious mind some idea or thought in such a way that the
+unconscious mind will take it and absorb it as part of itself, and
+utilise it unconsciously and instinctively. Quite unconsciously,
+throughout childhood and adult life, we are receiving suggestions from
+the actions of those around us.
+
+For example, I remember as a boy going repeatedly with a relative
+to a friend’s house. At the time, I did not notice that my relative
+invariably used the knocker, and never rang the bell, or rather I did
+not consciously notice it. On one occasion I, myself, was sent with
+a message to this house, and although I was in the habit of ringing
+bells whenever I went to other houses, at this particular one, I
+instinctively knocked only. The suggestion that I should knock upon
+that particular door had been implanted in me by the fact that I had
+repeatedly seen the same action take place, although I had paid no
+conscious attention to it. It had impressed itself upon my mind as
+the right action to take place, under the particular circumstances
+attending a visit to this house, so that I performed the action itself
+automatically, without any further thought in the matter.
+
+The example impressed itself upon my mind, because while I was in the
+house, on this occasion, a man came to mend the bell, which had been
+out of order for many months. Hence, the reason my relative invariably
+knocked.
+
+Suggestion of various kinds is a very powerful factor, and as in
+the example given above, it is for the most part an unconscious
+factor in determining our actions. But it is possible for us to give
+ourselves _conscious_ suggestions which will afterwards cause us to
+act automatically, in accordance with the suggestion. A great deal too
+much, however, has been claimed for suggestion in recent months. There
+are many circumstances in which suggestion is not likely to be any
+good at all, there are also circumstances when it may arouse an actual
+opposition in the unconscious mind, where a counter-suggestion is set
+at work immediately, and the condition of the individual may actually
+be worse than before he started giving himself suggestions.
+
+Apart from other things, one factor may be mentioned which is very
+antagonistic to suggestion, and that is _fear_, possibly fear which
+is for the most part unconscious. Thus, supposing that the alcoholic
+gives himself the suggestion that he shall pass a public-house without
+going into it, and he has a definite fear of the wish to go in; he
+will probably find that in suggesting that he shall not have the wish,
+he is actually re-enforcing the strength of the wish which is there.
+His unconscious counter-will is at work, and turning the force of the
+suggestion in the wrong direction, and he will very likely succumb
+to temptation more readily than before. Hence, in a subject where we
+have acute fear of failure, suggestion must be very carefully dealt
+with. Moreover, suggestion, to be efficient, must have other things in
+its favour, some knowledge, in fact, of the underlying causes of the
+deleterious action which we wish to eradicate. It is not impossible to
+improve oneself by suggestion, even though one may be ignorant of the
+cause of one’s trouble, but I have found that it is infinitely more
+easy to obtain this improvement if one has previously brought into
+consciousness the underlying cause, and can therefore direct one’s
+suggestion to this rather than merely to the effect or symptom. I have
+myself devised a method for the use of certain of my patients by means
+of which suggestion may be directed to both the cause and result,
+as indicated shortly. Ordinary methods of suggestion are frequently
+merely directed to the cure of the symptom rather than the disease; in
+fact, such auto-suggestion, popular as it has become, may frequently
+be likened to a doctor who treats small-pox by putting ointment on the
+spots, or appendicitis by giving morphia. It will be successful in
+those cases where the manifestations of the disease are worse than the
+disease itself; but when the causes are strong and virile, suggestion
+directed towards the symptom will not avail.
+
+In an earlier chapter, we described how the individual suffering
+from deleterious abnormalities of temperament could, to some extent,
+trace the cause of this back to infancy. We told how this, in itself,
+would, if repeatedly brought to mind on succeeding occasions, produce
+considerable improvement. We have further discussed how he could
+consciously turn the energy from one form of reaction into another
+and more suitable form. All these methods, however, may be made
+considerably more efficient by the active use of auto-suggestion, as I
+have indicated, directed partially to the cause and partially to the
+result desired. Thus, the form which suggestion should take in the case
+of the man, whom we quoted in the last chapter as being over-impatient
+in the restaurant, would be somewhat as follows:
+
+He would have to impress upon himself several suggestions; and in the
+case of each of these suggestions he would be required to form a mental
+picture of himself in the conditions to which the suggestions referred.
+Firstly, “In circumstances in which I have been accustomed to react
+with impatience, I will no longer act as I did when I was a little
+child.” (In repeating this to himself in the manner to be referred to
+shortly, he should hold a picture of himself reacting impatiently when
+a child, and contrast it with the manner in which he ought to have
+acted.) Secondly, “Under conditions which have previously caused me to
+react with impatience, I will in future, at once think out the _real_
+circumstances of the case.” (And another suitable mental picture should
+be visualised here, as also in each of the following suggestions.)
+Thirdly, “Under conditions which previously caused me to react with
+impatience, I will no longer be impatient.” Fourthly, “Under conditions
+to which I have been accustomed to react with impatience, I shall now
+devote my energy to perfecting myself, in reality.” Thus, he is taking
+himself through the stages from childhood onward, and re-educating
+himself in each stage by means of a forced education in which the
+individual “grows up” in reality from the point at which he stopped in
+childhood.
+
+Not one, but all these thoughts, and possibly even intermediate ones
+that may develop, should be impressed upon the unconscious mind, so
+that they may act automatically. As to the method which should be
+adopted by the patient in giving himself suggestions, I recommend the
+following. That he first of all write down briefly the results of his
+self-examination, that he should take those results in chronological
+order, and write down from them suitable suggestions dealing with
+the various stages, such as I have just written with regard to the
+impatient man. That every night and morning, or at any other time
+during the day, he should for five or ten minutes lie down, relax
+himself, and close his eyes; that he should then repeat to himself
+fifteen or twenty times each of the suggestions, taking the earliest
+first, then the next, and so on. They need not be repeated out loud,
+but if repeated under the breath and accompanied by a suitable movement
+of the lips, it will suffice. Effort should be avoided; suggestion
+is not an effort of will so much as an impression effected by the
+imagination. When an individual is giving himself suggestion, he is not
+fighting an active battle, he is merely allowing ideas to sink into his
+mind; and if they are repeated often enough, like drops of water which
+in time wear a channel in the stone, they will make their mark and
+produce their effects in due course.
+
+Suggestion, in fact, minimises the need for the use of will-power,
+at any given moment in a difficult situation. If the battle has been
+fought out beforehand in imagination, it will automatically succeed
+when the time comes. The will has played its part previously when
+adopting the method of suggestion.
+
+This is not a text-book on suggestion, and I do not propose to go
+further into the method here. I merely wish to point out the practical
+efficiency of the use of a certain amount of auto-suggestion when
+applied in conjunction with the other methods of combating Narcissism
+already outlined, and when applied in an intelligent manner, so that
+not merely the symptoms, but the original causes themselves shall be
+affected by it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+The previous portion of this book has been devoted to showing how
+Narcissism may be harmful, and how in its endeavour to obtain
+satisfaction it may render the individual unhappy in the utmost
+degree. It is possible that the reader will have gathered that the
+author regards Narcissism as wholly and completely a useless and
+detrimental element in life; the more so, since at various points
+we have had to emphasise that in one form or another very little of
+it persisting in adult life may be a great deal too much. It should
+be realised, however, that Narcissism to a slight extent, and at
+certain periods, plays an important and also necessary part in the
+individual’s life. We mentioned at one place that a certain amount of
+identification was beneficial in choosing one’s life partner. Whereas
+too much identification might lead to one’s choosing a sexual partner
+of the same sex, a small amount of identification might lead to one’s
+choosing a partner with the same tastes, and would further lead to a
+tendency to enjoy whatsoever the other one enjoyed, and to dislike what
+the other one disliked, and this similarity would lead to a certain
+harmony in life. _Narcissism is a normal thing in the new-born infant,
+and Narcissism is the root of many virtues; but its final adult form
+must be sublimated and very much attenuated._ It is like the salt in
+cooking; a little is essential to bring out the flavour, but a very
+little more spoils the whole dish.
+
+A certain amount of self-love, self-appreciation, self-importance, and
+self-consciousness of one’s own capacities is necessary in every one;
+without it he would be ill prepared to cope with men and circumstances.
+But this necessary self-importance and self-appreciation is not, as
+many might think, due to Narcissism alone. It has a slight Narcissistic
+element, but it is largely a resultant of other unconscious instincts,
+which we have not attempted to deal with here; and we only mention
+it, lest the reader should draw the conclusion that these necessary
+elements in our character are drawn purely from a Narcissistic
+basis, and that he should therefore be left puzzled as to how, if he
+should eradicate Narcissism, he would be able to retain necessary
+characteristics which apparently belong to this same instinct. It is
+also very necessary for the reader to bear in mind that much which
+may be developed from Narcissism is useful; even though the original
+from which it came may be dangerous and harmful. Moreover, a certain
+amount of enjoyment of phantasy such as is obtained from novels or
+theatres may be in many people quite a useful and adequate form of
+relaxation. With them it may be strictly cut off from real life, may
+be strictly limited as regards time and place, and, in fact, entirely
+under their control. In such persons it forms a useful element in their
+lives. I do not say that if their early education and environment had
+been different they might not possibly possess an even better form of
+recreation, but merely that, taking facts as they are, in certain cases
+it forms a useful factor in the working scheme of life.
+
+In others, however, in those where it has exceeded the limits of
+absolute control, it is necessary, for the time being at least, to
+attempt to cut it out as completely as possible, because where it is
+allowed slight free play, it is liable to get out of hand, unless it
+can be dealt with absolutely at the will of the individual. Hence the
+necessity for such stringent treatment as I have laid down in the
+previous chapters of this book.
+
+I have attempted to show that happiness is, for the most part,
+within the individual’s own grasp. Happiness comes from within the
+individual and not from without. Unhappiness must not be confused
+with pain, either mental or physical, for pain is a normal reaction,
+to a harmful stimulus which all are liable to feel; it is for the
+most part beyond the individual’s control so long as the stimulus
+persists; but the peace of mind, the absence of worry, of irritability,
+of perpetual uneasiness, which we call unhappiness, lies within the
+control of everybody. It largely consists in continually recognising
+what facts are unchangeable, and ceasing to bemoan or phantasy about
+these unchangeable facts. It is true that the road to happiness may
+be difficult if we have long been accustomed to tread the path of
+Narcissism, but it is equally true that if the advice laid down in this
+book be followed patiently and systematically, a very much happier
+frame of mind will be attained as a result. In a few cases, Narcissism
+is not a predominant factor causing the temperamental disturbance
+although superficially it may appear to be so. In such cases (where
+other primitive instincts are really of paramount importance) the same
+degree of improvement will not be attained by this method of self
+treatment and only a more prolonged course of regular psycho-analysis
+is likely to produce the desired result.
+
+Happiness is not to be found by seeking happiness in the direct sense.
+This, I am aware, sounds very much like a mere high-sounding thought
+of a writer. It is the sort of phrase that people dismiss with the
+remark, “That is all very well in theory.” This statement, however,
+is not made from any moral or sentimental point of view, nor on any
+purely theoretical grounds, but as a scientific fact, which has been
+demonstrated as the result of psychological research. It may be
+interesting to note here how much the psychology of happiness is in
+agreement with many of the teachings of the New Testament, although a
+different terminology and mode of expression may be used.
+
+It was pointed out earlier how the individual who employed too much
+phantasy thought in youth might worry himself into an early grave,
+although he was the same individual who most desired a long life. It
+has now been shown that happiness does not come to those who seek
+happiness, but to those who can adapt themselves to realities, that
+is, to those who can control their Narcissism. Narcissism is not so
+very different from the word “self,” as used in Christian teachings,
+and any who are interested enough to compare them will find that there
+is considerable parallelism between Christian teaching and certain
+psychological observations.
+
+I must emphasise the fact once more that patience, that is a
+realization of the time factor, is very necessary for those who attempt
+self-treatment on the lines indicated in this book. For since lack of
+this is often one of their faults to start with, they may otherwise
+involve themselves in a vicious circle, from which they do not
+escape. Patience and attention to detail will, however, enable them to
+accomplish that improvement which they have set out to achieve. In the
+words of Horace, “Happiness is here, happiness is everywhere, if only a
+well-regulated mind does not fail you.”
+
+
+THE END
+
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+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Omnipotent Self, by Paul Bousfield.
+    </title>
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+
+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The omnipotent self, a study in self-deception and self-cure, by Paul Bousfield</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+
+<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The omnipotent self, a study in self-deception and self-cure</p>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Paul Bousfield</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: October 8, 2021 [eBook #66496]</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Turgut Dincer, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</div>
+
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OMNIPOTENT SELF, A STUDY IN SELF-DECEPTION AND SELF-CURE ***</div>
+
+<div class="mynote"><p class="center">Transcriber&#8217;s Note:<br /><br />
+Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.<br /></p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p>
+
+<h1>THE OMNIPOTENT SELF </h1>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/title.jpg" alt="title page" /></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="bold2">THE OMNIPOTENT<br /> SELF</p>
+
+<p class="bold">A Study in Self-Deception and Self-Cure</p>
+
+<p class="bold space-above">BY</p>
+
+<p class="bold2">PAUL BOUSFIELD</p>
+
+<p class="bold">M.R.C.S. (<span class="smcap">Eng.</span>), L.R.C.P. (<span class="smcap">Lond.</span>)</p>
+
+<p class="bold"><i>Physician to the London Neurological Clinic (Ministry of Pensions),<br />
+Late Demonstrator of Morbid Anatomy, St. George&#8217;s Hospital, Late<br />
+M.O. American Women&#8217;s Hospital for Officers, etc., etc.</i></p>
+
+<p class="bold">Author of <i>The Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="bold space-above">LONDON<br />
+KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER &amp; CO., <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span>,<br />
+BROADWAY HOUSE, 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.C.<br />1923</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center">PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE DEVONSHIRE PRESS, TORQUAY.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p class="center">&#8220;<i>Nature has granted to all to be happy if we but knew how to use her
+gifts.</i>&#8221;&mdash;<span class="smcap">Claudius.</span></p>
+
+<p>Many people, while not considering themselves as suffering from any
+nervous ailment, nor desiring the services of a physician, are yet far
+from being perfectly happy in their mental outlook and temperament.
+Either their feelings are too easily roused, or they are inclined to
+worry, to be depressed, irritable, nervous, or over-sensitive. Trifles
+which to them seem no trifles interfere with the smooth course of their
+daily lives, or this slight abnormality may manifest itself in an
+over-sensitiveness to physical pain or to mental or moral difficulties
+and conflicts. It is with the hope of helping a few such individuals
+to a better understanding of themselves, and through this to a more
+equable temperament and greater happiness, that this little book is
+written.</p>
+
+<p>There is no hard and fast line between the normal and the abnormal
+person, and indeed a very real difficulty exists in even defining a
+normal person. If we take our definition of normal as being &#8220;average
+or conforming to type or standard,&#8221; then the majority of people
+are normal. If, on the other hand, we take its other meaning, that
+of &#8220;performing the proper functions,&#8221; then there are few people
+approaching the normal under modern civilized conditions. A tendency
+to undue irritability or depression is a mild and very common form of
+abnormality. Hysterias, obsessions, and unreasonable fears are greater
+abnormalities, and fortunately of less frequent occurrence, while
+certain forms of insanity are still greater deviations from the normal.
+A similar combination of causes, however, may form the basis of all
+these abnormalities,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> and these various deviations from the normal are
+more of degree than of kind. But whereas in cases of obsessions and
+unreasonable fears or in such other abnormalities as homo-sexuality or
+sexual impotence, etc., the causes are deeply hidden and the forces at
+work somewhat complicated, in the lesser abnormalities there are causes
+frequently lying less deeply.</p>
+
+<p>In the case of obsessions, phobias, hysterias, sexual abnormalities,
+and so forth, we can only hope to effect an improvement by a thorough
+analysis of the unconscious causes and conflicts by a competent
+psycho-analyst. In the lesser troubles of the mind, however,
+considerable improvement can often be effected by means of a somewhat
+superficial self-analysis. This will be directed towards investigating
+one in particular of the primary causes which play an important part in
+all the minor unpleasant temperamental faults.</p>
+
+<p>In order to teach the patient to help himself, it will first of all be
+necessary to enlighten him to a considerable extent as to the general
+evolution of his character; at any rate in as far as one important
+mental complex known as &#8220;Narcissism&#8221; is concerned. In doing this, many
+other mental complexes will have to be superficially touched upon; but
+in order to simplify the work for the uninitiated, they will not be
+specifically named when they appear; for, although this would make the
+work more technically accurate, it would, at the same time, make it
+less clear, and in a book of this type this would be very undesirable.
+The first object I have in mind is that the work shall be lucid,
+concise, and readily understood by any person of ordinary education,
+so that he may gain an insight into the essential causes and growth
+of some of his abnormal characteristics without undue complication
+of ideas. It is further hoped that this small work may be of some
+assistance in suggesting to parents a few of the many things to be
+avoided in the early training of the child.</p>
+
+<p class="right">PAUL BOUSFIELD</p>
+
+<p><i>7, Harley Street, W.</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table summary="CONTENTS">
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="3" class="center">PART I: THE OMNIPOTENT SELF</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2" class="left"><span class="smaller">CHAP.</span></td>
+    <td><span class="smaller">PAGE</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>I&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Unconscious Mind</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>II&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Repression</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>III&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Forces Shaping Character</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>IV&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Determinism and Will Power</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>V&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Narcissism</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>VI&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Fact and Phantasy</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>VII&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Identification</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>VIII&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Irritable Temperament</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>IX&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Rationalization</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="3" class="center">PART II: PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>X&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Self Analysis</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>XI&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Readjustment of Objectives</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>XII&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Readjustment of Thought</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_138">138</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>XIII&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Auto-Suggestion</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>XIV&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Conclusion</span></td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_165">165</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>PART I</h2>
+
+<p class="bold2">THE OMNIPOTENT SELF </p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER I</span> <span class="smaller">THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND</span></h2>
+
+<h3>§1</h3>
+
+<p>In considering the question of character, with its various
+irregularities and idiosyncracies, we shall have to accustom ourselves
+to dealing with factors which do not exist in consciousness at all.
+Strange as it may seem to the uninitiated, many of our thoughts, ideas,
+and motives are quite outside our normal consciousness, and of them
+only the resulting emotions and actions appear on the surface. This
+may be taken as an absolute and indisputable fact, and one which the
+reader should try to appreciate at the outset, although it is somewhat
+difficult to realise, for we always find it hard to apprehend and
+understand something which we can neither see nor touch.</p>
+
+<p>If one were to tell the ordinary labourer that water is composed of
+two gases which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> when combined form a liquid, he would probably be
+quite incredulous, and possibly in his ignorance might even deny
+emphatically any such possibility, on the grounds that it was against
+all common-sense and experience; he failing to realise, of course, how
+very limited were both his sense and his experience. In spite of his
+feelings of absolute certainty, and in spite of complete faith in the
+unshakable logic behind his belief, he would be wrong.</p>
+
+<p>While it is not to be expected that many readers of this book will deny
+the existence of the unconscious part of the mind, it may well be that
+many will fail to realise that it is of more than theoretical value.
+It therefore becomes necessary for us to examine the matter somewhat
+carefully, and to familiarise ourselves with the ideas of the working
+of this unconscious mind.</p>
+
+<p>Without going into the further sub-divisions recognised in psychology,
+we will confine ourselves to dividing the mind into two parts&mdash;the
+conscious and the unconscious. <i>And of these, at any given moment, the
+conscious is by far the smaller part.</i> We are actually <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>conscious at
+any moment of but very few things, such as the book we are reading,
+the chair we are sitting on, and dimly of our immediate surroundings.
+A thousand memories which we might conjure up of our childhood and
+our past are, for the time being, far from consciousness. Yet these
+matters exist somewhere in the mind, for we are able, if we choose,
+to search about in it, and bring them into consciousness, even though
+we may not have thought of them for many years. This leads us at once
+to a striking fact, namely, that while many things can be remembered
+at will, others which we feel we ought to remember, cannot be brought
+to mind at all. It is an extremely common experience to find that one
+has forgotten a name completely, and that no effort will bring it into
+consciousness, yet later on, apparently without effort, the name will
+&#8220;come back to us,&#8221; as we say. In fact, the very phrase we use&mdash;&#8220;come
+back to us&#8221;&mdash;implies that it has been somewhere away from us, that it
+has been lodged in some place that is foreign and unknown to us, yet
+which we are aware is somewhere within us.</p>
+
+<p>It is also common knowledge that a great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> many events and scenes of
+considerable importance to us at the time of action are forgotten, and
+that they can only be recollected if some sort of stimulus or reminder
+be given. For instance, a person may have forgotten completely where
+and how he spent a holiday ten years ago. No amount of racking his
+brain brings anything to light. But having been reminded of a single
+incident that occurred during that holiday, the whole of the rest may
+come up from the unconscious in full detail.</p>
+
+<p>There is a third kind of memory more important still, if one may
+be permitted to call it memory, and that is the memory of facts
+which no <i>ordinary</i> stimulus of this sort will ever bring up into
+consciousness again. The term &#8220;memory&#8221; is used here because we have
+every reason to believe that somewhere in the unconscious all facts
+have been registered, and in many cases may be partially brought into
+consciousness again by suitable means, such for instance, as hypnotism
+or psycho-analysis, (two very different methods, by the way). Yet,
+though these impressions have been made on the mind, and though there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
+is this unconscious memory still in existence, in the ordinary course
+of events we should never again be conscious of them.</p>
+
+<p><i>We may, however, be very conscious of actions and emotions emanating
+from the unconscious memory.</i> Thus, suppose that as a child one had
+lived in the country, and on several very happy occasions a bonfire
+had been lighted at a picnic, and that later on one lived in a town,
+and that this picnic which happened at the age of three or four years
+had become completely forgotten, so much so that even photographs of
+the scenes or conversations on the subject carried on by other people
+brought no memory to light and seemed to touch no chord; it would still
+be quite likely that the mere smell of a bon-fire in the distance or
+any smell resembling this would be enough to cause a considerable
+feeling of elation and happiness in the person, a feeling that
+something pleasant was taking place, an idea that if only one could
+remember, a pleasant picture could be called up. This is because it is
+associated in the unconscious mind with these previous happy occasions.</p>
+
+<p>Or again, suppose a child at the age of two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> or three years has been
+dropped into a pond and nearly drowned. Although the incident may
+in later years be completely forgotten, the horror of deep water
+and all its associations may vividly persist. It seems probable,
+and a considerable amount of work has been done on this subject in
+psycho-analysis, that every action, thought, or idea that has ever
+been registered in the mind, even to some extent before birth, is
+permanently fixed; and that although much of this cannot be brought
+into consciousness by present methods, yet all the feelings and
+emotions, however slight, which attended these thoughts, ideas, and
+actions are perpetually being called forth by slight stimuli of which
+we are unaware, and these are playing their part in moulding our
+thoughts, feelings and actions in the present time.</p>
+
+<p>I had an interesting patient a short time ago who, owing to certain
+experiences in the war, was suffering from complete loss of memory; so
+complete that he did not know his own wife nor even his parents. Under
+hypnosis, the whole of his memory was rapidly brought back; and when it
+appeared to be normal and both he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> and his parents were quite confident
+that it was as good as it had ever been, I suggested that we might try
+an experiment to see if we could improve it still further. I asked him,
+amongst other things, if he could voluntarily remember the first time
+he wore knickerbockers. He had not the faintest recollection of the
+matter. I then hypnotised him, and told him to give me the details. He
+described the knickerbockers minutely, the number of buttons on them,
+the fact that he wore them on his third birthday, that his father had
+given him a penny, and told him that &#8220;now he was a little man, he must
+have money in his pocket,&#8221; together with a very large number of other
+details. I enquired of his father and mother and sisters, and they
+corroborated the details in every particular.</p>
+
+<p>I have tried several similar experiments with him and with one or two
+other patients under hypnosis with considerable success, and have even
+tried to take them back to the memory of their own birth. They have
+frequently produced many memories of events that occurred before the
+age of one year, but previous to that could only give reproductions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> of
+movements and pleasant and unpleasant emotions. Whether these latter
+are memories or not one has unfortunately no means of proving. But the
+fact that under hypnosis both educated and uneducated people alike
+exhibit extremely similar ideas as to types of movements, expressions,
+and feelings at the various stages of their very early life, inclines
+one to think that these reproductions may be memories. One has,
+however, to beware of the fact that observation and knowledge acquired
+in later periods of their lives might be the real factor underlying
+their apparent reproductions. Further evidence of a different nature
+will be given on this point, however, at a later stage in the book.</p>
+
+<h3>§2</h3>
+
+<p>So far, we have shown that there is an unconscious part of the mind
+which acts as a store-house for memories, ideas, and emotions of the
+past. We have not, however, shown that it is anything more than a
+store-house. But if we look into it from other points of view, we
+shall see that it is a great deal more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> than a mere store-house, for
+it thinks, reasons, comes to conclusions, and in fact assists in
+controlling our acts at every turn; indeed this unconscious part of our
+mind wields driving forces of the utmost potency in moulding our lives.</p>
+
+<p>Let us examine first the <i>reasoning</i> faculty of the unconscious mind.</p>
+
+<p>Maeder gives a good example of this. A house-surgeon at a hospital
+wished particularly to keep a certain appointment, but he was not
+allowed to leave the hospital until his chief, who was out, should
+return later in the evening. As his appointment was of considerable
+importance, he decided to brave the anger of his chief. He therefore
+kept his appointment, but when he returned later, he found to his
+astonishment that he had left a light in his room, a thing he had
+never done before, although he had occupied that room for two years.
+He thought the matter over, and soon realised why he had done this.
+The chief, on going to his own house, would pass the window and would
+see the light burning within, and imagine that his house-surgeon was
+at home. The unconscious mind had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> rapidly reasoned this out and had
+determined that the conscious mind should forget to turn off the light.</p>
+
+<p>Another illustration of the persistent way in which the unconscious
+mind will reason and act can be given from my own experience. I had to
+attend a lecture given by a man, with whose views I totally disagreed.
+I had no wish to attend the lecture, but felt compelled to do so in
+an official capacity. Consciously, I determined to go; unconsciously
+when I made the note of the lecture, I wrote down the time of it in
+my engagement-book a week late. On discovering this, I consciously
+endeavoured to rectify the matter, but my unconscious mind wrote
+Tuesday instead of Thursday in my engagement-book, so it went down
+wrong once again. Later, having been forced to see my mistake by a
+friend mentioning the matter, I omitted for a short time to rectify it
+in my engagement-book, feeling sure that I should remember to do so a
+little later. But alas! for the determination of my conscious mind. I
+forthwith made an appointment for a patient at the real time appointed
+for the lecture, and so could not in the end<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> attend it. Now, these
+lectures were held regularly on a particular day of the week, and I
+had generally looked forward to them, and attended them without any
+difficulty. It was only in this one case that I did not wish to go. My
+conscious mind decided to attend; but my unconscious mind played trick
+after trick in order that my real desires should be satisfied. Such
+examples could be multiplied indefinitely. It is possible that many
+would say that they do not actually prove unconscious reasoning nor
+power of thought. Let me, therefore, give one or two simple examples of
+a different nature.</p>
+
+<p>A friend of mine once told me that he had spent several days in trying
+to work out a chess problem without success. One morning, he woke
+up with a picture in his mind of the exact moves that he must make.
+The problem had been solved in his sleep unconsciously, and with no
+recollection on waking of any conscious effort at reaching the solution.</p>
+
+<p>In my own experience, as a school-boy, I failed to solve a problem in
+Euclid during an examination. On the morning afterwards, the solution
+flashed through my brain <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>suddenly, as I lay in bed. Whether I had
+solved it in my sleep, or whether it was solved in bed as I lay awake,
+I am not prepared to say. Of this much, however, I am certain. I made
+no conscious effort; my mind merely wandered lazily in the direction
+of the previous day&#8217;s failure, and almost instantaneously the right
+solution appeared without effort.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now take another example of work which the unconscious mind is
+called upon to perform; an example which we are accustomed to view
+without question or thought, which is comparatively commonplace,
+and which we dismiss summarily by referring to it as &#8220;habit.&#8221; The
+accomplished pianist reads the music in front of him consciously, but
+he is not conscious of the extremely rapid translation which takes
+place from the brain to the fingers, so as to produce complicated
+movements on the key-board. And if we examine it carefully, we shall
+find that something very wonderful has actually taken place outside
+his consciousness. When he was first learning to play, he looked at
+the note on his music, and said to himself &#8220;That is C.&#8221; He looked at
+the key on the piano,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> and repeated &#8220;That is C.&#8221; He was taught that a
+particular finger must be placed on that particular note when playing
+in a certain key. He was taught that it had to be hit in a particular
+way and held down for a particular time, according to the size and
+shape of the note he was reading on the sheet of music in front of him.
+He was further taught that in order to modify any sound in a particular
+manner, he could use his feet on one or other of the pedals, and must
+be extremely careful to put his feet down and lift his feet up again
+at exactly the right moment. He was taught that when certain symbols,
+known as sharps and flats, preceded the notes at the beginning of his
+piece of music, the whole scheme of fingering would be different. And,
+at first, he had laboriously to go through the process of watching
+first the music and then the key-board, and of <i>thinking</i> at each
+point what he should do with his fingers and with his feet, and how he
+should do it, and for what period he should keep on doing it. Now, the
+whole process is gone through with half-a-million notes which he has
+never seen before, many of them played simultaneously, and with an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+exactitude which he never attained when he was consciously thinking.
+Whatever may be the nature of the unconscious action which is taking
+place, all he has in consciousness is the music in front of him, and
+the final sound that he is producing, together with the emotions which
+these called forth in him as a result of the whole.</p>
+
+<p>Can there be any doubt left that a complicated unconscious process of
+the same kind is taking place?</p>
+
+<p>Or again, let us examine our own personal likes and dislikes.
+Frequently one can assign no reason whatsoever for these. They may
+exist, in fact, against what we call our better judgment. We may
+love a person in spite of certain faults, or dislike him in spite
+of his virtues. If the matter be examined further, however, we not
+infrequently find the reasons for our emotions towards him. Either
+his manner, dress, or tone of voice, or some other trivial feature
+may resemble someone we have liked before, or on the contrary, some
+mannerism may call to mind a similar mannerism which we associate
+either in ourselves or in some other person, with unpleasant
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>characteristics. Our unconscious mind has rapidly sized up all these
+points, appraised them, and presented our conscious mind with the
+resulting emotions alone.</p>
+
+<p>So-called intuition is, to a large extent, merely rapid unconscious
+reasoning, in which minute details are taken into consideration by the
+unconscious, and only the final opinion presented to consciousness.
+One should beware of trusting intuition too much, however, in spite of
+popular prejudice to the contrary, for unconscious reasoning is just
+as liable to be wrong in its conclusions as is conscious reasoning;
+and it is just as liable to reach the conclusion which best serves its
+immediate purpose, and to suppress truth where it is unpleasant.<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" >[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>Some psychologists think that the unconscious mind is <i>infallible</i>
+in purely <i>deductive</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> reasoning from the <i>premises</i> from which it
+starts. But it provides its own premises from a secret store and also
+accepts any suggested premises which are not repugnant. The premises
+may therefore be wrong but the deductive reasoning is accurate. In this
+case the conclusions will only be wrong because the premises are wrong.</p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1">[1]</a> Unconscious reasoning or intuition is found chiefly in
+those who have not been trained in subjects which induce and train
+logical conscious reasoning. It is not a prerogative of sex, but on
+the whole is found more amongst women, merely because of their method
+of training from childhood upwards. In children and savages intuition
+is found equally present in both sexes. The loss of intuition merely
+means that the training of the conscious mind has caused us to mistrust
+conclusions for which we cannot consciously see the reasons.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER II</span> <span class="smaller">REPRESSION</span></h2>
+
+<h3>§1</h3>
+
+<p>One other faculty of the unconscious mind requires special mention, and
+that is its power of obliterating memories from the conscious mind,
+or as it is better termed, of <i>repressing</i>, since this word not only
+implies pushing out of consciousness, but also preventing from coming
+into consciousness. It is found that all persons have formed a regular
+habit of forgetting or partially forgetting, (and so disguising),
+things which are unpleasant to them. This especially refers to those
+things which are unpleasant to their self-respect, their moral beliefs
+and ideas, and their general pride in themselves. The primitive
+immoralities and thoughts and actions of early childhood which would
+now offend their æsthetic and moral susceptibilities, are, more or
+less, completely put out of sight, together with a host of unpleasant
+ideas and thoughts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> which have cropped up from childhood onwards.
+Indeed, there is a general tendency for anything of an unpleasant
+nature to be pushed out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>Darwin, in his autobiography, states, &#8220;I had, during many years,
+followed a golden rule, namely that whenever a published fact, a new
+observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general
+results, to make a memorandum of it without fail, and at once, for I
+had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt
+to escape from the memory than favourable ones.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>We had a further example in the case of the house-surgeon who &#8220;forgot&#8221;
+to put out his light, and examples are extremely common in everyday
+life. We forget to post letters entrusted to us against our will, but
+we do not forget to post our own love-letters. We mislay bills very
+readily, but rarely do we mislay a cheque.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst my patients suffering from shell-shock, I have had very many
+hundreds who have completely forgotten some of the most unpleasant
+and terrifying experiences which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> occurred to them out at the front.
+Others unconsciously had found the easiest method of dealing with
+the unpleasant past to be that of blotting the whole of it out,
+dissociating it completely from their conscious mind, and then stating
+that they remembered nothing of their lives until they woke up in
+hospital. It is not only memories, however, which are repressed and
+remain dormant in the unconscious mind. Most of our primitive instincts
+handed on from our savage forefathers before even the evolution of man
+in his present form, lie similarly buried in this unconscious part of
+the mind, and we are wont to deny emphatically that we possess these
+unpleasant instincts. Nevertheless, just as <i>in utero</i> we repeat more
+or less in detail the history of our physical evolution, so do we at
+that period and in childhood repeat to a great extent the history of
+our psychic evolution; and just as during this early period we possess
+the physical attributes of many of our ancestors, such as the gills
+of the fish or the tail of the lower vertebrates, so psychically do
+we at a somewhat later period, possess the instincts and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> desires of
+our progenitors, and utilise them as the hidden foundation stones
+in building our adult mental constitution. These various primitive
+instincts include all kinds of desires which would consciously be
+regarded as sexual perversions and moral crimes of different kinds, and
+they are present in all of us without exception. Our upbringing and
+conscious outlook upon them, however, causes them to be so abhorrent to
+us, that we successfully keep the majority of such ideas and feelings
+<i>from ever coming out of the unconscious in their primitive form</i>.
+In other words, we repress them. Occasionally, however, there is a
+tendency for these ancestral instincts to become conscious, and in
+our further efforts to prevent this we may develop instead hysterias,
+obsessions and unreasonable fears, together with many other nervous
+and abnormal signs and symptoms, into the nature of which it is not
+my intention to inquire further in this present volume. Those who
+are interested in pursuing this line of investigation will find an
+elementary account of it in a previous work of mine, &#8220;The Elements
+of Practical Psycho-Analysis.&#8221; All that I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> wish to emphasise here
+is that we do push out from the conscious mind unpleasant thoughts
+and memories, that we do repress and keep in the unconscious mind
+unpleasant desires and instincts, and that we do, as a result of this,
+have many unconscious or semi-conscious conflicts within ourselves,
+which may lead to unpleasant feelings of depression, irritability,
+fear, or in more pronounced cases hysterias, obsessions, and even
+permanent mental derangement.</p>
+
+<h3>§2</h3>
+
+<p>A further and somewhat important result of our possessing so much
+which is unconscious and of having so many feelings and ideas in
+consciousness of which we do not know the origin, or of whose
+origins we have but the vaguest and haziest notion is known as
+<i>rationalization</i>. This word signifies that we find reasons for doing
+or believing things which are of a pleasant nature and agreeable to us,
+and <i>vice versa</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Following on this rationalisation comes also a certain conservatism,
+which tends to retard progress of any sort, which dislikes looking at
+new ideas, and this for a very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> obvious reason. Looking at new ideas,
+examining ourselves or our work very closely, has a tendency to bring
+to light, from time to time, the very primitive instincts and feelings
+which we have been at so much pains to repress. And rather than submit
+to the indignity of discovering how really imperfect we are, and having
+our pride in our divinely constituted natures shaken, we have acquired
+a habit of denying and fighting strenuously against discovering truths
+connected with either our moral or physical evolution which would be
+unpleasant to us. In the light of our upbringing, such new truths are
+often unpleasant, therefore we rationalise that they must be untrue.
+For having been educated to venerate logic and reason, we can only
+be satisfied with any given conclusion we come to when we feel that
+it is justifiable in the light of logic and reason. But the logic of
+rationalisation is false logic.</p>
+
+<p>For many years, scientific and popular thought denied strenuously the
+possibility of the now universally accepted theory of human evolution;
+and on scientific grounds it was urged, with much plausible reasoning,
+that it was not possible to develop a high type<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> like man from any low
+form of animal. On religious grounds it was argued equally passionately
+that if evolution were true, the Bible was wrong, God disappeared, and
+therefore the theory of evolution was untrue. The real reasons lying
+behind those reasons advanced by both the scientist and the general
+public, however, were not the reasons so carefully thought out by
+them, but consisted largely in the fact that they did not wish to find
+that the body, which they had hitherto thought a special and divine
+creation partaking of the miraculous, to be merely a stage in the
+evolution of life on this planet, and possibly not a final stage at
+that. For in that case, no longer would man be able to flatter himself
+that he was almost divine, he would have to relegate himself to the
+possibility of being in a stage of semi-barbarism; he would no longer
+be a final perfect product, but merely a half-finished article. It was
+this blow to his pride that he could not stand. And it is the same
+to-day. Whenever there is a likelihood that examination, particularly
+through research work, has thrown light on his psychic evolution,
+on the imperfections of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> his moral laws, or on the crudity of some
+conventional custom, the process which takes place in him is much the
+same.</p>
+
+<p>Firstly, dislike of the idea. Secondly, on further examination of it,
+hatred of the idea. Thirdly, rationalisation directed against the idea.
+Fourthly, contentment, in that he has proved by logic and reason that
+the idea is wrong. Hence, it is that the truth takes long to emerge,
+and that obsessions and hysterias, and even trivial abnormalities are
+difficult to cure, for the cure involves seeing our own imperfections
+naked and undisguised.</p>
+
+<p>In all these cases, we are trying to keep out of consciousness those
+things which will distress us or cause us to have conflicts, or to have
+to readjust our views of ourselves, or in fact cause us unpleasantness
+in any form. It will be noticed that I have mentioned pride in the
+belief that we have reached a condition of final development, and in
+our superiority over the rest of nature, as being one of the important
+factors in preventing our advance. It is to the development of this
+pride, and its ramifications that I am devoting the major portion of
+this book.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER III</span> <span class="smaller">THE FORCES SHAPING CHARACTER</span></h2>
+
+<p>It will be seen from the foregoing that evolution of the individual
+character may be the result of a very large number of forces at
+work, of which many are quite unconscious; and that any considerable
+disturbance or variation of the unconscious factors will considerably
+modify the character of the individual, in spite of conscious desires
+in some other direction. The character of an individual is the sum of
+his thoughts, ideas, capacities, desires, feelings and actions, and the
+general forces moulding it may be briefly summarised as follows:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>1. The primitive instincts inherited from his ancestors, and held
+back in the unconscious mind.</p>
+
+<p>2. Environment and education.</p>
+
+<p>3. That pride in his own greatness, to which we referred in
+the last chapter, which modifies all the other forces at work,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>according to the direction of its development. This force will
+henceforth be called by the name of Narcissism, for a reason
+shortly to be explained.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>§2</h3>
+
+<p>Of the inherited instincts we have already said as much as is necessary
+here. It suffices for us to recognise that they are for the most part
+of a primitive erotic type, and that they are so repressed and modified
+as to be unrecognisable in the normal adult. When they have been
+ineffectually converted by environment and education, we have present
+the basis of many neurotic and functional conditions, and this again is
+a matter which is outside the scope of the present work.</p>
+
+<h3>§3</h3>
+
+<p>Environment and education are extremely comprehensive terms as used
+in psychology. Environment does not merely refer to the home with its
+visible surroundings, nor does education merely refer to the scholastic
+side of it. Environment and education include the treatment of the
+child by the nurse during<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> the first week of life; for instance,
+whether she leaves it alone when it cries, or whether she soothes it
+and rocks it to sleep again. A trivial fact, the reader will think,
+especially in the first week of the child&#8217;s life, yet experience
+shows us that this environment and education of the first week is an
+extremely important factor in its after-life. The thousand little
+actions, the trivial chance words of anger or contempt, not merely
+of the parent but of strangers or of other children, all make their
+impressions on the infantile unconscious mind. They all belong, in the
+strictest sense, to what we term its environment and education. Any
+stimulus, in fact, however small, which is capable of reaching the
+brain forms part of this environment and education which is reacting
+on the child. Psychologists are now generally of the opinion that
+the essential elements of the individual character have all been
+definitely formed by the age of five, and that, important as training
+in successive years may be, the environment and education during those
+first five years are more important still.</p>
+
+<p><i>It is the object of education and</i> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span><i>environment to modify and utilise
+the force of the primitive instincts with which the child comes into
+the world in the best possible way.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Three things may happen to any particular instinct.</i> Firstly, it may
+remain unchanged and unrepressed, in which case the individual will
+be said, on reaching adult life, to be perverted in some way. Let us
+take as an example that instinct which exists in some animals, and
+which urges them at the mating season to exhibit their genital organs
+to their fellows of the opposite sex, with the perfectly natural and
+proper end in view of propagating the species. We occasionally find
+adult human beings in whom this instinct has remained unchanged and
+uncontrolled, and they generally find their way, sooner or later,
+into prison. The psychological term for the offence they commit is
+&#8220;exhibitionism.&#8221; In the small child, however, we have often seen this
+instinct at work, without regarding it as objectionable in any way.
+We have laughed at the little child who delights in running about
+naked, or asks us to come and see it being bathed, or on occasion calls
+even more obvious attention to its state<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> of nakedness. It is quite
+unconscious of the primitive instinct which it is displaying, and since
+it is a child and cannot in any way fulfil the sexual objects of the
+instinct, we pass the matter over, without further thought.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, our primitive instincts may be <i>displaced</i>, and the
+displacement must be such as to conceal them from our conscious
+thoughts, in order that they may be tolerated by the conscious mind.
+For instance, the normal adult will not be guilty of exhibiting his
+nakedness in the way above referred to, nor will he display desires of
+sexual exhibitionism in a conscious manner. But he, or more frequently
+she, will <i>displace</i> these ideas, and will only call attention to the
+sex of her body indirectly by exhibiting the neck or arms, or more
+indirectly still through the medium of clothes, designed to suggest,
+(for the most part unconsciously) erotic ideas.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, a much higher state may be reached by some people in which the
+primitive instinct has now lost entirely its erotic meaning, instead
+of being merely disguised and displaced as in the last case. The force
+and energy of it has all gone from the personal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> physical plane to
+serve a useful social purpose of a non-sexual nature. This is known as
+<i>sublimation</i>, and instead of the desire of our exhibitionist to show
+himself or herself physically, the person may attain the desire by
+showing a fine character, by designing a fine building, achieving some
+high position, or anything in fact of an ideal or non-erotic nature.</p>
+
+<p>Exactly the same process takes place in the opposite of exhibitionism,
+which in its primitive form we term observationism. &#8220;Peeping Tom&#8221; is a
+celebrated example of this. We have a <i>displacement</i> of observationism
+in the fairly average young man, who likes to observe all that he can
+of the charms of every woman he comes into contact with, who takes
+an eager interest in her shoulders, breasts, underclothing, and any
+part she may exhibit. And we have the third or <i>sublimated</i> stage in
+the scientist, who has turned most of his primitive sexual instinct
+of &#8220;looking&#8221; in the sexual sense into looking down the microscope, or
+searching for the secrets of Nature, and delving amidst her hidden
+laws, instead of using the same <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>primitive desire to look in an
+unsublimated and rather more infantile manner.</p>
+
+<p>It is exactly the same with a large number of other primitive
+instincts, which even did I mention them here would not be grasped
+or understood at all by many without very much further explanation.
+Suffice it to say, that many of our higher activities and desires
+are sublimations of lower and more primitive instincts, which we are
+learning to develop and control; <i>and that education and environment
+have, as their object, the training of the child by turning the forces
+at work in his primitive instincts through the stage of displacement
+into the final one of sublimation</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It should be clearly grasped that the energy lying behind our primitive
+instincts, whether it be repressed, displaced or sublimated, is a
+very real force, comparable with the physical energy which we are
+accustomed to deal with in everyday life. <i>And this energy must find
+some outlet for its discharge.</i> Thus,<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" >[2]</a>&#8220;We know as regards physical
+energy that there are not several kinds of energy, but merely several
+manifestations of it, and that it may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> be changed from one form of
+manifestation to another, but that still the sum total of the original
+energy remains without addition or loss.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Thus there is a given amount of energy stored in a ton of coal. This
+energy can manifest itself as <i>heat</i> in the furnace and boiler. By
+means of an engine we can change the manifestation into that of
+<i>motion</i>, then with a dynamo to <i>electricity</i>; the electricity we can
+again change into <i>light</i>, or back again into <i>heat</i> or <i>motion</i>. There
+is <i>one</i> energy, but by suitable means we can turn it to different
+uses, and give different manifestations of it. Owing, however, to the
+imperfection of the boiler, machinery, etc., we never transform the
+<i>whole</i> of our energy into another form. In transforming heat into
+electricity, there is always some heat wasted; it is not destroyed, but
+it remains as heat for a time, and is absorbed by surrounding objects.
+A complete transference of energy does not take place, and the less
+efficient the machinery the less is the transference.</p>
+
+<p>Now evidence tends to show a considerable similarity between psychic
+and physical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> energy. In all probability there is only one ultimate
+psychic energy which, like physical energy, can be directed into
+different channels. Thus, the energy of erotic desire can be directed
+to a large extent into the energy of desire for music, religion,
+science, or sport; or the energy of the desire for sport may be changed
+into the energy of the desire for mental exercise, such as chess,
+mathematics, or science. For example, an individual feels &#8220;restless,&#8221;
+he then desires to play tennis; the afternoon is wet: he plays chess
+instead. His psychic energy has been diverted from one channel into
+another with its accompanying excitement and satisfaction of desire:
+with its final feeling of fatigue and repletion.</p>
+
+<p>Psychic energy, like physical energy, can never be entirely diverted
+from one channel to another. There is always some, often a large
+quantity, which is not altered in character. The amount of this depends
+largely on the person concerned, just as the amount of physical energy,
+changed from one form to another depends on the efficiency of the
+engine or machinery.</p>
+
+<p>This possibility of transference of energy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> of desire from one form
+to another is of the utmost importance to the psycho-analyst. By the
+technique of psycho-analysis the energy of repressed desires is first
+freed from deleterious objectives, and then transferred to legitimate
+ones. The energy behind the conflicts which lead to alcoholism or
+drug-taking may, under suitable conditions, be transferred to energy of
+higher types of desire with more suitable outlets. These processes are
+known as <i>transference</i> and <i>sublimation</i> respectively.</p>
+
+<p>It may be taken that every mind has a given amount of psychic energy
+which <i>must</i> find somewhere its suitable outlet in satisfying desire,
+whether for accomplishment or for enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>We may here again take the opportunity of stating that the efficiency
+or lack of efficiency demonstrated in different individuals in their
+attempts to transfer the energy of desire from a lower to a higher
+channel depends not only on heredity and constitutional circumstances
+but to an extraordinary degree on the individual&#8217;s environment and the
+actions of the parents in the first three or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> four years of his life.
+The reason why seemingly excellent parents produce sometimes execrable
+progeny becomes clearer under psycho-analysis. The over-strict parent
+produces one type of inefficient children, the parent who spoils
+produces other inefficient types. The nurse, the nursery, the casual
+visitor, the trivial conversations, the unconsidered sights and
+experiences, all have a terrific influence in the first few years
+of the child&#8217;s life. Parents do not realise that conventional or
+arbitrary methods of education, whether in one direction or another,
+are not going to effect the results they expected. The primitive
+unconscious mind of the child understands and absorbs in a manner
+that civilised man does not recognise. The bad father may by accident
+or <i>neglect</i> produce an excellent child&mdash;the good father with all
+his designs may produce a bad one. This is not an attempt to show
+that as the child grows up <i>all</i> its actions are dependent on the
+early environment; merely that we can never compare the good or bad
+in individuals; that an apparent failure, owing to his inefficiency
+of powers of sublimation, may yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> be devoting more energy to ascent
+than the successful saint whose early environment made for efficient
+transference of energy of desire. Some of the commonest of errors made
+by well-meaning parents will come to light at a later period. &#8220;<i>They
+teach their children to repress erotic and other desires but they omit
+at the same time to assist the development of that sublimation of them
+which is absolutely essential.</i>&#8221;</p>
+
+<h3>§4</h3>
+
+<p>We now come to the third great factor in character formation, and as
+this particular factor is going to occupy the major portion of this
+book, I will not do more here than indicate briefly the symbolic
+meaning of the term Narcissism; the reason why this term is used in
+connection with our primitive feelings of pride will then gradually
+unfold itself.</p>
+
+<p>Narcissus was the son of the river god, Cephissus. In his mother&#8217;s
+eyes he was extremely beautiful, and later in the eyes of all others,
+including himself. It was his wont to walk abroad in solitary places
+lost in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> admiration of the graceful form which he thought no eyes
+worthy to behold, save his own. On one occasion, he wanted to drink
+from a cool spring and catching sight of his face in the water for
+the first time in his life, at once fell in love with it, not knowing
+it to be his own likeness. On his knees at the edge of the pool, he
+stretched himself, and looked down upon a face and form so entrancingly
+beautiful, that he was ready to leap into the water beside it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who art thou, who hast been made so fair?&#8221; cried Narcissus. And the
+lips of the image moved, yet there came no answer. He stretched out his
+hand towards it, and the beautiful form beckoned to him. But when his
+hand touched and broke the surface, it vanished like a dream, only to
+return in all its enchantment when he was content to gaze motionless,
+even then, again, growing dim beneath the tears of vexation he shed
+into the water. Repeatedly, he tried to gather the lovely image in his
+arms, but it always eluded him, but when he entreated and implored, it
+imitated his gestures with unfeeling silence. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Maddened by the strong allurement of his own likeness, he could not
+tear himself away from the mirror which ever mocked his fancy. Hour
+after hour, day after day, he leant over the pool&#8217;s brink, crying in
+vain for that imaginary object of adoration. But at last from despair
+his heart ceased to throb, and he lay still among the water-lilies that
+made his shroud.</p>
+
+<p class="center">*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;*</p>
+
+<p>Before proceeding further and examining the development of Narcissism,
+and those factors which come to preserve it, and make it forceful in
+our unconscious mind, we must first briefly consider the subject of
+determinism.</p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2">[2]</a> &#8220;Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis,&#8221; by Paul
+Bousfield.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER IV</span> <span class="smaller">DETERMINISM AND WILL POWER</span></h2>
+
+<p>Determinism is the doctrine that all things, including the will, are
+determined by causes. It is the antithesis of the doctrine of free
+will. In its complete form, it holds that the individual has no direct
+and voluntary control over his thoughts and actions but that every
+thought and action is inevitably the result of a large number of
+previous thoughts and actions which have gone before.</p>
+
+<p>There is a very large amount of evidence, and indeed, whether we admit
+it or not, the evidence is quite irrefutable, that in regard to the
+majority of our actions the doctrine of determinism holds good. But the
+evidence is by no means sufficient to enable us to conclude that we
+have no free will.</p>
+
+<p><a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" >[3]</a>Freud in his book on the &#8220;Psychopathology of Everyday Life&#8221; and in
+other works gives many convincing examples that much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> in our character,
+that many of our actions, evil and good, are quite beyond our control
+at any given moment. But there is one thing that appears to have been
+overlooked, and that is, <i>that in all the examples given one could
+not conceivably utilise free will in any case</i>. If I ask you to think
+of a number what opportunity do you get of using your will power?
+If you put the wrong latch-key into the door by accident, have you
+made any effort to use will power? When a patient is suffering from
+hysteria due to repressions of various kinds, in that particular matter
+<i>the will power has already been lost</i>. When a chronic alcoholic is
+unable to cease from drinking his will power in reference to this has
+disappeared, therefore determinism holds the field completely. The
+will has no opportunity of working then. In all the examples which
+Freud gives one discovers on careful investigation that for some reason
+or another there is no opportunity for the use of free will. Such
+evidence as we have certainly does not prove the nonexistence of free
+will, but merely shows that in a very large number of our thoughts and
+actions we do not use any will at all, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> that in other cases we are
+unable to use our will effectively.<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4" >[4]</a> When determinism does rule we
+may liken it physically to this: a patient sits down and crosses one
+leg over the other and leaves the one leg hanging free. On tapping
+it smartly beneath the patella the foot will kick; the knee jerk has
+been elicited. If this be done fifty times the result will be the
+same fifty times. There is movement of the leg, but this movement is
+predetermined. On the other hand this does not prove that no other
+movement of the leg is possible. Under the conditions just given the
+man&#8217;s will, or the freedom of the leg, is merely <i>eliminated during
+that period</i>. Or again, we may liken it to a locomotive standing at the
+top of a hill; if the brake be taken off, the locomotive will run down
+the hill, and will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> do it every time; but this will not prove that did
+somebody happen to put the brake on half-way down the hill the engine
+would still go on running. However, all actions which we may ascribe to
+our will are no doubt strictly limited by other determined conditions.
+The man on the engine may run it backwards or forwards, but only within
+<i>the very much prescribed limits which the rails allow</i>. We may safely
+accept this much determinism, that although the will exists, its
+capabilities are strictly circumscribed by determinism.</p>
+
+<p>It is rather in his general direction than in any specific act that
+a man has most control. We certainly have not the amount of free
+will which we like to believe we have. For example, the reader of
+this chapter may have returned home to-night and have said, &#8220;I will
+not have a meal to-night, it is too hot.&#8221; What are the factors (or
+determinants, as they are called) in this case? Perhaps external heat,
+producing langour by various physiological processes, combined with
+lack of appetite, in its turn produced by several causes, and added to
+this, depression, produced by a bad business deal, and in its turn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> the
+result of many other determinants outside the reader&#8217;s control. There
+is no desire to eat, and these various determinants, added together,
+prove stronger than the habit of eating the evening meal. Having,
+however, read this chapter as far as this point, the reader desiring to
+disprove my unpleasant suggestion, immediately says, &#8220;Ah! I will prove
+that I have free will. I will eat my meal in spite of not wanting it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Alas! this does not <i>prove</i> free will, new determinants have merely
+been added on the other side, and desire to prove strength of mind has
+now out-weighed accumulated efforts which prevented you from eating.</p>
+
+<p>Since it has been shown that a man&#8217;s control is constantly being
+limited by other determinants, it follows that the criminal whose
+environment and determinants, conscious and unconscious, have been
+manufactured for him from evil sources, yet who, on the whole, is
+progressing upwards in spite of these, may be forming a far better
+character than the arch-bishop whose environment from the beginning has
+been such as never to give him criminal characteristics,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> yet whose
+growth has been, on the whole, towards a more selfish position, even
+though this be not noticeable to the eyes of others.</p>
+
+<p><i>Now many of the determinants forming our characters lie in the
+unconscious. They are unknown to us and only the results of their
+activities are visible. Herein lies the difficulty of controlling
+ourselves. How can we efficiently control that of which we do not know
+the existence? Herein, also, lies the value of psycho-analysis, for it
+brings many of these determinants to light, and we are thus able to
+control them consciously.</i> Only a part of all this can be accomplished
+by such self-analysis as may be indicated in this book. Yet even so, a
+much greater degree of self-control may be obtained.</p>
+
+<h3>§2</h3>
+
+<p>Let us now consider briefly why persons who have not previously been
+irritable, should suddenly become irritable; who have not previously
+been hysterical, should suddenly become hysterical; who have not
+previously been in the habit of weeping, should at some time after
+reaching adult life, revert to that infantile habit. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The explanation of mental troubles of various kinds involves two
+factors. In the first place, any individual is capable of bearing a
+certain amount of conflict and a certain amount of repression. It is
+only when the accumulated force is more than he can control, <i>that is
+when new determinants are added</i>, that the symptoms begin to appear. He
+is like a steam engine in which as long as the steam is being used up
+in doing work, or as long as the safety valve is working efficiently
+when work is not being done, the boiler stands a pressure of 100lbs.
+very comfortably. If the safety valve gets jammed, and the energy
+cannot be transferred from the steam to the work, the pressure in the
+boiler rises higher and higher until it bursts from the joints and
+rivet-holes.</p>
+
+<p>The second factor which determines the mode of expression of this
+out-burst of repressed energy is known as the <i>law of regression</i>.
+This means that if the adult outlet of energy becomes dammed up or is
+insufficient, <i>the energy will flow through an earlier channel which
+has once been used</i>. The individual will, in fact, revert to some
+method which he was wont to use in earlier years,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> or in infancy. It
+is true that this may be disguised and not recognised as an infantile
+mode of expression until it is looked into more closely. This question
+of regression, however, need not be more than touched upon here. It
+will be much more fully dealt with when we come to actual examples at a
+later stage.</p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3">[3]</a> &#8220;The Elements of Practical Psycho-Analysis,&#8221; by Paul
+Bousfield.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4">[4]</a> The doctrines of determinism and free-will respectively
+can be brought entirely into line with one another if we include
+freewill itself as one of the determinants. Thus, if in the formula</p>
+
+<p class="center">S = a + b + c + d + etc.</p>
+
+<p>where S is the resultant action, and a, b, c, d, etc., are the several
+determinants, it happens that d = 0. The presence of d does not
+invalidate the formula. <i>But if</i> d <i>does not happen to be zero, the
+absence of</i> d <i>would invalidate the formula</i>. If d represents the
+&#8220;will&#8221; component there may be plenty, even a majority of cases in which
+d = 0, but there may be cases in which the omission of d will render
+the result erroneous.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER V</span> <span class="smaller">NARCISSISM</span></h2>
+
+<p>The term Narcissism has already been mentioned and some slight
+indication of its importance in character development has been given.
+We have also examined the derivation of the term, and found that it
+implies self-interest, self-importance, self-worship; all of which
+characteristics are in modified degrees possessed by everybody. There
+are, however, many other manifestations of Narcissism, many tricks by
+which it gets past our conscious intentions, many ways in which it
+associates itself with other instincts, and unknown to us works our
+undoing. We shall therefore, in this chapter, examine the development
+of Narcissism from its very earliest stages, and trace out in some
+detail whither it may lead.</p>
+
+<p>Most people were they asked at what moment the child&#8217;s mind first
+began to register feelings, thoughts, and emotions, would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> probably at
+once and without hesitation say, &#8220;At the moment of birth.&#8221; It seems
+the obvious thing to say, but like many other obvious things such a
+statement appears to have but little evidence in support of it and much
+against it.</p>
+
+<p>The act of birth has performed no sudden or miraculous change upon the
+growth and tissues of the body. It is true that oxygen is now absorbed
+through the lungs instead of as originally through the mother&#8217;s blood,
+but the essential tissues, the brain, the muscles and the bones have
+undergone no sudden change. Before birth, they were living tissues,
+and we know that the muscles were at work, for we had felt the baby&#8217;s
+movements <i>in utero</i>; we know that the heart was at work, driving
+the blood through the child&#8217;s arteries. We had learnt this also by
+means of the stethoscope many weeks before the child was born. Why
+then should we assume that the brain had registered nothing at birth?
+We do indeed know that it must have been at work in part, for it was
+learning to regulate the action of the child&#8217;s heart and the child&#8217;s
+secretions, the blood pressure, and the motions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> of its limbs. We are
+therefore justified in assuming that it must be capable of registering
+impressions, even though it were incapable of reason or thought.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that at birth it commences to undergo many vivid new
+experiences, but that is no reason for assuming that it has not
+undergone any experiences <i>in utero</i>, and that these experiences have
+not made some impressions on the brain. Let us see for a moment what
+impressions it is likely to have received and registered. First of
+all, it would most certainly hear sounds, the sounds of the blood
+rushing through the mother&#8217;s arteries and the sounds from the outer
+world, muffled and indistinct when they had penetrated the mother&#8217;s
+body. All these sounds would be of a soft crooning nature, and those
+caused by the blood in the mother&#8217;s arteries would be of a rhythmic,
+humming, rising and falling nature, a kind of rhythmic lullaby very
+similar in many respects to the lullaby the mother will hum to the
+child when she wishes to put it to sleep at a later period. We should
+expect these sounds to be registered on the child&#8217;s brain so that if
+it ever heard their like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> again, some chord of <i>feeling-memory</i> would
+be struck, and some emotional association brought to mind. In the
+second place, external movements would be registered on the child&#8217;s
+mind as the mother walked about. There would be a swaying or swinging
+movement. Again we should expect that when, in after life, the child
+experienced a swaying or swinging movement, a chord of memory would be
+touched again, and these earlier associations would be revived; not as
+a conscious memory or fact, of course, but as a feeling.</p>
+
+<p>Again, conscious movements of its own limbs might be impressed upon it.
+It would find, when it tried to move, that its movements were limited,
+and that it attained more perfect peace by refraining from attempting
+to struggle and change its position. It would be impressed by the
+pleasantness of inertia as opposed to the unpleasantness of making
+an effort. And finally, its general position with the knees drawn up
+and the chin bent down would be firmly registered, so that when in
+after-life it again assumed this position, once more the chord of
+memory<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> would be struck, and the old feeling of repose would be likely
+to return.</p>
+
+<p>Now, we cannot assume that the child has any active mental state before
+its birth, but we know that its condition (taken in conjunction with
+its extremely limited experience) is one as near omnipotence (from its
+standpoint) as may be. It breathes, or rather absorbs oxygen without
+any effort of breathing. It is fed, it is kept warm and comfortable
+without any effort whatsoever. It lives in a world entirely its own,
+where everything works together for its comfort and well-being. It has
+to make no struggle for existence. It has to deal with nothing <i>real</i>,
+save perhaps that its voluntary movements are limited, and this perhaps
+is bad for its education, since at that period of its life it learns
+that it can be most comfortable by making least effort! And here we see
+the beginning of that which we all possess in after-life, <i>inertia</i>,
+the difficulty of making a beginning at anything, the objection which
+we have to making efforts.</p>
+
+<p>Now let us see what happens to this omnipotent little creature at
+birth. It goes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> through the probably painful process of having its
+position roughly changed and being thrust into an atmosphere which is
+cold and unusual to it. Moreover it has to make its first struggle for
+breath, its first effort to sustain existence. And in its struggle for
+breath it utters cries, which by experience it very soon finds to be
+magic sounds which enable it to fulfil its wishes. But of this, more
+later.</p>
+
+<p>After its first rude awakening, let us once more see what happens. It
+is wrapped up in something warm; that is, it is returned to a semblance
+of the womb, by having something round it which keeps out the cold. It
+is gently rocked to and fro by the nurse or other attendant, and again
+the semblance of the previous rocking in the womb is returned to it.
+Crooning sounds are murmured over it, and the semblance is still more
+complete. It frequently draws its knees up somewhat if it is placed in
+such a position that it can do so with ease, and falls asleep. It has
+attained as nearly as possible once more the semblance of its pre-birth
+condition, where it has no cares, and is warm and comfortable again.
+And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> though it has become acquainted with effort, it is quite obvious
+that its feeling of omnipotence, if we may so term it for the moment,
+is hardly yet disturbed, and the world it has come into differs but
+slightly from the world which it has left; it is still a world in which
+the infant is the centre and ruler, in which its every want is attended
+to without an effort on its part, save that it may sometimes have to
+call attention to its wants by means of that magical cry which it soon
+learns how and when to use, and which acts in a truly magical manner in
+accomplishing the fulfilment of all its desires.</p>
+
+<p>During the first few weeks of the infant&#8217;s life this delusion on the
+part of the child is largely kept up. Few people think there is any
+harm in attending to all a baby&#8217;s wants in the first month of its
+life. They do not think it could possibly be wrong to spoil it at that
+age, because its intellect has not developed. They forget entirely
+that its mental condition and attitude towards life, apart from actual
+thought, may inevitably be affected at this period. Hence, whenever
+the baby cries, it is not uncommonly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> rocked to sleep, or fed, or if
+it holds out its hand and shows its desire to possess anything, it is
+immediately allowed to possess it, and to play with it. It has to make
+but the faintest attempts to adjust itself to its environment, it has
+to face but the slightest reality; all its desires are immediately
+fulfilled, and kept in a condition of almost continual fulfilment. And
+it may remain for a considerable period as near being an omnipotent
+creature as it is possible for any living thing to be. Its omnipotence,
+however, is really a fallacy, or as I prefer to term it at a slightly
+later stage, a phantasy, for the world in which it lived before birth,
+which seemed to it as a world, was not really a world at all, but a
+very small and a very temporary abode, and the world in which it is
+living for the first few months after birth is again not really a world
+but a combination of extremely limited and carefully selected portions
+of the world, in which every attempt is made to disguise from it the
+realities of the actual world.</p>
+
+<p>Again let us emphasise the fact that the chief effort that the infant
+has to make is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> the effort of crying. And it may learn very quickly
+that this is so all-powerful as to practically efface the unpleasant
+task of having to adjust itself to the realities of life. This process
+is carried on with slight modifications for many months. The infant has
+but to wave a magic wand, as it were, has but to emit a little magic
+noise from its mouth, and all the world it knows is set in motion to
+give it satisfaction and some semblance of its pre-birth omnipotence.</p>
+
+<p><i>This cry which brings it gratification, if it has been really
+effective over a too-prolonged period, will tend to fix permanently
+in the child&#8217;s mind the fact that either weeping or making a magic
+noise with the mouth will always attain for it gratification. And
+although at a later stage the conscious mind will be obliged to accept
+a considerable amount of reality and to reject the idea of omnipotence,
+yet the unconscious mind will persist in the struggle and will make
+futile efforts to forget reality, to change reality into phantasy, and
+to regain its omnipotent state.</i></p>
+
+<p>When a man uses expletives because some task of his has failed to
+result in success, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> is really repeating the infant&#8217;s cry. He is
+really uttering a magic sound which his unconscious mind hopes may
+somehow remedy the failure. He has not definitely accepted the reality
+of failure as a commonplace hard fact of life at the moment at which he
+utters his expletive.</p>
+
+<p>When a person weeps at some unpleasant happening or in anger at
+something which has touched his pride, exactly the same is taking
+place. He, or she, has failed to make a complete adaptation of
+himself to the facts and realities of life. <i>He has obeyed the law
+of regression</i>, to which I referred in a previous chapter, and has
+returned to the infantile method of expression, namely weeping, with
+the unconscious hope that a magic compensation will result; that
+instead of his having to adapt himself to the facts of life, the facts
+of life will somehow adapt themselves to his phantasy.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, the first piece of advice that one must give to parents is
+that they should, from the earliest possible moment, train the
+infant to understand that the magic cries will not at once produce
+their expected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> result; and the first week in the infant&#8217;s life is
+all-important in this matter. The choosing of the nurse who has charge
+during that period should be done with great care, and what is required
+of her should be insisted on. Too great emphasis cannot be laid upon
+these points.</p>
+
+<p>The child should be fed at regular and proper intervals, and should
+be kept warm. But if it cries, as it will do naturally, it should be
+left to itself to cry. It should not be picked up, rocked to sleep,
+given another meal nor petted. If it is left to cry, it will learn very
+rapidly and at the right period of its life that the sounds which it
+emits are not magical, and it will begin to adapt itself to the fact
+that it lives in a real world which has not been built solely and only
+for its own delight.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious to note how regression, this instinct to return to the
+earlier mode of expression, to return apparently even to the pre-birth
+state, persists in the unconscious mind.</p>
+
+<p>During the war, I knew a youth who was intensely agitated by the
+air-raids. He felt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> perfectly safe, however, if he could crawl under
+the bed or table, where he would curl himself into practically the same
+position as that of a normal baby before birth. When questioned, he had
+not, of course, the slightest conscious knowledge of why he felt safe
+in such curious circumstances. But it does not seem improbable that
+the association of ideas produced by his position and by the confined
+space created a feeling akin to that feeling of safety which has been
+his in his pre-birth omnipotent position where nothing could harm him.
+A similar feeling of security was experienced by many normal persons in
+cellars and other confined spaces and was probably of the same origin;
+for there is no doubt that this safety was felt even though their
+reason told them that a bomb was as likely to reach their confined
+space as any other place in the neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>Again, I know of innumerable cases in which soldiers felt very much
+safer from bombs which fell at night when they were under cover of a
+canvas tent. Logically, of course, the thing was absurd; emotionally,
+it was a fact. And all were equally unconscious of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> any possible
+reasons for the feeling of security produced. An example of this same
+tendency at an earlier age is seen in children who cover their heads
+with the bedclothes when they are frightened.</p>
+
+<p>To return to our Narcissistic infant, we are now impressed with the
+fact that one thing of the utmost importance in the first years of its
+life is that it shall gradually come into contact with reality, shall
+discover that all things do not belong to it, that its omnipotent
+feelings are based purely upon phantasy and not upon reality; and upon
+the method of its disillusionment and the age at which this begins
+largely depend the future powers of adaptation of the child to its
+surroundings. It has now become obvious that the new-born infant lives
+in a world of phantasy, in which, the relative importance of itself to
+things outside itself is not merely distorted but is entirely absent.
+And if we can suppose a child kept artificially in this condition till
+it reached adult life, every wish satisfied instantaneously, every
+force it knows directed entirely towards gratifying its immediate
+desires, we do not require much imagination<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> to understand how
+absolutely helpless and lost this omnipotent creature would be if
+suddenly turned into the world to face life and reality. His one desire
+would be to return to his omnipotent state, his one effort to keep at
+bay reality and turn it into the pleasant phantasy of the previous
+twenty years. For he would surely, before his disillusionment, have
+really come to believe himself omnipotent, the only real thing in a
+phantasy world of his own fashioning and dreaming.</p>
+
+<p>An extreme case of this kind is, of course, an impossibility. But there
+are many and various degrees in which it is approached. Probably the
+nearest approach to it may be found in cases where some sort of moral
+or mental conflict has been too much for an extremely Narcissistic
+mind, which has then completely regressed, refused to recognise the
+outer world, and developed a certain form of insanity; and from this
+stage of complete Narcissistic regression all degrees and kinds of
+manifestations of it may be found, until we reach at the other end of
+our list a person who expects everyone around to consult his wishes
+and peculiarities or who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> is merely somewhat impatient, or inclined to
+irritability, or merely over-sensitive to either mental or physical
+pain.</p>
+
+<p>There is no more certain fact than that if an infant be allowed to
+postpone its acquaintance with reality too long it becomes fixed in a
+more or less degree in conditions in which phantasy plays too prominent
+a part, and regression of some kind takes place as it meets with real
+difficulties.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER VI</span> <span class="smaller">FACT AND PHANTASY</span></h2>
+
+<p>In the last chapter we emphasised the fact that one of the first
+products of Narcissism was the infantile difficulty of distinguishing
+between fact and phantasy, of realising the world outside oneself. This
+tendency to mix up fact with phantasy is by no means only to be found
+in an abnormal mind. It is present in some degree in all persons; each
+one feels himself to be the most real thing present, and in feeling
+this he has a tendency to believe that others round him are in some way
+less real, though, fortunately, very few carry it far enough to imagine
+that all the others are merely part of a dream in which the dreamer is
+the only real figure, as the Red King in &#8220;Alice Through the Looking
+Glass&#8221; is supposed to have done, when the remark is made to Alice,
+&#8220;You&#8217;re only a sort of thing in his dream! If that there king<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> was to
+wake you would go out bang&mdash;just like a candle!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And yet quite a large number of people find it difficult to realise
+firstly, that they must die, and secondly that the rest of the world
+will not die also when they die. They know, of course, that this
+latter is not the case, yet they cannot look upon it as a commonplace
+fact. Their Narcissism refuses to contemplate their own mortality. It
+represses the fact and leaves the idea vague and unreal to them.</p>
+
+<p>In children, the difficulty of distinguishing between phantasy and
+reality is quite normally much more accentuated than in adults.
+And since they start in a world of phantasy and their training is
+to lead them to a world of reality, it is obvious that the halfway
+stages will be obscured by a strange mixture of the two. All children
+go through the stage in which phantasy and reality are by no means
+clearly differentiated, and most young children succeed, day by day, in
+fulfilling impossible wishes in phantasies in a manner which a properly
+developed adult can never do. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A little boy desires to possess a pony; if this be impossible his
+imagination gives life to a rocking-horse, and failing that he may
+tie a piece of string to a chair, and with great pleasure and much
+emotion urge on his fiery untamed steed across mountain and desert.
+He fulfils his wishes immediately by means of a phantasy, which, for
+the time being, successfully replaces reality. If this child grows up
+normally, this possibility of phantastic fulfilment should gradually
+disappear. How many adults, for instance, could take a bath-tub into
+their dining-room, sit in it, and with the aid of a vivid imagination
+thoroughly enjoy a pleasant sail at sea? We trust no one, at any
+rate of our readers, for they would be of that type which has no
+perspective, and they would most certainly fail in their vocation as
+practical men and women. Yet remnants of phantasy thinking remain with
+everyone, and in a moderate degree, so far as we know, such remnants do
+but little harm if they are present in small measure only, and kept in
+water-tight compartments.</p>
+
+<p>Adult phantasy thinking very largely <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>consists in what is known as
+identification, which may be either conscious or unconscious. Of this,
+we shall have more to say shortly. At the moment let us trace out what
+should happen to the normal child as it grows older. Education and
+environment should be gradually convincing the child of the unreality
+of its phantastic thoughts and of its early world, should be inducing
+it to think in terms of facts and to adjust himself to these facts,
+instead of attempting the impossible task of adjusting these facts to
+suit his own phantastic conceptions of them. The method of thought
+which he should develop in order thus to fit himself to meet the
+world adequately has been conveniently termed &#8220;directive thinking.&#8221;
+Directive thinking is controlled thought based upon facts seen in their
+true perspective, and with a purpose in view which is both definite
+and possible. It is the very opposite of phantasy thinking, which is
+generally indefinite, based upon a lack of perspective, and attempts
+continually to obtain the fulfilment of wishes impossible of fulfilment.</p>
+
+<p>In directive thinking, the purpose in view<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> must be purposive to the
+thinker, a change to be produced in the world, either in its happiness,
+its morals, its commercial prosperity or in other forms of progress
+or even of deterioration; or the purpose may be to effect changes in
+the individual&#8217;s own happiness or prosperity, or it may be directed
+towards a mental change in the thinker himself with no immediate idea
+of changes in his external surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>Thus a man may wish to improve his own character by eradicating a bad
+habit. He may do this by thinking carefully about it, by analysing the
+causes of the habit, by giving himself auto-suggestion in opposition to
+the habit. All this, even if the habit may not in the end be eradicated
+must be classed as directive thinking. <i>Directive thinking is thus
+obviously, controlled thinking requiring an effort of attention and
+concentration as opposed to phantasy thinking which knows but little
+control save that of desire, and little effort or concentration.</i></p>
+
+<p>In all the business of everyday life, directive thinking must be
+employed; whether we are merely using our minds to decide the most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+trivial problem, such as the best way of eradicating weeds from the
+garden, or whether we are deciding upon a policy to be pursued in some
+great commercial or political enterprise. Every time we use our brains
+in directive thinking we are establishing a habit which gradually gives
+us power to produce changes in our environment and in the world in
+general. Every time we indulge in phantasy thinking we encourage the
+habit of living in a world of our own ideas, and we are destroying the
+habit which enables us to create in reality.</p>
+
+<p>The two forms of thinking may, of course, overlap considerably. The
+novelist or playwright, for instance, is very largely a phantasy
+thinker. He may feel the emotions of the various phantasy characters
+which he evolves, but in order to arrange the words and sentences,
+and furthermore in having an idea to portray or in drawing attention
+to evils which he thinks should be remedied, he is using considerable
+energy in directive thought. So that it becomes obvious that directive
+thought need not merely apply to the things of the immediate present
+nor even the near<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> future, and in trying to draw distinction between
+the two, one is often confronted with a superficial criticism, that
+certain ideas must pertain to phantasy thinking, because they can never
+come to pass. That, however, is quite incorrect. The possibility that
+an idea may come to fruition in two or three hundred years time, and
+that the thoughts which have been given to the idea must assist its
+growth and ripening, is sufficient to constitute these thoughts as
+directive.</p>
+
+<p>We must now look at the second important element in the child&#8217;s early
+education, which would follow logically upon the first one that it
+should be made to face the facts around it; and that is, that in its
+games and occupations it should be encouraged, as far as possible, to
+take lines of directive thought, and not obtain its pleasures through
+phantasies only.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, it would be much better to give him bricks to play with, so that
+he may use directive thought in designing and building a house, than
+to give him a ready-made toy, such as an engine wherewith he will
+merely carry out the phantasy of being a driver or a passenger and of
+travelling wheresoever he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> wishes. A toy wheel-barrow which he can take
+into the garden and fill with real stones and earth is far better than
+a doll which he will merely imagine to be something to be brought up
+like himself, which he will endow with phantastic life and feelings
+which are quite unreal. In fact, as far as possible, the child&#8217;s games
+and occupations should involve his <i>doing</i> something, rather than
+merely imagining something. Of course, imagination and phantasy will
+come into its games, and are bound to do so, but as much directive
+thought as possible should be added.</p>
+
+<p>The ordinary fairy-tale should be swept from the nursery; here the
+child does nothing but identify himself with the hero or heroine in
+the most impossible of situations of a purely phantastic type. There
+is plenty of scope for giving a child an interest in stories from the
+fairy-land of science, or from the lives of famous persons in the
+centuries that have passed; all of which, if properly selected and
+dressed up, will assist the child&#8217;s directive thought. For though
+the facts with which the stories may deal are as wonderful as any of
+Grimm&#8217;s fairy-tales, <i>they are facts of which</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> <i>the child will never
+have to be undeceived, and he will never have to have his faith shaken
+in the stories which he has learnt</i>; thus the child will learn from the
+outset to think directively.</p>
+
+<p>I know that many mothers, when they read this, will be inclined to
+shake their heads and say to themselves, &#8220;Poor little darling, I could
+never treat it so.&#8221; And that they will be inclined, as is shown very
+early in this book, to say &#8220;These things cannot be true,&#8221; for they are
+not the ideas they are accustomed to. Yet I can assure them that by
+means of carrying out many of those actions and teachings which they
+think are pleasant and harmless, they are really damning the child,
+while many of these ideas which they might term cruel are really of
+the greatest value and kindness to it. Moreover, experience has shown
+that if diplomacy be used, the child will be as equally interested in
+wonderful facts as in wonderful phantasies. The only difference is
+that it is more trouble to the parent or educator to search out and
+deal with facts himself. It is quite true that the child&#8217;s imagination
+requires training, as part of its intellectual education. But there
+is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> vast difference between encouraging it to imagine the possibility
+of impossible things, and encouraging it to exercise its imagination
+in realisation of facts, however far they may be removed from the
+experience of everyday life. Many people have the idea that a child
+should be encouraged to use its imagination; whereas in fact the
+child&#8217;s imagination requires curbing, training, sublimating. Such
+people do not realise that the early life of a child is lived almost
+entirely in imagination, that it has no difficulty whatsoever in using
+its imagination, and that the real difficulty is in preventing it from
+using too much imagination directed into false channels and by-paths of
+permanent unreality.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER VII</span> <span class="smaller">IDENTIFICATION</span></h2>
+
+<p>We must now traverse another path through which Narcissism wanders. We
+have emphasised the fact that when a child comes into the world, he is
+to himself the only real thing; the rest of the world is merely seen
+from his phantastic view point, and at this stage he accepts himself as
+the one all-powerful centre of everything. Another important fact which
+arises from this, however, we have not dealt with, and that is, that he
+does not separate the outer world from himself as a separate entity.
+His unconscious view point is that the world is subordinate to himself,
+beneath his omnipotent control, if you like, that it is a dream of his
+own imagining, that it is something which belongs to him in every sense
+of the word. This, summed up, means that it is part of himself, that
+his identity and the identity of the dream-world around him are part of
+the same thing. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Thus, the infant does not at first distinguish between himself and his
+mother. When he is hungry, he cries, and he probably has almost as
+ready access to his mother&#8217;s breasts as if they were part of his own
+body. And such imagination is more than encouraged when he is allowed
+the use of a rubber teat to suck in the intervals between his meals.</p>
+
+<p>It is generally a comparatively slow process through which the infant
+passes, this one of separating himself in thought and feeling from
+objects surrounding him. It is one which is hardly ever completely
+accomplished. We have already mentioned the fairy-tale which encourages
+the child&#8217;s phantasy thought. Let us now see how he really obtains
+pleasure from that fairy-tale. It is by identification. In imagination
+he is a fairy prince or princess, as the case may be; his pleasure in
+the triumphs and progress of the central figure of the story is that
+of performing his prodigious deeds by proxy; and if he thus identifies
+himself with the hero of the story, he is also encouraged to believe
+that he possesses the power and qualities of that hero. He is less able
+to realise that he,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> unlike the hero, cannot perform magic deeds with a
+mere wave of a wand. Indeed, when the story is over, he will probably
+play at being a fairy, and in phantasy perform the magic deeds again.</p>
+
+<p>This demonstrates the force of his identification with the hero of the
+story. <i>And it must be remembered that sooner or later the child will
+have to wake up, will have to realise that it possesses no magic power,
+and the struggle within it will be great.</i> It is obviously a mistaken
+form of kindness to enhance such pleasures of the moment, when you are
+merely accentuating the struggle which the child will have to make at
+a later period to overcome his Narcissism. In passing, I may mention
+that you have probably already done the child considerable damage by
+allowing him to have his rubber teat at the beginning of this period of
+identification, since he identifies it with the mother&#8217;s breast, and is
+thus encouraged to think that the breast is always with him.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now see where this Narcissistic identification may come out
+later in life.</p>
+
+<p>First of all, it is this which enables us to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> enjoy novels, just as
+we enjoyed fairy-tales as children. We identify ourselves with the
+hero or heroine of the book, and in phantasy perform their various
+wonderful feats. Thus we satisfy our Narcissistic desire to be great
+and powerful. If we lack cleverness, and the hero is clever, by
+identification and imputation we may attain the pleasures of feeling
+clever and superior. If the heroine is beautiful and everyone falls in
+love with her, we may by proxy be the same. If the hero is a sailor,
+and we have always desired to sail, yet have never been on the sea,
+our ambition is now attained&mdash;and see how easily attained&mdash;in a truly
+omnipotent fashion, without effort on our part, just by reading
+about it. Exactly the same thing takes place at theatres, where the
+Narcissist identifies himself with the actors on the stage. So far
+so good; if a person can content himself with an occasional theatre
+or occasional novel, wherewith to take a restful regression to an
+infantile outlet of energy, no harm is done. There are times when we
+must rest, and there are times when we must sleep, which also appears
+to be Narcissistic regression to a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> condition somewhat resembling
+our pre-birth state. But there are many who cannot control their
+identification in this way, who cannot confine it to the stage and the
+novel, who bring it into the affairs of life continuously. They may
+unconsciously identify themselves with their father or mother, their
+relations or friends, or even their enemies, and perhaps, in turn, with
+everyone with whom they come into contact. Like a looking-glass, they
+reflect everything that goes on around them. They feel the pleasures of
+their friends, they also feel their pains. They are called sympathetic,
+they are often ultra-sympathetic&mdash;they are a nuisance.</p>
+
+<p>I remember on one occasion I had asked a woman of strong Narcissistic
+temperament to take a fly out of the corner of my eye. She absolutely
+refused to do so under any consideration, as she was sure she would
+hurt me too much. Inquiry showed that Narcissism had exaggerated her
+own feelings, so that a speck of dust in her own eye was torture. Yet
+her eye was so tender and important to herself that she could not bear
+anyone to touch it even in order to get something out.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> <i>And she could
+not imagine that anybody else could have feelings that differed from
+hers</i>; and since she identified herself so much with other people, I
+have no doubt it would have been a real agony to her, had she attempted
+to extract the fly from my eye.</p>
+
+<p>Such people are by no means uncommon. We all know the person who cannot
+bear to hurt us, even for our good. For instance, some cannot bear to
+bandage a wound for us since they cannot bear to see pain in any form.
+They state that it is almost as if they felt it themselves, and they
+call themselves &#8220;sympathetic.&#8221; But in spite of popular belief to the
+contrary, such sympathy is not a virtue, there is nothing altruistic
+about it; it is an inconvenient fault of an entirely selfish kind. In
+order to help one&#8217;s friend, one does not need to feel his feelings and
+suffer his pains, one wants to understand them; the more one enters
+into his feelings, the more one&#8217;s judgment is biased, and the less one
+is able, as a rule, to be of assistance. Worse still, in connection
+with these people, they not only pour out sympathy in this way,
+but attribute it to themselves as a virtue, and they cannot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> bring
+themselves to believe their friends to be really good, unless their
+friends also can react in a similar way towards them. They call a
+normal person unsympathetic, perhaps exaggerate the term and call him
+brutal, wishing indeed that their friends who have climbed higher from
+Narcissism should regress to their lower stand-point.</p>
+
+<p>I have given here but one type of Narcissistic identification with
+other persons; it seems to me unnecessary to carry it further since
+any reader who chooses to think the matter out for himself will find
+endless modifications of such identifications. We all possess it in
+part, and on the whole women are more Narcissistic than men. Let it
+not be thought, however, that this is a reflection on women; it is a
+reflection on the way they have been brought up, for from the earliest
+times environment impresses them with the idea that &#8220;little boys are
+made of slugs and snails and puppy-dogs&#8217; tails, and little girls are
+made of sugar and spice and all things nice!&#8221; And hence on such lines
+as these, their Narcissism is encouraged, and their capabilities of
+facing fact and reality<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> discouraged from the very outset, until
+differences of temperament are produced in the adults of the two sexes,
+which in no way belong to Nature, but purely to our conventional and
+somewhat barbaric stand-point.</p>
+
+<p>There are yet more important results of Narcissistic identification
+than those already mentioned; Narcissism leads, in many instances, to
+the choice of a particular love-object. Narcissism is, of course, by no
+means the only or chief factor in the choice of love-objects, as anyone
+who has studied psycho-analysis will at once realise. It is, however,
+the only one I intend to touch on in this particular work.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the mythical Narcissus himself fell in love with his
+reflection, so does his prototype of to-day. An infant is not only
+the omnipotent centre of all, he is also the only interesting portion
+of the universe in his early days. His interests are entirely
+self-centred, and his joys and pleasures belong to himself alone; and
+as he grows older, everything that is like him is identified with
+himself. In the worst form of Narcissism in the adult, the individual
+remains entirely selfish, and is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> incapable of loving anybody outside
+himself at all.</p>
+
+<p><i>By identification, however, he can love in a sense those attributes of
+his own personality which he sees in other persons.</i> Thus, he may love
+somebody for a facial similarity, for a voice which is like his, or for
+tastes which are like his own, but most commonly he loves them for a
+body like his own. And from this we see that he may fall in love with
+somebody of his own sex. Hence, homo-sexuality,<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5" >[5]</a> as it is called,
+is frequently one of the distressing results of an early Narcissistic
+upbringing. But it need not be necessary for such homo-sexuality to
+be of a grossly erotic type; such desires may be for the most part
+repressed in the unconscious, or appear only in minor ways such as
+the desire to kiss, fondle or touch favoured persons of the same sex.
+On the other hand, frequently the early education and environment of
+the Narcissistic person has been such as to leave him quite incapable
+of complete repression; and we then have expressed more or less
+open erotic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> desires and actions for persons of the same sex. Such
+persons, however, should not be treated as criminals in this particular
+matter; they are by this time as hopelessly incompetent to deal with
+themselves, as is the kleptomaniac or a person having any other form
+of so-called degenerate mentality. Here again, we see the reason why
+homo-sexuality is so much more rife amongst women than amongst men. The
+minor details of their early environment tend so much more to confirm
+them in Narcissism. It is partially repressed and partially displaced
+homo-sexuality which causes some women to kiss one another, to call one
+another by affectionate names and so forth, to delight in taking hold
+of one another&#8217;s hands on occasion; actions which normally, between
+persons of opposite sex, would at once be taken to indicate some sort
+of erotic affection, but which we are so used to seeing amongst women
+that we do not realise their repressed and unconscious significance.</p>
+
+<p>Let it not be thought, however, that this subject of homo-sexuality is
+based on this one simple problem; there are many other early infantile
+fixations, which play a very large<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> part in causing persons to become
+homo-sexual. I only mention this one Narcissistic complex as being
+another example of how identification takes place as one of the chief
+results of the Narcissistic temperament, and to what lengths such
+identification may, on occasion, lead. Of course, all degrees of such
+identifications may be met with, and it is quite common to find persons
+who can love hetero-sexually as well as homo-sexually; that is to say,
+who can love persons of the opposite sex in the usual way, as well as
+persons of their own sex. But such people, even in their hetero-sexual
+love, tend to choose a love-object which resembles themselves in some
+manner or the other. However, a certain amount of Narcissism (which
+fortunately everyone still possesses), may be of value in this way,
+for it is certainly good for a man and woman to have similar interests
+when they marry; it is excessive Narcissism, excessive identification,
+excessive sympathy, which is deleterious, just as in other
+manifestations of Narcissism, with which we are going to deal shortly,
+it is excessive impatience, excessive anger, excessive tears which are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+really harmful, and lead to the greatest unhappiness. Although perhaps
+in these latter instances, to be without impatience, anger, or tears
+would be better still.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, there is yet another method of Narcissistic identification.
+Just as a child identifies itself with its living surroundings, so
+does it identify itself with its inanimate surroundings. As its mother
+and nurse are treated as part of it in the early stages, so also are
+its rubber teat, feeding bottle and toys treated. If you take away
+the baby&#8217;s rattle, it will cry or stamp or weep with as much vigour
+and display of emotion as if you had caused it bodily pain by means
+of rigorous physical punishment. You have in fact taken away part
+of itself from the little omnipotent person. In later stages in his
+career, if his Narcissism has been allowed to remain, the adult will
+still identify himself with his belongings. He will be absurdly upset
+at the breaking of a tea-cup which belongs to him, at the theft of
+some jewelry, at damage done to his clothing or property in some way,
+however trifling. He cannot realise that these things which belong to
+him are more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> or less unimportant trifles, which can be replaced, or
+if they cannot be replaced, can be equally well done without, if he
+has attained that philosophical attitude of mind which belongs to the
+person who has thrown off this uncomfortable spirit of Narcissistic
+identification. Moreover, the Narcissist who thinks himself to be the
+best and most important of beings, will attach similar importance to
+his property. If he drives an inferior motor-car, which breaks down on
+every journey he makes, he will excuse it in all sorts of irrational
+ways, he will praise it on every possible occasion as &#8220;the best car
+on the market,&#8221; and what seems more absurd still, he will very likely
+think it the best car on the market. It is the same with his house,
+his books, with his relations, with everything that is even distantly
+connected with him. He will speak in high praise of them all, and be
+anxious, at all times, to show them off, and to uphold their virtues
+to all comers. The Narcissist, indeed, rationalises about things in
+general considerably more than most people. The fuller meaning of
+rationalization and its methods of working, however, we shall leave
+till later on.</p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5">[5]</a> Homo-sexuality&mdash;sensual love for a person of the same sex
+as oneself.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER VIII</span> <span class="smaller">THE IRRITABLE TEMPERAMENT</span></h2>
+
+<p>Irritability is not merely that quality in a person which makes his
+friends carefully guard their every word, lest inadvertently they
+should cause an outburst of temper, in its fullest sense it means
+over-sensitiveness to unpleasant stimuli, followed by over-reaction of
+any kind whatsoever. Thus, if a person by accident damage his clothing,
+his over-sensitiveness and over-reaction might result in an oath, in
+abusing the nail which tore his clothing or in abusing the workman who
+put the nail in place originally. It might again result in a feeling of
+depression, with anger displaced on to anyone who was present during
+the next hour, on the smallest pretext; or in an over-sensitive woman,
+it might result in an outburst of tears, or perhaps merely in volubly
+deploring the accident for half-an-hour with the next visitor who
+called; or she might merely &#8220;worry&#8221; about it, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> keep turning the
+memory of it over and over in her mind, refusing to allow the fact to
+separate itself from her fancy.</p>
+
+<p>All these various results, with many others which may be imagined,
+can be gathered together under the one term &#8220;irritability,&#8221; or the
+term &#8220;over-sensitiveness&#8221; would do equally well. This irritability or
+over-sensitiveness may apply to material things or to purely mental
+ones. Narcissism may lead to an irritability of the body, and again it
+may lead to irritability merely of the mind. When Narcissism leads to
+an extremely sensitive body, it reacts to pain of every sort, however
+mild, as though it were acute. The omnipotent mind cannot bear to have
+its body disturbed. I gave an example a short while back of the lady
+who could not take a fly out of my eye, because her own eyes were so
+sensitive. Not only was this particular lady sensitive as regards her
+eyes, but at that period she was as afraid of the dentist touching a
+tooth as if it had been a serious abdominal operation. Pain of any sort
+or even slight accidents involving practically no pain, were reacted
+to as though they had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> overwhelming misfortunes. Here we had
+an excellent example of one in whom Narcissism had produced extreme
+irritability of a physical nature.<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6" >[6]</a></p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, one finds a mental sensitivity equally pronounced.
+People who are always in fear lest somebody should find fault with
+them, with their mode of behaviour, with their manner of dress, even
+with their habit of thought. Unconsciously, to themselves they are the
+acme of perfection, they are the centre of importance, and they are
+inclined to think that people are paying very much more attention to
+them than is actually the case. They may consciously realise that they
+are not important at all, that other people do not give them a thought;
+but their unconscious Narcissism will not accept this slight upon their
+importance, and they remain miserably self-conscious in all their acts,
+reacting with exaggerated feeling whenever some slight criticism of
+their thoughts and actions appear even to be implied.</p>
+
+<p>Pride, vanity, and self importance are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> other manifestations of this
+temperament. The person who feels slighted, or whose feelings are hurt
+when other persons think too little of his opinions, or pay too little
+attention to his actions, or, in fact, whose feelings are hurt easily
+by anything whatsoever, is for the most part a Narcissist, in whom once
+again the infantile omnipotence has been disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>Jealousy very often represents the Narcissistic idea. The
+&#8220;dog-in-the-manger&#8221; attitude, which finding it cannot possess for
+itself, cannot bear anybody else to possess, is largely the attitude
+of unconscious phantasy, in which the individual cannot relinquish the
+idea that somehow he will succeed by means of his omnipotent mind in
+possessing the desired object, and his unconscious mind retains this
+idea so long as the object has not become the property of somebody else
+in such a definite and irrefutable manner as to prove in spite of his
+unconscious phantasy that he cannot possibly possess it himself.</p>
+
+<p>The &#8220;dog-in-the-manger&#8221; attitude is one which simply refuses to
+recognise the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>impossibility of possessing something, although the
+desire for possession in any particular case may unconsciously mean
+nothing except the desire to prove to oneself one&#8217;s own omnipotence.
+And many a case of jealousy in love-affairs is nothing but this
+unconscious desire to prove to oneself the possession of power; it is
+the hatred of acknowledging the fact that one has not control where
+one desires to have it most. Curious as it may seem jealousy is bred
+mostly out of self-love rather than out of love for the other person,
+although, of course, except in extreme cases, love for the other person
+may also exist.</p>
+
+<p>The reaction which takes place whenever the Narcissistic element
+is hurt, almost always takes the form of a regression. It will be
+remembered that a regression implies a return to an infantile method
+of expression. The Narcissist unfailingly hopes, in his unconscious
+that his omnipotence will enable him to avoid an unpleasant fact, and
+to controvert it magically. He therefore falls back on those acts of
+infancy, which he found useful at that early period of his life as
+magical means of attaining his ends. Let us assume, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> example, that
+our Narcissist has entered quietly into an argument with a friend, with
+full faith in himself and his argument that he will convert his friend
+to his own point of view. He finds, however, that he is getting the
+worst of the argument. This is unbelievable to him, he cannot realise
+it; his friend must be pig-headed. Rapidly his unconscious mind says to
+itself, &#8220;What methods did I employ in my childhood, what magic formula
+did I use then to obtain what I wished?&#8221; &#8220;Ah!&#8221; says the unconscious, &#8220;I
+remember; I used abusive terms to my nurse, and the dear thing did what
+I wanted at once.&#8221; Very soon he is using abusive terms to his friend,
+who, however does not later on remark, &#8220;Oh! that man is a Narcissist.&#8221;
+He merely says, &#8220;You know, So-and-So never can keep his temper in an
+argument.&#8221; And the poor Narcissist all the time feels and thinks that
+he has been hardly dealt with, that people do not understand him, that
+they deliberately will not follow his arguments.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, the last is very likely to be right, for in argument there
+is generally more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> rationalization than there is about most things in
+life. Nevertheless, the fact remains that it is not really important
+that his friend should understand either him or his argument as a
+rule, and if he were not Narcissistic he would not over-react to this
+stimulus.</p>
+
+<p>Other methods of reaction in a like manner are all regressions to
+infancy. Some Narcissists, when they ask their unconscious memory,
+&#8220;What magic did I employ as a child?&#8221; find that it was the magic of
+words, and they use expletives of various kinds, which correspond
+in every way to the magic words which a conjuror whispers over his
+tricks when he performs the apparently impossible. Others remember in
+their unconscious mind that they wept copiously, that when they wept
+the feeding bottle was returned to their lips, or the toy to their
+hands. Others go back a stage further. They withdraw in to themselves,
+they refuse to speak, or they say, &#8220;I am so upset, I must go and lie
+down.&#8221; They attempt to return, in fact, to the condition of isolation
+and rest, if not of pre-birth, at least of that period immediately
+following birth, when if they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> cried, they were rocked and crooned over
+and put to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Another form of regression largely due to Narcissism is that of
+alcoholism. Here again, there are other causes at work in the
+unconscious, but Narcissism is one of the most important of them.
+The Narcissist does not like real responsibility; he certainly
+thinks that he is always desiring responsible posts and positions,
+but this is merely because to hold a responsible position or to have
+responsibility signifies importance and power. As a matter of fact,
+when responsibility is thrust upon him, he often has a strong tendency
+to avoid it, because responsibility entails dealing with facts as
+they are, and not with phantasies; and the responsibility which the
+Narcissist seeks is largely that of phantasy. In spite, therefore, of
+his statements to the contrary, we know that he wishes to run away from
+responsible positions, and alcohol has a peculiar power of enabling
+one to forget the responsibilities of the moment, and at the same time
+to give one a feeling of potency and well-being. Consequently, when
+the Narcissist comes up against an unpleasant fact,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> a responsibility
+which he does not wish to take, anything in fact which disturbs his
+sense of well-being, alcohol serves the purpose of allowing regression
+to infancy. It returns him very swiftly to that early period when he
+had no responsibility, when he need take no thought of the facts around
+him, when he had a sense of well-being and omnipotence. This potency
+is increased by the fact that it also removes, simultaneously, other
+repressions, that is, it allows other forms of infantile energy to be
+expressed without conscious criticism or hindrance.</p>
+
+<p>Exactly the same thing may be said of drug-taking. The drug-taker is
+simply habitually seeking something to remove his responsibilities, to
+lead him away from his conflicts which he does not wish to face, away
+from the world of reality into an infantile world, where whatever his
+surroundings, whatever the facts that exist, he is able to ignore them,
+and feel himself in phantasy their master.</p>
+
+<p>But the curious thing about all these regressions is that, in a sense,
+they serve to satisfy the individual. They comfort him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> with the
+unconscious assurance at the moment they are performed, that all will,
+somehow, be well, that these reactions will somehow bring about the
+desired end, that the abuse will succeed where the argument did not,
+that the tears will somehow perform their magic act, that a rest in bed
+will bring about new life, and that the new life will succeed where the
+old life failed.</p>
+
+<p>Never does the Narcissist realise facts as they are, deal with them as
+facts, see them in their proper proportions, and leave them alone when
+he cannot use them.</p>
+
+<p>Impatience of a different kind is also one of the common reactions. A
+man may go into a restaurant; he finds it is full, and quite naturally
+he is kept waiting a few minutes before the busy waiter can bring him
+the menu. He refuses to recognise the fact that he is only one of a
+hundred persons present, that the restaurant has to be run at a profit
+to the proprietor, that innumerable waiters cannot therefore be kept
+to serve his high omnipotence; he frets with impatience and he cannot
+resign himself to the inevitable waiting. He will not understand that
+<i>time</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> is one of the factors over which he has no power. In fact,
+this difficulty to realise the <i>factor of time</i> is an extremely common
+one with Narcissists. No sooner has a project entered their heads than
+they expect to see it fulfilled. Such fulfilment can only take place in
+phantasy, just as they did indeed attain their wishes in childhood. As
+children they could instantaneously create a chariot and horses from an
+arm-chair with complete neglect of the time-factor, and now as adults,
+they hope instantaneously to create an omelet without waiting for it to
+be cooked, to create a business or a character, or fame or happiness
+in the same instantaneous way, without reference to time. They are
+quite unable to see, completely and wholly, any difference between the
+phantasy of childhood and facts of adult life; and one of the most
+essential differences between the two is this <i>time factor</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It takes minutes for an omelet to be cooked, it takes years for a
+business to be created, it takes a lifetime for a character to be
+formed, fame they may never attain, but happiness lies within their
+grasp at once, if only they could relinquish their Narcissism.</p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6">[6]</a> It may be of interest to readers to know that this
+physical over-sensitiveness has very largely disappeared from this
+particular lady as the result of partial psycho-analysis.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER IX</span> <span class="smaller">RATIONALIZATION</span></h2>
+
+<p>Having now briefly sketched the birth and some of the possible
+developments of Narcissism, it may be well to revert to the subject
+of rationalization, on which I have already touched briefly, before I
+deal with some of the methods with which we may combat our Narcissistic
+tendencies. The reason for reverting here to rationalization is this.
+Already I know that there are few readers who will not have discovered
+some material in this book which will have touched a tender spot in
+themselves. And since we know that the great effort of Narcissism is
+to cover up those tender spots, and to deceive ourselves in thinking
+that either they are not there, or better still, that they are virtues
+and really particularly healthy spots, it is as well to examine these
+tendencies and observe one of the chief methods by which we do produce
+such disguises successfully. Of these methods of disguise, our greatest
+comforter, yet our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> worst enemy, is rationalization. The term means
+&#8220;<i>finding apparently adequate reasons for things</i>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>One of the qualities which we highly cultured animals possess is that
+of reason. We have discovered that logic is one of the essential
+factors of law and order, and that the highest form of intellect
+possesses reason in a large measure. Among our gods, the god of reason
+and logic stands high, and our very Narcissism will not permit us to
+do and accept things which are contrary to logical reasoning. For that
+means in the first place, that they are contrary to what we have been
+taught to revere highly as a good quality, and yet more still it means
+that they are contrary to the magic of WORDS, for logic means words;
+logic is words which follow one another in irrefutable sequence. And
+we have already learnt that <i>the infant has early associated words and
+sounds with magic, since by the persistent use of these he has got what
+he wanted</i>. So that doubly are logic and reason revered.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the unhappy thing about life is that we are continually wishing
+to do things or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> feel things or believe things which do not follow
+logically upon other things which we have also had to feel or think or
+believe at some time. Some of our wishes are logically incompatible
+with other of our wishes. More over, we very often do not wish to
+believe or think things which do follow logically on actual facts which
+have gone before. How are we then, as reasonable people, to deal with
+the situation? By rationalization, by finding a reason which suits our
+purpose; and this can only be done, as a rule, by leaving out some
+important factor, by ignoring some truth, and by arguing from false
+premises. We do not do this consciously, that would be unworthy. Our
+unconscious censor manages to delete from consciousness the unpleasant
+truth, as we have already pointed out, and brings forth an array of
+facts which appear irrefutable, and he succeeds in giving us most
+plausible reasons so that we may believe that which is most convenient
+to us.</p>
+
+<p>Let us consider for a moment such a subject as religion. The Roman
+Catholic will adduce evidences of various kinds to show that his is
+the only right and proper form of religion to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> be accepted by any
+intellectual person. The Baptist will likewise do the same, and will
+probably hold that Papal institutions, in many instances, spring not
+from Heaven but from Hell. If you discuss it with either of them, you
+may be flooded with reasons, logical evidences of the correctness of
+their views. Obviously, they cannot both be right in so exclusive a
+manner, and a very little insight will show that the reasons they
+adduce have really very little to do with their beliefs, although they
+think they have. Reverence for their parents, early environment, and
+other factors of this kind, have really induced their present beliefs,
+but these would not appear to them as logical reasons and so they
+select others.</p>
+
+<p>So it is with any unpleasant theory which comes into being. At the
+time of Darwin, a large number of facts were discovered which led
+unbiassed persons to believe in the theory of evolution. This appeared
+contrary to many religious beliefs, and the general public did not
+want to accept such a theory. They could not, however, shut their
+eyes to facts; what were they to do? By carefully leaving out some of
+the facts, and introducing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> speculative material, which they called
+facts, but which were not facts, they succeeded in producing excellent
+reasons, or what seemed excellent reasons to them, for refuting the
+theory of evolution and retaining their old beliefs. In other words,
+they went through a process of rationalization.</p>
+
+<p>The same thing was taking place a few years ago with reference to
+psycho-analysis. People did not like their omnipotent feelings
+disturbed, did not like to find that the superior bricks of which
+their edifice had been built were originally made from clay, and they
+found excellent reasons for not believing it. This, fortunately for
+progress, is gradually passing away, just as the opposition to the idea
+of the evolution of the body passed away. But rationalization is a
+process which has been and is still going on continuously. When Harvey
+discovered the circulation of the blood, when Galileo discovered that
+the earth went round the sun, when psycho-analysts discovered that
+much which mothers thought kind was really cruel, and when you read a
+book which tends to point out that some of your cherished virtues may
+possibly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> be faults, the same tendency is at work. Your mind sorts out
+some of the reasons, refuses to look at others of them, and by such
+careful selection, by this unconscious process of rationalization,
+supports your belief in yourself, holds fast to that which has been,
+and attempts continuously to prevent further changes and disturbances.
+This rationalization, however, is much more widely distributed than
+I have so far indicated; in order that one fact may be justified by
+reason, all the lesser facts which come before it must be similarly
+justified, until even into the trivial details of everyday life the
+leaven of rationalization has penetrated. Examples of it may be seen
+every day in the newspapers, in politics, in even trifling arguments.
+Take for instance the subject of woman&#8217;s suffrage. One half of the
+country produced irrefutable arguments to prove how bad it was, the
+other half to prove how good it was. In both cases, the arguments were
+but straws in the wind, they were quite unnecessary, they were only
+rationalization. Long before the argument on either side came into
+being, the feelings were there, the desires were there;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> and desires
+must somehow be proved right with the magic of words, before we feel at
+liberty to fulfil them. In neither case in this argument was the root
+of the matter touched. If some philosopher had come forward and said,
+&#8220;The first question we have to ask before thinking about suffrage,
+is should a woman wear a skirt?&#8221; or some such similar fundamental
+question, it would probably have been said that it had nothing to
+do with matter, and yet this question of <i>artificial</i> difference
+between the sexes is really fundamental to the whole subject. But the
+rationalist will find that he will not meet me in this statement. The
+woman who wishes to retain certain privileges, and yet accept certain
+other privileges, will at once find reasons why she should wear a skirt
+and yet have the vote. She will tell me all sorts of things about her
+physical disabilities, things which she believes to be fundamental
+truths, many of which, in fact, are fundamentally wrong, but accepted
+as truths because they lead to rationalization being able to support
+her wishes.</p>
+
+<p>In a similar way, on the much discussed subject of &#8220;prohibition&#8221; the
+prohibitionist will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> rationalise on a certain few facts, in order to
+support his emotions and desires. A moderate drinker will do exactly
+the same, in the opposite direction. Neither of them will have the
+courage to ignore his personal feelings, nor may he have the power
+to do so, and to take all the facts into consideration and come to a
+conclusion, irrespective of his wishes on the subject.<a name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>Of course, one of the other difficulties in the way of coming to
+correct conclusions in all these things is that people will insist on
+arguing upon subjects, when the amount of real scientific knowledge
+they have on the subjects is extremely small. The newspaper editor will
+quote a few popular facts, in order to support some theory of his own,
+having but a limited knowledge of psychology, physiology, anatomy, or
+of some other science which has considerable bearing on the subject,
+he will end by producing a series of conclusions probably entirely
+wrong. This, of course, is inevitable in our limited <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>circumstances;
+but it should not be equally inevitable that we should hold firmly
+to our beliefs, when we realise how limited is our knowledge of
+any one subject. And in order to examine facts and to get rid of
+rationalization as far as possible, we must try, with the utmost power
+at our command to refuse that reaction of self-defence and self-pride,
+which prevents us from looking at ourselves and from realising that
+most of our opinions about ourselves may be completely erroneous. We
+must be prepared to accept temporary, not fixed, judgments, based
+upon the evidence which we have. We must be prepared to reverse those
+judgments in the light of new evidence. We must be careful not to
+reject this evidence merely because we do not like it.</p>
+
+<p>It will now be seen how very necessary it is, in dealing with
+Narcissism in particular, to understand something of rationalization,
+so that we may be on our guard in examining ourselves, against
+allowing this to play too great a part in our conclusions. Otherwise,
+with all the goodwill in the world, we may never succeed in making
+any improvement whatsoever, in ourselves. The greatest <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>scientists
+themselves have been amongst those who realised this.</p>
+
+<p>It was Darwin who wrote, as we have quoted in the earlier part of this
+book, &#8220;I had, during many years, followed a golden rule, namely, that
+whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across
+me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of
+it without fail and at once, for I had found by experience that such
+facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than
+favourable ones.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And it was the great scientist, Helmholtz, who said, &#8220;It is better to
+be in actual doubt, than to rock oneself in dogmatic ignorance.&#8221; </p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7">[7]</a> Of course this does not imply that no one is ever capable
+of putting his conscious feelings on one side, and examining a subject
+in spite of pre-conceived ideas and desires, but that this is the
+exception rather than the rule.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>PART II</h2>
+
+<p class="bold2">PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS </p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER X</span> <span class="smaller">SELF ANALYSIS</span></h2>
+
+<p>In attempting to cure ourselves of hyper-Narcissistic characteristics,
+there are several lines of treatment which may be followed, some of
+which depend upon the particular manifestation of Narcissism with
+which we have to deal. One, however, which should be followed in
+every case, we borrow from the methods of psycho-analysis. We cannot
+call it psycho-analysis because the technique employed by an amateur
+in examining himself must be vastly different from the technique
+employed by a psycho-analyst in dealing with his patient. But it is a
+modification of one detail of the technique of psycho-analysis which,
+if properly applied, may have far-reaching results. It is on the lines
+of that phenomenon which is known generally as ab-reaction, and is as
+follows.</p>
+
+<p>When an individual has come to the conclusion that he is suffering from
+some <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>characteristic of Narcissistic nature, which he would rather
+be without, he should, first of all, carefully call to mind, and if
+possible make historical notes of the situations which stimulate the
+particular temperamental reaction to which he objects. If he can, he
+should go further than this, and recall as many as possible of the
+actual situations of recent date, when this particular reaction has
+been called forth.</p>
+
+<p>If he have an ungovernable temper, for example, he should, in detail,
+go first into the type of situations which call forth that temper, and
+secondly, he should revise in detail the recent occasions upon which he
+has lost his temper, and thirdly, <i>he should attempt to find out the
+particular moment, the particular words, the particular occasion which
+first began to stir feelings of temper within him before he actually
+began to show violent manifestations of it</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Having all these things set forth satisfactorily, it would be well
+if he spent half-an-hour every day, for a considerable period, in
+performing the next part of the treatment. He should go into a room
+by himself, where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> he will not be disturbed, recline on a couch or
+a comfortable chair, and allow his mind to drift backwards, year by
+year, remembering as far as possible, every instance on which the
+unfavourable symptom has been called forth. He will find that if he
+does not concentrate too hard, but merely keeps in mind the various
+causes of his temper and recent manifestations of it, other times
+and instances will come into his mind unbidden. He will, in fact, be
+surprised at the amount of detail which he can remember concerning
+the matter. Things which he had not thought of for years, happenings
+which he had passed over as trivial, will come into his mind, and be
+found to have stimulated, in some way or the other, the ill-temper (or
+other Narcissistic trouble) which he is endeavouring to get rid of. He
+must take himself, as far as possible, right into childhood. He will
+not necessarily of course, go back as far as this on the first few
+occasions, but after he has been at work on himself in this way for
+some days, he should have no trouble whatever in beginning to recall
+some of the infantile occasions upon which his Narcissism called forth
+temper. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In all the instances which he brings up into his conscious mind, he
+should write down and study not only the facts remembered, but also the
+emotions which he felt. These he should examine from every possible
+point of view, and see what Narcissistic element appears to be present
+in them. Many memories will come into his mind of an infantile nature
+which do not express the particular symptom from which he now suffers,
+but will obviously have some bearing on it. These he should examine in
+the same way, because it is important for him to get into his conscious
+mind as much as possible of the various occasions in his life on which
+Narcissism acted, when he was not conscious of it. Not only must he
+see how these various occasions were exhibitions of Narcissism, but he
+must try and trace them back, and must compare them with his typical
+infantile methods of expression. These may be represented by shouting,
+crying, stamping, weeping or any other infantile manifestations
+of those omnipotent phantasies which now seem to him to be the
+starting-point of his more recent expression of them. He has, in fact,
+to lay bare<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> before himself, as much as possible of his previously
+unconscious Narcissistic life; its beginnings, its evolution, and its
+ultimate form. This making conscious of what was previously unconscious
+or but partly conscious, is, in itself, a most potent factor in
+improvement, if he will have the patience to steadily persevere and to
+go over daily, for a considerable period, the material he has brought
+to the surface. If he does not do this regularly, it is liable to sink
+back, and become once again an unconscious factor and a determinant to
+his actions over which he has no control.</p>
+
+<p>This bringing into consciousness the unconscious causes and motives
+under-lying behaviour is, in psycho-analysis, one of the powerful
+factors at work producing cures of neurotic obsessions and so forth,
+and it is equally potent with the minor temperamental abnormalities
+with which we are dealing here. For it means that previous mental
+conflicts which were either wholly or partially unconscious, are now
+rendered conscious habitually; and a conscious conflict, or rather a
+conflict in which the forces<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> at work become conscious, is far easier
+to direct than one in which the very forces themselves are hidden and
+unknown. Let us take a more material example for comparison. Suppose an
+officer to be in command of a company of soldiers out in the desert,
+and attacked on a dark night by savages. It might very well be that he
+was well armed, that his machine guns were efficient, but that he would
+be quite overwhelmed because he could neither see the savages nor know
+their numbers, their whereabouts nor their armaments. But supposing
+that the War Office had thoughtfully equipped him with one or two good
+search-lights, which he could direct upon the savages so that the
+number of savages, their armaments, position, and so forth, could be
+brought into his consciousness, he would be in a far better position,
+for he could direct his machine-guns at the threatened points, instead
+of being forced to fire them wildly and as likely as not miss his
+targets altogether.</p>
+
+<p>Exactly the same happens with these manifold feelings to which I
+have just been referring. The more one can see of them,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> their
+histories, their evolution, their beginnings, the more one holds them
+in consciousness, the easier does the conflict between good and evil
+become in the individual. Again, this method of self-help which I have
+given here, differs considerably from that pursued in psycho-analysis,
+in that it is following up only one unconscious factor, albeit, one
+of the most important factors; but in psycho-analysis we follow up in
+turn all the unconscious forces at work, great and small, and in any
+temperamental abnormality there are certainly many more unconscious
+factors than Narcissism concerned, although Narcissism may be the
+predominant one. Thus, for instance, alcoholism, though always
+possessing a Narcissistic element, frequently has other determinants
+present of an exceptionally strong<a name="FNanchor_8" id="FNanchor_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8">[8]</a> nature. So that while an
+analysis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> of Narcissism only, may be of the greatest value in some
+cases, in others, where Narcissism does not occupy so great a field,
+the other unconscious factors are too potent to allow much benefit to
+accrue from a partial self-analysis of this kind.</p>
+
+<p>In drug-taking, however, there is a slight difference from alcoholism,
+for, as a rule, Narcissism is nearly always the essential factor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> It
+will be understood that Narcissism links itself to almost any other
+characteristic, influencing it for the worse by fixing it more deeply,
+and holding it back from becoming conscious more strongly than would
+otherwise be the case.</p>
+
+<p>The patient will find himself, during this self-examination, repeatedly
+trying to excuse himself. He will find himself saying, &#8220;I remember on
+such an such an occasion losing my temper, but on that occasion I was
+perfectly justified.&#8221; Or in another instance, he may say, &#8220;I remember
+weeping (or I remember being depressed or angry, or impatient), but
+circumstances then existed which seem to me proper occasions for such a
+manifestation to have taken place.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Let me emphasise at the outset, that any such excuses will be
+rationalizing; that he must say to himself, &#8220;Whether they appear normal
+or abnormal, according to accepted standards, those occurrences most
+certainly had their Narcissistic factor.&#8221; For it must be understood
+that although there are many occasions when impatience or weeping may
+be looked upon, conventionally, as normal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> occurrences, that is only
+because everybody possesses certain imperfections due to Narcissism;
+and if one is going to attempt to improve one&#8217;s temperament in this
+way, every occasion must be examined without excuse or rationalization,
+otherwise the individual who is thus at work upon himself will only
+succeed in defeating himself to his own detriment, by putting up
+a resistance to his cure or improvement. And, indeed, one of the
+important factors in this work, just as in psycho-analysis itself, is
+the factor which comes into play in overcoming these resistances of
+seeing ourselves as we are, of seeing the evolution and beginnings of
+our temperament as it really was.</p>
+
+<p>This is bound to reveal in all of us without exception much that is
+unpleasant, and that we would rather not see. Resistance to seeing such
+material is inevitable, if the examination is sufficiently thorough. If
+no resistance has to be overcome, the individual may be certain that he
+is shirking the facts.</p>
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8">[8]</a> Alcoholism is further complicated by the fact that a habit
+of <i>physical</i> craving is formed, which as a rule cannot be overcome
+by mental treatment alone. This craving, fortunately, can now be
+eradicated by medicinal means. Indeed, patients of mine have been cured
+of all desire for alcohol in about one week as a rule. The patient
+is then in somewhat the same condition as a man who has never tasted
+alcohol, and he will have no craving for alcohol thereafter, unless he
+deliberately drinks it again. Herein, however, we see the importance of
+the psychic factor, for should the cured alcoholic begin again to take
+alcohol, either because he thinks that he has attained self control
+and can do so, or because he finds abstinence difficult on social
+grounds, he will almost inevitably regress to his old condition of
+uncontrolled desire, no matter how long has elapsed since he was cured
+of it. <i>The same causes which originally led him to excess, viz., his
+mental complexes, are still present and again produce similar results.</i>
+Of course, a very large proportion of those who have been cured by
+medicinal treatment do not relapse, because they have sufficient common
+sense not to experiment with themselves. In the other cases, however,
+the only hope of a permanent cure consists in following up the physical
+treatment with mental treatment, i.e., analysis.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, in most cases of drug taking a medicinal cure is
+generally sufficient, for there is no &#8220;social urge&#8221; to taking drugs as
+there is in the case of alcohol, and once the craving has been cured,
+the tendency to experiment again is the exception rather than the rule.
+But even here it is found that any indulgence in the drug, however
+slight, will again produce in the individual his old craving. <i>He has
+found a previous path of narcissistic regression and will inevitably
+follow it, for though the craving had been eradicated the complexes
+remain.</i> There are many potential alcoholics and potential drug-takers
+in the world, but they will never know it unless unfortunate chance
+induces them to open that particular channel of regression.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER XI</span> <span class="smaller">READJUSTMENT OF OBJECTIVES</span></h2>
+
+<p>In the last chapter we described a process of self-assistance of
+the kind which should be applied by any person, to any Narcissistic
+manifestation he may desire to improve. In the present chapter we are
+going to deal with a method of treatment which is by no means necessary
+in all cases, but is very necessary in a large proportion of them.</p>
+
+<p>We must bear in mind that the Narcissist&#8217;s inability to realise
+distinctly the difference between phantasy and fact will often lead
+him to suppose possible that which is impossible in the ordinary
+affairs of everyday life, and to ignore difficulties which may really
+be insuperable, which stand in the way of his aims and projects. He
+will thus be continually finding himself at a disadvantage, continually
+failing, from apparently trivial reasons, to accomplish an end, and
+as a result<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> he may become depressed, nervous, worried, and subject
+to that lassitude accompanied by headaches, which so frequently comes
+to the Narcissist when he struggles unavailingly with the ordinary
+aims and tasks of everyday life. Moreover, not only does he fail to
+recognise the difficulties in the way of any particular task, but he
+fails to recognise the fact that two projects which he has in his mind
+may be incompatible with one another; or he fails to recognise that
+great &#8220;<i>Time-factor</i>,&#8221; which I have mentioned before, and tries to
+condense more work and more visible results into a given period than is
+humanly possible.</p>
+
+<p>This type of Narcissist is always considerably addicted to day-dreams,
+with which, however, we shall deal in a further chapter. For the
+present, we are going to restrict ourselves to the question of
+arranging his aims and wishes on a sound and possible basis. In the
+first place, let it be understood that although the method of treatment
+so far carried out may have made clear to the patient the origin and
+development of his phantasy thought and phantastic aims, there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> yet
+remains the breaking of the habit, and this is rendered far more easy
+if we attempt to substitute another habit of a different nature. Let
+us further impress upon him the fact that a frequent examination of
+his aims in a directive manner by the method about to be discussed is
+in itself an exercise in directive thinking, helping to form a habit
+opposed to a former habit of phantasy thinking. And, lastly, let it be
+remembered that Narcissists are generally very averse from making real
+personal sacrifices which have no glamour attached to them; that they
+object to adapting themselves to reality which may be unpleasant, and
+that by the method I am about to describe, they will have to deal in
+trivial things, and the conscious adjustment which they will thus make
+towards reality will gradually become habitual.</p>
+
+<p>What we are attempting to do now is to substitute directive thought
+and directive aims, aims possible of attainment, for phantasy thoughts
+and impossible aims. Most people will find on self-examination that
+their aims are by no means clearly defined; they have an object in
+life, but it is vague in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> outline, and ill-defined; it is often only
+a question of getting somehow through life, with enough food to eat,
+and sufficient phantasy thought to keep them from boredom. This again,
+is especially the case with some women, whose household duties require
+but little directive thought, since they are daily repetitions of the
+same thing. Dusting a room is a habit which becomes pleasanter if
+accompanied by phantasy thinking; whereas, had that woman some definite
+aim, apart from the habit of house-cleaning, it would be possible to
+accompany the room-dusting with directive thought which revolved round
+the aim in question, and this would very much add to the pleasure and
+efficiency of the individual&#8217;s life. If a person, on self-examination,
+finds that his aims are not clearly defined, or are in conflict with
+one another, or, on the other hand, that his aims or thoughts are in
+part phantasy and impossible of fulfilment, that person should at once
+deliberately remould and re-state his aims, so that they become:</p>
+
+<p>(a) clearly defined,</p>
+
+<p>(b) clearly possible. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Moreover, the aims should be of two kinds:</p>
+
+<p>(1) immediate,</p>
+
+<p>(2) remote.</p>
+
+<p>The remote aim is the ideal for which he is striving; and however high
+that ideal be, it should be of a kind possible of fulfilment, not
+necessarily in the lifetime of the individual, in all cases, for he may
+be working for something of which he does not expect fulfilment for
+even hundreds of years, yet it may be perfectly legitimately termed a
+real aim, as opposed to a phantastic one.</p>
+
+<p><i>Now, the first thing which the individual should bear in mind is that
+an immediate aim should always be in harmony with the remote aim.</i> Let
+it also be borne in mind that when we state that the aim should be
+clearly possible, we do not only mean that the aims should be possible
+from a point of view of external environment and circumstances, but
+also having regard to the patient&#8217;s own intelligence, will-power,
+education, and physical health&mdash;in other words possible in the case of
+this particular individual.</p>
+
+<p>Now let us consider in detail the further course to be pursued by the
+person who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> proposes to treat himself on these lines. Let him take
+pencil and paper and write out in the fullest of details a list of
+his aims, great and small, in the first place, without any reference
+to their bearing upon one another, or any attempt at classification,
+keeping in mind that by aims in life, we mean wishes which he hopes
+will be fulfilled. Let him think of every conceivable wish in his mind,
+and write it down, whether phantastic in nature, or trivial, or whether
+both possible and important.</p>
+
+<p>In the next place, let him see that this list is written so clearly
+and accurately, that each of the aims is well defined and without
+ambiguity. Now let him run through the list again, and see whether
+any of the aims are in conflict with one another, and whether any of
+them are inconsistent from the view point of his, and are therefore
+impossible of fulfilment. Let him put his pencil definitely through
+such impossible aims, and cut them out of his life, with as full a
+realisation as possible of the fact that they are nothing but dreams,
+that he need never consider them again, that he must not regret them,
+for that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> is mere infantile crying after the impossible. He must
+replace them in due course with others possible of fulfilment.</p>
+
+<p>Now let him take the revised list and separate it into two divisions,
+writing the aims down again under the two headings, (1) immediate aims,
+and (2) remote aims. Here, he will have to bear in mind one of his
+chief faults, if he be strongly Narcissistic. Such persons in their
+phantasy carry their aims to completion long before reality can permit
+of it. The time-factor is not realised, and hence they have a great
+tendency to confuse remote aims with the immediate aims, in their
+desire to see immediate results; hence, also, because they cannot soon
+see such results, they give way to despair, become depressed, and have
+the tendency to regress to the infantile characteristics to which I
+have already referred. Here lies the importance of dividing the aims
+into immediate and remote. For as soon as the individual&#8217;s mind has
+grasped the fact that an aim is necessarily remote, and therefore
+impossible of immediate fulfilment, he is much more able to adjust
+himself to these facts, and to pay real and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> undivided attention to
+the immediate present. Apart from the fact that sorting and adjusting
+of the aims relieves the mind of many previous conflicts, it acts as
+a stimulus to a considerable amount of directive thinking. And the
+patient will be surprised at first to find the amount of time it is
+possible to spend in a really useful recasting of his life interests.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until the author, himself, took pencil and paper, and
+classified his own aims, and put down the points for and against each,
+and attempted to see the disharmonies existing amongst them, that he
+realised the full value of this procedure. It might be thought that in
+a very short period any person could put down all his aims, and that
+but little modification would take place in them from day to day. This,
+however, is very far from being true, as will be seen by anyone who
+carries out this method fully.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps at this point the details taken from a case of a woman
+suffering from a &#8220;nervous breakdown&#8221; in which I used this method as a
+subsidiary form of treatment, may not only be of interest, but will
+also throw some light on the practical working of the method.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> I may
+mention that her chief troubles were insomnia, constant worrying, great
+depression, and inability to settle down to work of any kind.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, this patient commenced by stating that she had no
+aim in life at all. She had to admit, however, immediately after, that
+she had at least the aim of wishing to get well, or otherwise she would
+not have come to me. On being asked why she wished to get well, several
+subsidiary aims appeared. For the most part, they were rationalization,
+and I knew these aims would be thrown over in due course, but that, for
+the purpose in view, did not matter. I told her to go home, and write
+down her aims, in the manner I have just indicated.</p>
+
+<p>The following was the list brought to me on the next day.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>(1) To be well.</p>
+
+<p>(2) To be married.</p>
+
+<p>(3) To become a doctor.</p>
+
+<p>(4) And if I cannot do that, to become a masseuse.</p>
+
+<p>(5) Or a psycho-analyst.</p>
+
+<p>(6) Or a private secretary. </p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>(7) And I should like to have two children.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>With this rather pathetic list in front of me, I asked her to give as
+far as possible the reasons she had for these various wishes, and to
+examine these on the lines I had indicated, with the following results.</p>
+
+<p>(1) <i>To get well.</i> &#8220;The reason for this aim is obvious; it is necessary
+in order to obtain the others,&#8221; said she.</p>
+
+<p>(2) <i>To get married.</i> &#8220;This aim has three subsidiary immediate aims,&#8221;
+she replied, &#8220;and there may be others. (a) I want a comfortable home of
+my own, (b) I want satisfaction of my natural instincts in accordance
+with the custom of ordinary adult life, (c) I could attain the later
+aim of having two children.&#8221; She immediately added, &#8220;In that case, the
+aim of having two children is a remote aim, and if I follow your advice
+I must no longer have day-dreams about them, I must put them out of my
+thoughts, I must not waste time on anything connected with them, until
+I am married.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>(3) <i>To become a doctor.</i> &#8220;Concerning this,&#8221; she added, &#8220;I have
+always liked studying Zoology, and microscopic work, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> diseases.
+Moreover, it is the only way in which one can make money in a really
+interesting manner.&#8221; She then stated that she realised this to be
+a double aim, and to consist, firstly, of the aim of earning a
+livelihood, and secondly, of that of having an interesting occupation.
+This aim was soon discovered to be phantastic, however, for she had to
+admit that her financial position would not permit of the necessary
+study, and that there was no prospect of any improvement in this. She
+therefore realised that although she had had it at the back of her
+mind for several months that somehow such an aim might be possible of
+fulfilment, she now clearly saw that it was not. She at once removed
+it from the list, and realised that neither regrets nor phantasy in
+connection with it would be of any avail, and again, that she must bear
+in mind possibilities and realities.</p>
+
+<p>(4) <i>To become a masseuse.</i> She at once stated her thoughts on this
+subject. &#8220;I have known one or two masseuses, who seem to make money,
+and who are very happy. Moreover, it is an occupation that a lady can
+take up.&#8221; She then discovered that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> this involved three aims: (a) to
+make money, (b) to be happy, (c) to remain genteel. On the opposite
+side, however, she added that she was not sufficiently physically
+strong for the work, and was afraid she would soon tire of it, because
+as an occupation itself, it did not appeal to her. This aim, also,
+immediately disappeared from the list.</p>
+
+<p>(5) <i>To become a psycho-analyst.</i> This, said she, was a very
+interesting subject, and she thought she could do much good by means of
+it. Moreover, she thought she would like psychology though she had not
+studied it much as yet. &#8220;Moreover,&#8221; said she, &#8220;psycho-analysts probably
+make a lot of money. And further, it would be very nice to sit at
+home in an arm-chair to do one&#8217;s work, and to let other people do the
+talking.&#8221; She at once recognised this latter idea to be a thoroughly
+Narcissistic regression. And then she found that all the other ideas
+contained multiple aims in themselves, each of which had to be thought
+out and classified, and into the details of which I need not go. Except
+to say that when she considered the matter from a practical point of
+view, the difficulties<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> of training, the time it would take, and more
+especially the fact that she feared that psycho-analysis might not be
+popular by the time she was ready, she determined that it was only a
+phantasy aim, upon which she had been wasting phantasy thought, and she
+ruled it out.</p>
+
+<p>(6) <i>To become a private secretary.</i> On this point, she considered that
+her personal appearance and general education would help her, and was
+quite compatible with the aim. But she knew no shorthand, book-keeping,
+nor typewriting. She, however, realised at once that the immediate aim
+in this case should be the shorthand, book-keeping, and typewriting,
+and she said, &#8220;I will go to-morrow and see where I can learn these
+things.&#8221; I pointed out to her that she might very possibly change
+her mind, when she considered things further, but that even if she
+did so, the mastery of shorthand, typewriting and book-keeping might
+stand her in good stead, and in any case that she would be working for
+an immediate object, in turning some of her phantasy into directive
+thought. And on the morrow, she actually did commence her studies on
+these subjects. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>(7) <i>The desire to have two children.</i> This was at once classified, as
+I have already said, as a remote aim; though, as a matter of fact, she
+got married shortly afterwards, and the remote aim is now on the way to
+being fulfilled, as she has one child.</p>
+
+<p>I have shown by this example the ill-considered, phantastic, and
+conflicting aims, which some persons may at first produce when they
+attempt deliberately to classify them. But it must be remembered that
+each of the subsidiary aims which she had discovered her primary aims
+to be divided into were, in turn, again capable of being divided into
+further subsidiary aims. And the next stage of this form of technique
+is to discover these. Day by day, the pencil and paper must be
+brought out, and a list of aims and wishes for that day compiled and
+considered. They must be in turn examined to show (1) whether they are
+compatible with one another, (2) whether they are compatible with other
+immediate aims, (3) whether they are compatible with the remote aims.</p>
+
+<p>A strong attempt must then be made to eradicate any aims or wishes
+which are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> antagonistic to one another, or to the primary aims of the
+individual, which have already been passed as real. As progress is
+made, definite and personal aims will be developed day by day, many of
+these, no doubt, apparently trivial, others at least important for the
+day in question, all important from the point of view of developing the
+habit of thinking in terms of reality.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, on one occasion, the lady above mentioned wrote on her
+list in the morning that she wished to work hard at her shorthand
+in the early part of the day, to go to a matinée in the afternoon,
+and to a dance in the evening. On consideration, however, she came
+to the conclusion that the dance in the evening, following after
+the day&#8217;s work and entertainment, would probably interfere with her
+next morning&#8217;s work, and it was not, moreover, compatible with that
+immediate aim of regaining complete health at the earliest possible
+moment. It was, therefore, rejected; the lesser aim was recast, and
+a quiet dinner with a friend substituted. Only by such rigorous and
+possibly painful self-treatment can the Narcissist&#8217;s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> conflicts be
+regulated and viewed in a proper perspective.</p>
+
+<p>Every daily aim has a further subsidiary aim appertaining to it. For
+instance, a man may have made up his mind to devote a certain part
+of the day to studying; the lesser aim includes the subject to be
+studied, the amount to be done, and the time to be occupied. It is
+important that he should not over-estimate the amount he can get done
+in a given time. One reason why so much detail should be considered,
+is that it is astounding how excessively a person, with a tendency to
+phantasy thought, over-estimates the amount of work it is possible
+to get through in a given time. No sooner is a task commenced than
+he expects it to be almost finished. The daily programme frequently
+includes far more than is possible, and he forms a habit of being late
+for everything; all this being merely the ordinary omnipotent idea of
+childhood, which fulfils a wish in phantasy as readily as it is formed.</p>
+
+<p>I must now give a warning, that those who follow this method are, at
+first, nearly always extremely impatient for results, for this very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+reason that they do not realise the time-factor; and they must realise,
+and consciously and patiently accept inevitable delay, with the
+assurance that if they can overcome their Narcissism sufficiently to
+persist in the method they will steadily and gradually develop a habit,
+an attitude of mind which devotes its energy to directive thought, to
+real aims, and to displacing from themselves the phantastic medley
+which was there before.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER XII</span> <span class="smaller">READJUSTMENT OF THOUGHT</span></h2>
+
+<p>We have seen in an earlier chapter how one of the ways in which
+Narcissism manifests itself is in day-dreams. We saw how a child would
+substitute a phantasy or day-dream for a reality, and so fulfil its
+wishes and desires in this unreal manner. And we saw how, if this were
+persisted in to excess, the same or a modified method of fulfilling
+one&#8217;s wishes in realms of phantasy would remain even in adult life.
+I may here remark that even <i>very little</i> day-dreaming constitutes
+excess, and is bound to have a deleterious effect upon the efficiency
+and happiness of the individual&#8217;s life; unless, perhaps, that
+individual is mixing sufficient directive thought with his phantasies
+as in the case of a novelist or artist, for instance. In realising
+this, it must be borne in mind, that time and energy spent in phantasy
+thinking are time and energy lost to reality and fact; that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+encouragement of the habit of phantasy thinking destroys the ability
+to think directively, or rather renders the full development of it
+impossible. Moreover, by encouraging day-dreams, we are simultaneously
+holding on to our Narcissism, and making it more likely that it
+will also find outlets in other deleterious ways. For instance, the
+&#8220;worrying nature&#8221; which is constantly thinking of possible troubles to
+come, and of how past troubles might have been avoided is indulging in
+a form of phantasy thinking. If the habit of phantasy thinking has been
+cultivated for pleasurable purposes, a channel has been opened which
+will be used without conscious intention for other kinds of phantasy
+as well. The habit of worrying to which we have just referred, is an
+example of this.</p>
+
+<p>Worry consists in weaving phantasies about something which cannot at
+the moment be influenced directively. It may be about something which
+<i>has</i> happened and therefore cannot be influenced at all by thinking
+about it, or about something which <i>may</i> happen but over which the
+thinker has no immediate control; and it consists in going over all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+the &#8220;mays&#8221; and &#8220;mights&#8221; connected with the case, and experiencing
+the unpleasant emotions belonging to each phantasied situation. In
+order to get rid of this worrying habit, to close the channel which
+permits of it, a person must simultaneously cut out pleasurable
+day-dreams also, and thus close the channel entirely. Therefore, let
+us recommend the individual who indulges largely in day-dreams, to get
+rid of the habit as soon as possible. Those who have other abnormal
+characteristics which they wish to eradicate, should understand that
+they must, simultaneously, get rid of their day-dreams. And this means
+pulling oneself up, not merely when one discovers oneself imagining
+some glorious vista in which one occupies a principle but impossible
+part, it means similarly pulling oneself up in a thousand little ways;
+it means catching oneself whenever one wanders from a type of directive
+thought to a type of phantastic thought.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, in the examination of one&#8217;s aims, one is thinking
+directively, and one comes to the conclusion that, say, a course
+of shorthand and typewriting shall be taken at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> once, that the aim
+of being a secretary is one suitable and compatible with one&#8217;s
+attainments. At this point, it is very easy for the individual to
+suddenly find that he or she has become, in day-dreams, the secretary
+of a duke or American millionaire. And if he does not pull himself up
+at this stage, he will find that the duke&#8217;s money has been left him,
+or she will find that she has married the American millionaire. And
+so the phantasy goes on. It starts in reality, but the Narcissistic
+temperament takes it right away from this. It must be nipped in the
+bud at the very beginning, if the habit of directive thought is to be
+established. As soon as the individual finds himself drifting in this
+way, wasting energy, fulfilling wishes by mere dreams, he must pull
+himself up short, and say to himself, &#8220;Here the real ends, there the
+phantasy begins. This is the point I must come back to, I must deal
+with this matter from the real point of view only, without allowing
+this phantasy to intrude itself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And here again, much patience will be needed, for if the habit has
+already been cultivated, he will soon be back in phantasy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> again,
+probably in less than five minutes. But phantasy thought does not only
+mean day-dreams in the sense in which we have spoken of them here. It
+may take all sort of disguises, and what would be phantasy thought in
+one person, would be directive thought in another. In one case, the
+environment and education and inherent ability would not be of that
+order which could make the thoughts come to be facts; in the other case
+the abilities of the person might be sufficient to do so. Thus, were an
+ordinary person to sit in his arm-chair, and phantasy a wonderful plan
+for the conquest of Europe, without having either the will or the means
+of carrying out his ambition, that would constitute phantasy thinking
+pure and simple. If, however, a Napoleon did the same, with the will
+and the possible means, with the near aim at hand in the conquest of
+a small country, and the subsequent conquest of Europe as an ultimate
+one, his method of thought would have to be described as directive
+thinking. So that similar thinking in two different individuals may
+really be classified as two different principles of thinking. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I have no doubt that many readers will be saying to themselves now,
+&#8220;But my greatest pleasure is to be found in day-dreams. I find in
+directive thinking nothing but hard work.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In such a case, if the individual cannot enjoy his directive
+thinking, and he gets no emotional discharge by means of it, it is
+possible that his aims in life are unsuited to him, or that he has
+not sufficient aims in life, that his time is not as fully occupied
+with interesting <i>acts</i> as it should be. In such a case, subsidiary
+aims should be formed deliberately, wherein he could take an interest
+in directive thinking. <i>For it may be accepted as a fact that, with
+proper cultivation and education, more real pleasure can be found in
+suitable directive thinking than in any amount of day-dreams.</i> It is
+also a further fact that the individual&#8217;s energy is not then wasted,
+but is more or less efficiently utilised. Moreover, instead of losing
+strength of character, he is now gaining it. Let it be borne in mind,
+always, that continual indulgence of phantasy thought, from its very
+ease, breeds the habit of inertia, for the individual&#8217;s aims and wishes
+attain fulfilment without any need for activity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> on his part; and here
+a vicious circle is produced, because the inertia, which he has thus
+encouraged, now in its turn tends to make him resort to phantasy the
+more.</p>
+
+<p>It is easy, of course, to say, &#8220;I will cut myself off from phantasy
+thought, I will pull myself up whenever this occurs, and leave it
+alone.&#8221; But it is by no means easy to act up to this resolution. If,
+however, another kind of directive thought is deliberately substituted
+for the phantasy, the task is made very much easier. If the water in
+the bath is too hot, and we want it to cool rapidly, we do not merely
+turn off the hot tap, we simultaneously turn on the cold.</p>
+
+<p>The task will be rendered more easy still, if the individual selects
+his subject of directive thought to replace phantasy beforehand, not
+waiting until the time comes. For instance, we will suppose that,
+as one subsidiary aim with which to fill in his time, a person has
+selected the collection of postage stamps. He will each day have in
+front of him some page which he wishes to arrange in chronological
+order, to consider from the point of view of water-marks and
+perforations; and he may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> make up his mind that as soon as he finds
+himself dealing in phantasy thought he will not only cut out the
+phantasy thought but will at once start arranging, in his mind, the
+stamps which he was shortly going to arrange in his book. It matters
+not in the least what form the substitute thought takes, so long as it
+possesses two qualities, (1) it is directive, <i>i.e.</i>, it is going to
+lead to some sort of actual change or action, and (2) that it bears
+a pleasurable interest. And for that reason, I have selected a very
+trivial form of directive thought as an example. The point is that
+the individual should select some subject in which he has a personal
+and active interest, as a subject with which he may replace phantasy
+thought, whenever the latter comes into his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Phantasy thought may, further, not be of necessity thoughts impossible
+of fulfilment, except in the immediate present. Thoughts of erotic
+or other desires which intrude themselves at untimely moments, are
+phantasy thoughts, and some people frequently complain that they are
+annoyed by them, especially when they have no intention of actually<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+fulfilling them in fact, or when the means of fulfilling them are
+not present. Here again, to have a subject ready at hand, or to
+have a substitute thought for the undesired thoughts is a very real
+assistance. Even a sentence thought out beforehand or a good maxim
+which can be repeated several times and considered, forms an excellent
+substitute thought with which to replace the unwanted phantasy.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now consider a few other examples. The majority of educated
+people, of a so-called normal type, when they have completed their
+day&#8217;s work, and are fatigued, require some sort of mental rest, and as
+a rule some kind of phantasy thought is resorted to in the evening.
+Also, when this fatigue is cumulative, they say, &#8220;We have worked
+eleven months, and now require one month&#8217;s holiday.&#8221; This is really an
+unconscious phantasy requiring a regressive reward. They are not really
+tired out, physically or mentally, but they have accumulated, after
+a series of postponements, a large number of Narcissistic efforts at
+phantasy; and the holiday which they now require is really to satisfy
+this. It is a return to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>childhood and the time of irresponsibility,
+and their occupations on the holiday may very likely be, to a large
+extent, similar to those with which they occupied themselves in
+childhood. They throw off their adult status and responsibility, and
+deliberately take this regressive reward. Even with normal people
+the idea of <i>rest</i> in the form of a holiday, often means nothing but
+phantasy thought, time disregarded, no effort of any sort to be made.</p>
+
+<p>But in the less Narcissistic type of person who still retains directive
+thought even on a holiday&mdash;a holiday means merely change in immediate
+aim, change in occupation, rather than rest from aim and occupation.</p>
+
+<p>Phantasy thinking may take many quite surreptitious forms. In old age,
+for instance, we know that type of person, who is quietly slipping
+into helpless imbecility. He is the same man, who, at an earlier age,
+lacked the habit of directive thought. On the other hand, there is
+our intellectual old man or woman, still full of the day&#8217;s problems
+or politics, who indulged, in early life, but little in phantasies.
+Experience shows us that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> influence of directive or undirective
+thought in youth may not only determine our happiness in declining
+years, but may even determine the actual age to which we live. For,
+paradoxically, it is the Narcissist, who of all people desires a long
+life, and who is, of all people, the least likely to attain old age. He
+frequently &#8220;worries himself into the grave.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>We have not yet exhausted the forms of phantasy thought. A casual
+conversation between acquaintances in which no information of value
+is imparted, in which merely some emotional material is brought to
+the surface and thrown out, is undirective thought. The first person,
+interested in some emotional experience, recounts to the second the
+facts of that experience, often without arousing any emotional feeling
+in the second person. Such is the type of conversation which takes
+place over a vast majority of tea-tables. It is wasted energy.</p>
+
+<p>Another example is that of conventional letter-writing, in certain
+cases. The duty letter which one person writes to another person is
+of the same type. The writer who deals with his or her experiences
+on a shopping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> expedition, who states a series of things which have
+happened, merely in order to enjoy them once again in phantasy, is
+performing the same waste of energy. There is no return for this
+expended energy, the rush of ideas produces no result. Perhaps the
+time is due for a letter to be written, and it is the turn of this
+person to write a letter. As a result of this conventional attitude,
+the writer has to resort to phantasy thought to satisfy the needs of
+the moment. We have pointed out that reading a novel is a form of
+phantasy thinking, in which we identify ourselves with the hero. The
+same occurs in our cinemas. Here, the pleasure of phantasy thinking is
+enhanced by the fact that the visual impression is produced direct,
+whereas in reading a novel the visual impression is by words only,
+and a certain amount of effort is needed to translate it in the mind
+into its pictorial form; and thus the cinematograph induces a form of
+phantasy thinking which needs the least effort of all to realise. It
+is within the reach of anyone possessing a few pence, and although the
+average person may regard it as educative and useful to the community,
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> magistrate who is dealing with the youthful delinquent knows the
+cinematograph to be very harmful to the child&#8217;s mind. And there is no
+doubt that the unconscious effect of such mental stimuli is excessively
+deleterious to the race in general. The indulgence in it encourages
+the habit of phantasy thinking at a small cost, and such a habit soon
+becomes established as part of the individual&#8217;s make-up. Nor does the
+evil stay itself here. For the phantasy in the cinematograph consists
+usually in the fulfilment of impossible wishes, and in this, as in
+other cases, the emotional output is increased out of all proportion
+to the real exciting causes. This results in a misplacement in the
+emotional output in the unconscious mind, which in its turn is the
+basis of many neurotic conditions which may even require a physician&#8217;s
+aid to eradicate. And one must remember that a neurotic condition need
+not merely be the illness of an individual, it may be, and often is,
+the disease of a nation. Hence, like the fairy-tale, the cinema, as it
+is at present, should not be used as a child&#8217;s pastime. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>§2</h3>
+
+<p>In other forms of Narcissism also, we shall find it easier to break
+away from phantasy if we substitute a reality; that is, if we turn our
+flow of energy into a real, instead of an imaginary channel, instead of
+merely trying to dam the flow in the original channel. In cases where
+this Narcissism involves a bad habit, such as irritability, impatience,
+weeping, etc., the line that should be followed differs rather from
+that suggested in the case of day-dreams. In the first place, not only
+should we pull ourselves up short, but we should also bear in mind,
+immediately, the first part of the technique which we suggested in
+a previous chapter. That is to say, we should call to mind what our
+abnormal act really means, and having done this, having realised it in
+consciousness, <i>we should then endeavour to use the same energy which
+we should have used for this abnormal act in an immediate and useful
+manner</i>. Now, in all these cases, our abnormal reaction takes place
+because our omnipotence or sense of perfection is disturbed; and since
+this sense of perfection is not real, the easiest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> and most convenient
+channel for us to turn our energy into is one which still satisfies the
+sense of perfection, that is to say, one in which we may feel that <i>we
+are, by our act, becoming more perfect in reality, instead of clinging
+to our perfection in phantasy</i>. It is impossible to give examples to
+cover the very many reactions which may take place, but one actual
+example, given in detail, should be sufficient to enable the individual
+to invent others to suit his own case. Let us again take the case
+of the impatient man, in which the Time-factor has never been fully
+realised.</p>
+
+<p>Let us say that he has entered a restaurant for lunch, and that
+having glanced down the menu, he then has to wait ten minutes before
+the waiter attends to him. Probably, after the first minute of that
+time, he has begun to get impatient; at the end of ten minutes he is
+either making up his mind to go without his lunch, so great is his
+irritability, or else he is, with great emotion, explaining to his
+neighbour how extremely inefficient this restaurant is, as regards
+management, service, and, in fact, everything connected with it. He is
+utterly unable to realise the facts of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> case. Let us again refer
+to the facts for a moment. The restaurant is a business, and must make
+a profit; in order to do this, only a limited number of waiters can
+possibly be kept, and the number of these has to be regulated by the
+<i>average</i> number of customers, by the profit which it is possible to
+make in the neighbourhood, and other factors. In the second place, the
+luncheon hour is one at which the number of customers is well above
+the average, and therefore in which the service is bound to be the
+slowest; however good the management, however skilful the waiters, they
+are obliged to devote a certain number of minutes to each customer;
+and the probability is that our Narcissistic individual is being as
+well attended to as anybody else. He does not realise this however, he
+is not dealing with the facts at all. He merely knows that he wishes
+for an immediate meal, that his sense of perfection is thoroughly
+disturbed, and his unconscious idea is that if he is sufficiently
+impatient, what he wants will come to him immediately, just as it did
+in childhood.</p>
+
+<p>Now let us see how he may deal with <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>himself. We will suppose that
+he has read this chapter before his next visit to the restaurant in
+question. Once again he sits down, once again he finds he is kept
+waiting. His impatience begins to manifest itself in its early stages.
+He pulls himself up, and the first thing that he does is to realise the
+causes of his impatience, as set out in the last paragraph. He must go
+quickly over the original causes of his Narcissism in infancy, and of
+how he obtained means of satisfaction, and so developed his present
+habit of thought. He must run over the facts concerning the restaurant,
+and realise that it is a business place, and that it is at its busiest
+hour. In other words, he must get into full consciousness the various
+factors associated with this Narcissistic outburst of impatience. Then,
+let him realise as a kind of summary, &#8220;What I am actually objecting
+to is the disturbance of my unconscious feeling of omnipotence and
+perfection. Let me, however, turn this energy, utilise this time
+during which I am waiting in attaining a step nearer real perfection
+instead of bemoaning the loss of my imaginary perfection. Now, a step
+towards<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> real perfection will be attained, if I overcome this habit
+of impatience. Let me, therefore, utilise this time in sitting here
+patiently, in worrying no longer about the time the waiter is taking,
+in being actually pleased with the fact that I am becoming more
+patient, and that my time is being usefully filled with a directive
+aim, which has as its object the same ultimate idea as the original
+phantastic one, namely, that of perfection.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Critics may here suggest that this long monologue on the part of the
+impatient individual might have been cut short by allowing him to say,
+&#8220;Obviously, the waiters are busy, it is no use being impatient, let me
+be patient.&#8221; I must point out, however, that the result would probably
+not have been the same. The longer method has its value in the fact
+that he brings into consciousness the two ideas of perfection, the
+Narcissistic idea which is being hurt, and the real idea which he is
+desiring consciously to obtain. <i>And it is very much easier to turn
+energy from one channel to another, if there are lines of similarity
+between the two channels.</i></p>
+
+<p>Hence, when one&#8217;s sense of perfection is <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>assailed, let one turn
+one&#8217;s energy into some form of thought which still satisfies the idea
+of perfection attained or attainable. A similar process can be gone
+through with any other Narcissistic form of trouble, and consists in
+recapitulating the causes, and in reaching a determined effort to
+deflect consciously the energy from the phantastic into the real. The
+same principle holds good for all temperamental troubles of this sort,
+but the individual will have to devise for himself a suitable formula
+to use to suit the needs of his own case.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER XIII</span> <span class="smaller">AUTO-SUGGESTION</span></h2>
+
+<p>Suggestion, in one form or another, plays an extremely important
+part in the life of everyone. Suggestion consists in impressing upon
+the unconscious mind some idea or thought in such a way that the
+unconscious mind will take it and absorb it as part of itself, and
+utilise it unconsciously and instinctively. Quite unconsciously,
+throughout childhood and adult life, we are receiving suggestions from
+the actions of those around us.</p>
+
+<p>For example, I remember as a boy going repeatedly with a relative
+to a friend&#8217;s house. At the time, I did not notice that my relative
+invariably used the knocker, and never rang the bell, or rather I did
+not consciously notice it. On one occasion I, myself, was sent with
+a message to this house, and although I was in the habit of ringing
+bells whenever I went to other houses, at this particular one, I
+instinctively knocked only. The suggestion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> that I should knock upon
+that particular door had been implanted in me by the fact that I had
+repeatedly seen the same action take place, although I had paid no
+conscious attention to it. It had impressed itself upon my mind as
+the right action to take place, under the particular circumstances
+attending a visit to this house, so that I performed the action itself
+automatically, without any further thought in the matter.</p>
+
+<p>The example impressed itself upon my mind, because while I was in the
+house, on this occasion, a man came to mend the bell, which had been
+out of order for many months. Hence, the reason my relative invariably
+knocked.</p>
+
+<p>Suggestion of various kinds is a very powerful factor, and as in
+the example given above, it is for the most part an unconscious
+factor in determining our actions. But it is possible for us to give
+ourselves <i>conscious</i> suggestions which will afterwards cause us to
+act automatically, in accordance with the suggestion. A great deal too
+much, however, has been claimed for suggestion in recent months. There
+are many circumstances in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> which suggestion is not likely to be any
+good at all, there are also circumstances when it may arouse an actual
+opposition in the unconscious mind, where a counter-suggestion is set
+at work immediately, and the condition of the individual may actually
+be worse than before he started giving himself suggestions.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from other things, one factor may be mentioned which is very
+antagonistic to suggestion, and that is <i>fear</i>, possibly fear which
+is for the most part unconscious. Thus, supposing that the alcoholic
+gives himself the suggestion that he shall pass a public-house without
+going into it, and he has a definite fear of the wish to go in; he
+will probably find that in suggesting that he shall not have the wish,
+he is actually re-enforcing the strength of the wish which is there.
+His unconscious counter-will is at work, and turning the force of the
+suggestion in the wrong direction, and he will very likely succumb
+to temptation more readily than before. Hence, in a subject where we
+have acute fear of failure, suggestion must be very carefully dealt
+with. Moreover, suggestion, to be efficient, must have other things in
+its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> favour, some knowledge, in fact, of the underlying causes of the
+deleterious action which we wish to eradicate. It is not impossible to
+improve oneself by suggestion, even though one may be ignorant of the
+cause of one&#8217;s trouble, but I have found that it is infinitely more
+easy to obtain this improvement if one has previously brought into
+consciousness the underlying cause, and can therefore direct one&#8217;s
+suggestion to this rather than merely to the effect or symptom. I have
+myself devised a method for the use of certain of my patients by means
+of which suggestion may be directed to both the cause and result,
+as indicated shortly. Ordinary methods of suggestion are frequently
+merely directed to the cure of the symptom rather than the disease; in
+fact, such auto-suggestion, popular as it has become, may frequently
+be likened to a doctor who treats small-pox by putting ointment on the
+spots, or appendicitis by giving morphia. It will be successful in
+those cases where the manifestations of the disease are worse than the
+disease itself; but when the causes are strong and virile, suggestion
+directed towards the symptom will not avail. </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In an earlier chapter, we described how the individual suffering
+from deleterious abnormalities of temperament could, to some extent,
+trace the cause of this back to infancy. We told how this, in itself,
+would, if repeatedly brought to mind on succeeding occasions, produce
+considerable improvement. We have further discussed how he could
+consciously turn the energy from one form of reaction into another
+and more suitable form. All these methods, however, may be made
+considerably more efficient by the active use of auto-suggestion, as I
+have indicated, directed partially to the cause and partially to the
+result desired. Thus, the form which suggestion should take in the case
+of the man, whom we quoted in the last chapter as being over-impatient
+in the restaurant, would be somewhat as follows:</p>
+
+<p>He would have to impress upon himself several suggestions; and in the
+case of each of these suggestions he would be required to form a mental
+picture of himself in the conditions to which the suggestions referred.
+Firstly, &#8220;In circumstances in which I have been accustomed to react
+with impatience, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> will no longer act as I did when I was a little
+child.&#8221; (In repeating this to himself in the manner to be referred to
+shortly, he should hold a picture of himself reacting impatiently when
+a child, and contrast it with the manner in which he ought to have
+acted.) Secondly, &#8220;Under conditions which have previously caused me to
+react with impatience, I will in future, at once think out the <i>real</i>
+circumstances of the case.&#8221; (And another suitable mental picture should
+be visualised here, as also in each of the following suggestions.)
+Thirdly, &#8220;Under conditions which previously caused me to react with
+impatience, I will no longer be impatient.&#8221; Fourthly, &#8220;Under conditions
+to which I have been accustomed to react with impatience, I shall now
+devote my energy to perfecting myself, in reality.&#8221; Thus, he is taking
+himself through the stages from childhood onward, and re-educating
+himself in each stage by means of a forced education in which the
+individual &#8220;grows up&#8221; in reality from the point at which he stopped in
+childhood.</p>
+
+<p>Not one, but all these thoughts, and possibly even intermediate ones
+that may develop,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> should be impressed upon the unconscious mind, so
+that they may act automatically. As to the method which should be
+adopted by the patient in giving himself suggestions, I recommend the
+following. That he first of all write down briefly the results of his
+self-examination, that he should take those results in chronological
+order, and write down from them suitable suggestions dealing with
+the various stages, such as I have just written with regard to the
+impatient man. That every night and morning, or at any other time
+during the day, he should for five or ten minutes lie down, relax
+himself, and close his eyes; that he should then repeat to himself
+fifteen or twenty times each of the suggestions, taking the earliest
+first, then the next, and so on. They need not be repeated out loud,
+but if repeated under the breath and accompanied by a suitable movement
+of the lips, it will suffice. Effort should be avoided; suggestion
+is not an effort of will so much as an impression effected by the
+imagination. When an individual is giving himself suggestion, he is not
+fighting an active battle, he is merely allowing ideas to sink into his
+mind; and if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> they are repeated often enough, like drops of water which
+in time wear a channel in the stone, they will make their mark and
+produce their effects in due course.</p>
+
+<p>Suggestion, in fact, minimises the need for the use of will-power,
+at any given moment in a difficult situation. If the battle has been
+fought out beforehand in imagination, it will automatically succeed
+when the time comes. The will has played its part previously when
+adopting the method of suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>This is not a text-book on suggestion, and I do not propose to go
+further into the method here. I merely wish to point out the practical
+efficiency of the use of a certain amount of auto-suggestion when
+applied in conjunction with the other methods of combating Narcissism
+already outlined, and when applied in an intelligent manner, so that
+not merely the symptoms, but the original causes themselves shall be
+affected by it.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER XIV</span> <span class="smaller">CONCLUSION</span></h2>
+
+<p>The previous portion of this book has been devoted to showing how
+Narcissism may be harmful, and how in its endeavour to obtain
+satisfaction it may render the individual unhappy in the utmost
+degree. It is possible that the reader will have gathered that the
+author regards Narcissism as wholly and completely a useless and
+detrimental element in life; the more so, since at various points
+we have had to emphasise that in one form or another very little of
+it persisting in adult life may be a great deal too much. It should
+be realised, however, that Narcissism to a slight extent, and at
+certain periods, plays an important and also necessary part in the
+individual&#8217;s life. We mentioned at one place that a certain amount of
+identification was beneficial in choosing one&#8217;s life partner. Whereas
+too much identification might lead to one&#8217;s choosing a sexual partner
+of the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> sex, a small amount of identification might lead to one&#8217;s
+choosing a partner with the same tastes, and would further lead to a
+tendency to enjoy whatsoever the other one enjoyed, and to dislike what
+the other one disliked, and this similarity would lead to a certain
+harmony in life. <i>Narcissism is a normal thing in the new-born infant,
+and Narcissism is the root of many virtues; but its final adult form
+must be sublimated and very much attenuated.</i> It is like the salt in
+cooking; a little is essential to bring out the flavour, but a very
+little more spoils the whole dish.</p>
+
+<p>A certain amount of self-love, self-appreciation, self-importance, and
+self-consciousness of one&#8217;s own capacities is necessary in every one;
+without it he would be ill prepared to cope with men and circumstances.
+But this necessary self-importance and self-appreciation is not, as
+many might think, due to Narcissism alone. It has a slight Narcissistic
+element, but it is largely a resultant of other unconscious instincts,
+which we have not attempted to deal with here; and we only mention
+it, lest the reader should draw the conclusion that these necessary
+elements in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> our character are drawn purely from a Narcissistic
+basis, and that he should therefore be left puzzled as to how, if he
+should eradicate Narcissism, he would be able to retain necessary
+characteristics which apparently belong to this same instinct. It is
+also very necessary for the reader to bear in mind that much which
+may be developed from Narcissism is useful; even though the original
+from which it came may be dangerous and harmful. Moreover, a certain
+amount of enjoyment of phantasy such as is obtained from novels or
+theatres may be in many people quite a useful and adequate form of
+relaxation. With them it may be strictly cut off from real life, may
+be strictly limited as regards time and place, and, in fact, entirely
+under their control. In such persons it forms a useful element in their
+lives. I do not say that if their early education and environment had
+been different they might not possibly possess an even better form of
+recreation, but merely that, taking facts as they are, in certain cases
+it forms a useful factor in the working scheme of life.</p>
+
+<p>In others, however, in those where it has exceeded the limits of
+absolute control, it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> necessary, for the time being at least, to
+attempt to cut it out as completely as possible, because where it is
+allowed slight free play, it is liable to get out of hand, unless it
+can be dealt with absolutely at the will of the individual. Hence the
+necessity for such stringent treatment as I have laid down in the
+previous chapters of this book.</p>
+
+<p>I have attempted to show that happiness is, for the most part,
+within the individual&#8217;s own grasp. Happiness comes from within the
+individual and not from without. Unhappiness must not be confused
+with pain, either mental or physical, for pain is a normal reaction,
+to a harmful stimulus which all are liable to feel; it is for the
+most part beyond the individual&#8217;s control so long as the stimulus
+persists; but the peace of mind, the absence of worry, of irritability,
+of perpetual uneasiness, which we call unhappiness, lies within the
+control of everybody. It largely consists in continually recognising
+what facts are unchangeable, and ceasing to bemoan or phantasy about
+these unchangeable facts. It is true that the road to happiness may
+be difficult if we have long been accustomed to tread the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> path of
+Narcissism, but it is equally true that if the advice laid down in this
+book be followed patiently and systematically, a very much happier
+frame of mind will be attained as a result. In a few cases, Narcissism
+is not a predominant factor causing the temperamental disturbance
+although superficially it may appear to be so. In such cases (where
+other primitive instincts are really of paramount importance) the same
+degree of improvement will not be attained by this method of self
+treatment and only a more prolonged course of regular psycho-analysis
+is likely to produce the desired result.</p>
+
+<p>Happiness is not to be found by seeking happiness in the direct sense.
+This, I am aware, sounds very much like a mere high-sounding thought
+of a writer. It is the sort of phrase that people dismiss with the
+remark, &#8220;That is all very well in theory.&#8221; This statement, however,
+is not made from any moral or sentimental point of view, nor on any
+purely theoretical grounds, but as a scientific fact, which has been
+demonstrated as the result of psychological research. It may be
+interesting to note here how much the psychology<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> of happiness is in
+agreement with many of the teachings of the New Testament, although a
+different terminology and mode of expression may be used.</p>
+
+<p>It was pointed out earlier how the individual who employed too much
+phantasy thought in youth might worry himself into an early grave,
+although he was the same individual who most desired a long life. It
+has now been shown that happiness does not come to those who seek
+happiness, but to those who can adapt themselves to realities, that
+is, to those who can control their Narcissism. Narcissism is not so
+very different from the word &#8220;self,&#8221; as used in Christian teachings,
+and any who are interested enough to compare them will find that there
+is considerable parallelism between Christian teaching and certain
+psychological observations.</p>
+
+<p>I must emphasise the fact once more that patience, that is a
+realization of the time factor, is very necessary for those who attempt
+self-treatment on the lines indicated in this book. For since lack of
+this is often one of their faults to start with, they may otherwise
+involve themselves in a vicious circle, from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> which they do not
+escape. Patience and attention to detail will, however, enable them to
+accomplish that improvement which they have set out to achieve. In the
+words of Horace, &#8220;Happiness is here, happiness is everywhere, if only a
+well-regulated mind does not fail you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p class="center space-above">THE END</p>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OMNIPOTENT SELF, A STUDY IN SELF-DECEPTION AND SELF-CURE ***</div>
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author	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-01-22 15:06:56 -0800
committer	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-01-22 15:06:56 -0800
commit	9483cf850fa267df9dd61d6afa9cff409b440a67 (patch)
tree	4feee84ff28ce4366527dc434229d2c2a492756d
parent	281d304e15c651f069d107b3e48466fa52032260 (diff)