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NOTE: Here is transcribed, as closely as possible (warts and all), the text as it appears in the source entries but sometimes only incomplete segments. For internet readability some discrepancies involving formatting and accents are likely. Do not always expect accuracy in the entries themselves (which is not to deny their “truth” or value or even, shall we say, occasional accuracy), but innaccuracy is often the least of their offense: what we call sexism, racism, homophobia and just a general colonial Western superiority complex pervades much of the popular knowledge of the late 19th and early to mid 20th century. I suggest, however, you resist the urge to judge too much from a position of 21st century self-righteousness, for how much has really changed? How much of our contemporary knowledge is inaccurate, dogmatic, prejudiced and offensive in ways we can and cannot even recognize?
This is a work in progress…
Bedlam,
A corruption of Bethlehem, the name of a relgious house in London, the Hospital of St Mary, Bethlehem, which was founded in the year 1246 by Simon Fitzmary, who had been one of the Sheriffs of London. It originally stood in Bishopsgate Street Without, and, on the suppression of religious houses in the reign of Henry VIII, was handed over to the corporation of London, since which time it has been an hospital for the cure of the insane. About 1644 it was determined to enlarge the hospital, but the situation had become close and confined, and a new Hospital of Bethlehem was built in Moorfields 1675-76. In 1814 the ‘new’ hospital gave way to a fitter building, in a more commodious situation, on the other side of the Thames, in the parish of Lambeth. This building in turn was enlarged in 1838. The patients of B. used to be exhibited, like wild beasts, in cages, for so much a head; and convalescent patients were sent out to beg, with badges on their arms, and known as ‘B. beggars’ or ‘Tom-o-Bedlams.’ This practice, the object of which was to raise funds for the institution, was put down in the latter part of the 17th c.
–From the The Globe Encyclopaedia of Universal Information. Vol I. A to CANN’A. Boston: Estes & Lauriat, 1876. pg 325.
Behaviorism,
the name of an American system of psychology founded by John B. Watson (1878- ) at Johns Hopkins University, in the second decade of the twentieth century. Watson took the position, then radical, that psychologists should devote themselves exclusively to studying the behavior, rather than the mind or mental activity, of organisms. He recognized only one method of study: objective observation. He denied the usefulness or validity of any form of introspective analysis. He argued that the task of psychology was to predict and control human behavior. Behavior itself was to be analyzed into muscular or glandular responses, either openly observable or “implicity.” These responses were to be examined in their relation to stimulus changes in the external or internal environment. Ultimately, the dependence of behavior upon physiological events was to be demonstrated and clarified.
Anticipation of such a doctrine may be found in the objectivism of pre-Socratic Greece; in the speculations of Rene Descartes (1596-1650) on the mechanism of animal behavior and the stimulus origin of human muscular reaction; in the materialism of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), Nicholas Malebranche (1638-1715), Julien La Mettrie (1709-1751), and their successors; in the positivism of Auguste Comte (1798-1857); and in various other quarters.
Watson, however, was influenced by less philosophical considerations. The development of the “reflex” concept in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had culminated in the researches of Sir Charles Sherrington (1857-1952) and Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)…
Watson’s position amounted to a flat rejection of the orthodox and German-born “introspective” or “structuralistic” psychology sponsored by Edward B. Titchener (1867-1927) at Cornell University. It was also a break with the less orthodox “functionalism” of Watson’s teachers, James R. Angell (1869-1949) and others, at the University of Chicago. In Watson’s opinion, both systems had failed to throw off the shackles of metaphysics. The structuralist’s “mind” was, for him, a relic of medieval theology. Functionalism, in spite of its evolutionary slant and its willingness to deal with behavior, was also condemned for its acceptance of a mind-body dualism…
By 1940, behaviorists had no important systematic rivals. Structuralism and functionalism were dead; and the strong features of other systems were apparently in process of absorption within programs of such systematists as E.C. Tolman (1886- ), C.L. Hull (1884-1952), and B.F. Skinner (1904- ). In the teachings of these men, the formulation and dynamic interrelation of basic principles became crucial. The principles were seen to emerge from the experimental study of human and infrahuman behavior in its relation to objectively defined variables, and independently of the physiological and mentalistic considerations from which the early behaviorists had failed to free themselves.
–From Collier’s Encyclopedia Volume 3 BAL-BOZ. New York: P.F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1957. pgs 290-1 & 291-2.
Confess, kon-fes’, v.t. [Fr. confessor, form L. confiteor, confessum–con, and fateor, to own or acknowledge.]
To own, acknowledge, or avow, as a crime, a fault, a charge, a debt, or something that is against one’s reputation; to own to, to disclose…
–From The Standard Book of Essential Knowledge The Practical Self-Educator. With Offices in Principal Cities of U.S. and Canada: Educational Book Club, 1962. pgs. 153-4.
Confession,
… Finally, the strictly therapeutic value of confession has been recognized by many who have sought in the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst a substitute for the priest-confessor.
Confession,
in criminal law, is a voluntary statement made by a person after an offense has been committed wherein he acknowledges himself to be guilty of the crime, and, generally, discloses the circumstances of the act and his participation in it… The desire to “clinch” a case and secure a conviction has led to the deliberate practice of using force to obtain confessions of guilt. “Third degree” is a term applied to this practice. Generally it describes the informal investigations of suspects and witnesses immediately after being taken into custody, for the purpose of obtaining confessions to be used at trials, to obtain information, and to induce pleas of “guilty” after confession. Usually the third degree is administered by police officers, although prosecuting attorneys sometimes take part. The means employed in this practice vary greatly, but physical force and “mental pressure” are methods commonly used. All these illegal devices to obtain confessions violate the principles that a person shall not be compelled to give evidence against himself and that confessinos secured under duress are not admissible in evidence.
–From Collier’s Encyclopedia Volume 5 CHA-COP. New York: P.F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1957. pg 584.
The Health of the Mind.
The Question of Sex in Relation to the Growth of Well-Balanced Minds
in Childhood:
Country or City Life for Children?
From the care of the senses, which are the avenues of the soul, we pass to the care of the mind, the happiness of which, on some plane or other, alone makes life worth living or bodily health of any importance. Here we shall accept the profoundly true idea that “to live is to change”, and therefore that we must begin at the beginning, and care for all the stages of development if we wish for a healthy and happy mind. And then, if we are wise, we shall not relax our care, but shall seek for a normal and healthy passage of the mind from its mature to its post-mature–which need not be its “senile”–state… We begin with the child, because, though it may never be too late to mend, there will be nothing but mending unless we begin rightly…
The special need for sleep in the cases of clever children.
So much for disturbances from without, but disturbances from within are even more important. The brain cannot rest and develop properly if it is constantly receiving messages from the nerve supply of the abdomen, and especially of the stomach… If these assertions are true and important for ordinary normal children, far more so are they for all children of nervous type, all who inherit the neurotic tendency, all who are peculiar, irritable, precocious, prematurely specialized, abnormally clever. Whenever and wherever the brain displays a high degree of activity during wakefulness, there it requires all the more care during sleep, and plenty of it…
The cruelty of playing on the child’s susceptibility with religious terrors.
The force of ideas is tremendous in childhood. Because the child is not interested in the particular ideas which affect us, we suppose that it takes little stock in ideas at all, but that is not so. A child is as “suggestible” as an adult, and more so… All nurses, servants and so forth, who are found frightening children with stories of ghosts, or of evil spirits or of anything else, real or unreal, for good purposes or bad, should thereupon be deprived of the opportunities they so abominably abuse…
The absorbing of bad influences by children from their reading.
A boy, because he is a boy, wants to read about adventures. If boys, and men after them, did not like adventures, mankind would never have reached the remote poles, for fear of the dangers of the uncharted seas and ice-bound continents. The average, normal boy ought to have adventures to read about. The question is whether he shall have “Treasure Island”, or whether he shall read any of the host of adventure tales, detective tales, and the rest, which are constantly illustrating “ideo-motor action” by leading boys to steal and forge and run away from home and so forth, who would never have given any trouble without the influence of such tales upon them…
The question of sex as it affects nervous, precocious children.
We need not multiply instances of this too familiar kind. But references must specially be made to a realm of inquiry which has been opened, especially by such profound students as Professor Sigmund Freud, of Vienna. Hitherto we have all been content to suppose that questions of sex do not exist for children, and that, until the age of puberty, they are sexless. It is now known that this is not true, and least of all is it true of nervous, excitable, precocious children — those who persistently bite their nails and have other bad habits…
The need for recognizing that sex in young people is normal
…As with other forms of power, of which we desire to make the best use, “Go slow” is a good motto at first. Sitting on the safety-valve is not the method. Power which is being inevitably generated must either be drained away in safe directions, or it will cause an explosion and smash the living machine; it may leave the body untouched, but smash the mind, and shake it so terribly that it will never work smoothly and securely again. Thus we come back to the doctrine of the “transmutation of sex”–the doctrine that we must aim at transmuting the crude energy, generated in the living mind and body from puberty onwards, into the higher and subtler activities which have made civilization…
Unhappy position of children plunged unprepared into the world
of pleasure
…None of this right, because none of it is based upon knowledge of human nature; and the sign and the consequence of it are to be found in half the hysteria, the instability, the nervous and mental disease, the infirmity of purpose, the misguided enthusiasms, the social dementia and political delirium of our time…
The country the natural biological environment for the young of man.
The foregoing arguments, which we have tried to state fairly, are valid as far as they go, but they do not go far enough. They deal with the child’s body, but they stop short of his mind. The country life may be made physically as safe for the child as the city life, and safer; but as regards the psychical aspects of healthy development, the city cannot be named for a moment.
–From The Book of Popular Science The Wonders of Modern Discovery, The Triumphs of Inventive Genius, The Story of all Created Things, and the World They Live In. Volume XII. New York: The Grolier Society, 1924. pgs 4073, 4074, 4075, 4077, 4079, & 4080.
Mind The Essence of Man.
The Mind, Something Vastly More Than Consciousness, to be Studied in
Lowly Ways, but Linked with the Divine:
An Introduction to Psychology.
With certain conspicuous omissions, such as the eye and the ear, to which we shall return later, we have now discussed the body of man, “in whom there is nothing great but mind”. We have steadily climbed upward until we reached the gray bark, or cortex, of his brain, which is the characteristic organ, and which we have sliced and stained in the vain search for his soul. The truth is that “the things which are seen are temporal”, and the essential part of man has not yet engaged our attention. To that essential part our next chapter must be devoted…
The science that reconciles the claims of both matter and spirit.
In our account of man today, therefore, we naturally proceed from his body to his mind, and, above all, from the cortex of his cerebrum to his mind. We pass from physiology to psychology, and yet we do not leave physiology. We study the mind, but we still study the body. This, of course, is what is meant by and involved in the new science of physiological psychology, which rightly claims for itself today a place second to none among the sciences. Metaphysicians and psychologists in the past — and those who, though present in the flesh, belong to the past today — would sneer at this new science as materialism, because of its continued references to the body; and the physiologists of thirty years ago had a short enough way of treating any psychology, since to them the mind was, as we have seen, a mere physiological accident. Let not the reader suppose that we are insisting unduly upon this tremendous change in the dominant thought of the recent past and today. It cannot be too much insisted upon.
–From The Book of Popular Science The Wonders of Modern Discovery, The Triumphs of Inventive Genius, The Story of all Created Things, and the World They Live In. Volume VII. New York: The Grolier Society, 1926. pgs 2359 & 2360.
Psyche (sī’ ki), n.
The soul, spirit, or mind of man; the soul personified as a nymph with butterfly wings; a genus of day-flying moths, having greyish, rounded wings with no markings of the family Psychidae. (F. Psyché.) In later Greek mythology, the soul was personified as the maiden Psyche, who, after many trials, became the immortal wife of Eros, or Cupid. This word, which in Greek means life or soul, enters into the formation of several words used chiefly in sciences dealing with the mind, and in spiritualism. To a doctor, psychic (sī’ kik, adj.) and psychical (sī’ kik ȧl, adj.) mean pertaining to the mind. As the action of the mind is invisible, these words are also frequently used to mean outside physical laws, or spiritualistic. Telepathy, automatic writing, and other obscure manifestations of the activities of the mind or of a spirit world are known as psychic phenomena… The investigation of hypnotism, thought-transference, clairvoyance, apparitions, and other psychic activities and phenomena, is know as psychical research (n.)… Theologically psychic or psychical means pertaining to man’s lower or animal nature, as distinct from spiritual. The scientific study and treatment of mental diseases is psychiatry (sī’ kī’ ̇a tri, n.). Psychiatric (sī’ ki ̇ăt’ rik, adj.) treatment is given in mental institutions. A doctor who specializes in mental cases is a psychiater (sī’ kī’ ̇a tėr, n.) or alienist. Gr. = life, breath, soul.
–From The Waverley Pictorial Dictionary Volume Six Pole-Snag. Edited by Harold Wheeler. London: The Waverley Book Company, Ltd., circa 1900. pgs. 3459-60.
Psȳ-chē, s. [Lat., from Gr. psychē=breath, the soul; psychō=to blow.]
I. Ordinary Language:
1. The soul, the mind.
2. A cheval dressing-glass.
II Technically:
1. Astron.: [ASTEROID, 16.]
2. Entom,: The typical genus of Psychidæ (1) (q.v.).
3. Greek Mythol.: A nymph, the personification of the soul. Her great beauty excited the jealousy and hatred of Venus, who ordered Cupid to inspire her with love for some contemptible being. Cupid, however, fell in love with her himself, and after many persecutions by Venus, a reconciliation was effected, and Psyche was made immortal.
–From The Imperial Encylopædic Dictionary A New and Exhaustive Work of Reference to the English Language, Defining Over 250,000 Words, with a Full Account of their Origin, Pronunication and Use, Comprising a General Encyclopædia of Art, Science, Invention and Discovery; a Gazetteer and Atlas of the World: A Compendious Dictionary of Universal Biography, etc. Vol. VII NER-PUT. London and New York: Dictionary and Cyclopedia Co., 1901. pg. 3285.
Psyche, Si’ ke,
in classical myths, wife of Cupid, so beautiful that Venus found her altars deserted, while crowds flocked to worship this maid. Angered, the goddess instructed her son to inspire the beauty with love for some monster. Instead, Cupid fell in love with her himself, establishing her in a splendid palace, where he visited her only after dark, cautioning her that if she tried to discover him, he would leave her forever. One night, however, urged by curiosity that her jealous sisters had inspired, Psyche crept to her husband’s couch, lamp in hand. So surprised was she to behold a handsome god, that she spilt a drop of burning oil on his shoulder and awakened him. Instantly Cupid vanished. Heartbroken, Psyche then entered the service of Venus, hoping thus to gain her favor and, through it, recover her lost husband. One of the many difficult tasks imposed upon her by the angry goddess was to fetch some of Proserpine’s beauty. Prying into the box which she supposed contained it, Psyche was overpowered by a black sleep, from which she was awakened by Cupid, then on his way to plead her cause before Jupitor. Jove made her immortal; whereupon, Venus being reconciled to the girl, her marriage with Cupid took place mid great rejoicing.
–From The Source Book An International Encyclopedic Authority written from the New World Viewpoint. Volume VI Proverbs to Tapeworm. Chicago, Winnipeg, Toronto: Perpetual Encyclopedia Corporation, 1924, 1926. pg. 2365.
Psȳ-chī-ạ-trў, subst. [PSYCHIATER.]
Medical treatment of diseases of the mind.
–From The Imperial Encylopædic Dictionary A New and Exhaustive Work of Reference to the English Language, Defining Over 250,000 Words, with a Full Account of their Origin, Pronunication and Use, Comprising a General Encyclopædia of Art, Science, Invention and Discovery; a Gazetteer and Atlas of the World: A Compendious Dictionary of Universal Biography, etc. Vol. VII NER-PUT. London and New York: Dictionary and Cyclopedia Co., 1901. pg. 3285.
Psychiatry [saikai’ətri],
the branch of medical science which deals with the treatment of mental disorders and diseases. These may be organic or functional in origin. Examples of the former are psychotic states dependent on neurosyphilis, arteriosclerosis, or complications of old age. Toxins, such as lead, alcohol, and arsenic lead to syndromes accompanied by psychiatric manifestations. Other organic causes include head trauma, cardiorenal disease, involutional changes, new growths, endocrine abnormalities, vitamin deficiency, and exhaustive states. Functional conditions are schizophrenia (dementia praecox), manic-depressive psychoses, paranoia and paranoid conditions, and the various psychoneuroses. Classification of the mental states often accompanying mental defiency and epilepsy is uncertain. The psychiatrist also deals with adult maladjustments and primary behavior disorders in children, such as habit and conduct disturbances and neurotic traits. More recently, many afflictions such as peptic ulcer, high blood pressure, asthma, hay fever, and various allergies, formerly regarded as purely medical or surgical, began to be considered as fundamentally overt experessions of inner emotional conflicts, i.e., as mental symptoms expressed in physical signs.
Treatment.
In general, psychiatric treatment is divisible into three classes: organic therapy, physiological therapy, and psychological treatment
Organic Therapy… The patient who is uncontrollable, assaultive, self-destructive, and emotionally beyond management is regarded as a suitable subject for such neurosurgical treatment as lobotomy, or leukotomy, and topectomy. In the former, nerve fibers that convey sensory impulses from the thalamus to the frontol lobes are severed. The average post-operative subject then becomes emotionally apathetic, indifferent, unmoved by environmental stimuli, intellectually deficient, and unable to plan or prosecute a project…
Physiological Therapy… Popular among therapists, and showing remarkable results in mental disorders in which depression is the outstanding feature, is electric convulsive therapy, which enables the psychiatrist to induce major convulsions promptly by the application of small electric currents (as harmless as ordinary house current) to the patient’s temples via special electrodes. All shock therapies are followed by some degree of confusion and memory defects which ultimately clear up when treatment is finally discontinued…
Psychological Treatment. There are various methods of psychological therapy. Re-education received its original impetus from Morton Prince. Occupational therapy includes such hobbies and trades as weaving, sewing, plastic work, embroidery, metal work, rug making, carpentry, bookbinding, printing, knitting, and similar occupations. As tonic measures, physiotherapy offers ultraviolet light treatment, various water treatments, massage, and corrective exercises. Hypnotism, which was originally sponsored during the nineteenth century by the emminent French neurologist, Jean M. Charcot, and his pupil, Pierre M.F. Janet, fell into disuse with the advent of Sigmund Freud, but of late it has been revived, chiefly to further another therapeutic measure: namely, suggestion. Suggestion has been advocated by Hippocrates, and in modern times by Stephan Bernheim. Some therapists use suggestion while the subject is hypnotized, others resort to post-hypnotic or “waking” suggestion. Freud’s criticism of hypnotism is justified: it can remove a symptom but not the disease. Perhaps the most revolutionary forward step was Freud’s psychoanalysis, applicable only to selected cases of neurosis, and then only in the hands of skilled and trained analysts. Other schools of therapy include Adolph Meyer’s “socialization,” which is based on his concept of psychobiology; Alfred Adler’s “paternal guidance”; Oskar Diethelm’s “distributive analysis,” which is a question and answer technic, and his “discharge catharsis,” in which the patient “talks himself free of his psychiatric problem”; persuasion, which was sponsored several years ago by Paul-Charles DuBois and his followers; J.M. Moreno’s “psycho-dramatics,” whereby the patient acts out his symptoms and difficulties and is made to analyze his own actions; recreational therapy (including athletics, parties, motion pictures, games, and other diversions), a final outgrowth of Philippe Pinel’s and Aurelius Cornelius Celsus’ “intellectual diversion”; Nobel’s music therapy; and, finally, the newer concept of treating many so-called organic conditions by the psychosomatic approach. This method has been particularly championed by Edward Weiss and O.E. English, and promising results have been reported in such divergent conditions as arthritus, intestinal ulcer, high blood pressure, allergy, and others. However, little has been added in this field that Freud did not cover in dealing with conversion hysteria. It is significant that the medical profession, as a whole, has become willing to apply psychiatric principles to organic syndromes. See also Freud, Sigmund; Mental Hygiene; Psychoanalysis.
–From Collier’s Encyclopedia Volume 16 PHN-REY. New York: P.F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1957. pgs 413 & 414.
Psychic (sī’kik), a. and n. [= F. psychique, < Gr. Ψυχικός,
pertaining to the soul or to life, also (>LL. Psychicus), pertaining to mere animal life, carnal, <Ψυχή, soul, life, mind: see Psyche.]
I. a. 1. Of or belonging to the human soul or mind; mental; spiritual; psychological.
A good third of our psychic life consists in these rapid premonitory
perspective views of schemes of thought not yet articulate.
W. James, Mind, ix. 15.
2. Pertaining to the science of mind: opposed to physical: as, psychic force.
3. Pertaining to the class of extraordinary and obscure phenomena, such as thought-reading, which are not ordinarily treated by psychologists: as, pyschic research.
4. Pertaining to the lwoer soul, or animal principle, and not to the spirit, or higher soul.
The psychic, or animal, man is the natural man of this present age.
Bibliotheca Sacra, XLVI. 399.
–From The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: A Work of Universal Reference in all Departments of Knowledge with a New Atlas of the World. Volume VI PHAR.Q.R.SALSE. New York: The Century Co., 1900. pg. 4821.
Psȳ-chĭcs, s. [PSYCHIC.]
The same as psychology (q.v.).
–From The Imperial Encylopædic Dictionary A New and Exhaustive Work of Reference to the English Language, Defining Over 250,000 Words, with a Full Account of their Origin, Pronunication and Use, Comprising a General Encyclopædia of Art, Science, Invention and Discovery; a Gazetteer and Atlas of the World: A Compendious Dictionary of Universal Biography, etc. Vol. VII NER-PUT. London and New York: Dictionary and Cyclopedia Co., 1901. pg. 3285.
Psycho-Analysis.
Psycho-analysis has recently become popular, because of the multiplicity of nervous disorders to which it can be successfully applied. In this popularity, however, lies danger, for numerous quack psycho-analysts who have little knowledge of the true method have proclaimed themselves practitioners.
–From The Standard Reference Work: For the Home, School, and Library. Volume VII PRA-SUB. Chicago: Standard Education Society, 1927. no page numbers. (Really, there are no page numbers in this book.)
Psychoanalysis,
the investigation of the psychological motivation of human behavior through the study of mental content by a special technique. It is both a method of treatment for some mental illnesses and a system of psychology.
History.
Psychoanalysis had its beginnings in a case observed jointly by Joseph Breuer and Sigmund Freud, both Viennese physicians, and reported by them in 1893. They discovered (1) that a forgotten (repressed) emotionally disturbing experience could cause mental illness, and (2) that the emotional reliving of that experience (catharsis) could bring about improvement in the patient’s condition. From the early beginning with Breuer, Freud went on, alone, to develop a systematic method of analysis and treatment of psychological factors in mental illness which he called “psychoanalysis.” Freud, therefore, is the founder of psychoanalysis. He was first heard in the United States in a series of lectures given at Clark University in 1909. Although academic psychologists at first objected violently to Freud’s conception of the causes of human behavior, Freud is now generally accepted as one of the great figures in psychological thinking.
The Freudian Method.
Freud was able to demonstrate that every mental illness is founded on previous experience, and that in order to understand why a person behaves as he does, it is necessary to discover that person’s earlier experiences, particularly the emotionally upsetting ones, now “forgotten” by the individual. These earlier experiences are, however, not simply forgotten but repressed; that is, because of some emotionally disturbing effect they are, so to speak, avoided, and thus “forgotten” and lost to conscious memory. This repression, however, does not rob the experience of its emotional content. That continues to exert an effect on the individual and may result in psychological illness…
Metapsychology.
From understanding gained by the analytic treatment of patients, Freud gradually developed a system of psychology, called by him, “Metapsychology.” Freud’s psychology was in marked contrast to psychology as it was conceived at the turn of the century. Academic psychology at that time was concerned with conscious content. Freud, as we have seen, was impressed by the importance of repressed (not conscious) factors in determining human behavior. By his findings, based on the study of neurotic patients, Freud was led to postulate three strata of mental life. These are the Conscious, Preconscious, and Unconsious. The fundamental division, however, is between the Unconscious and the conscious… The Unconscious contains not only repressed material, but also material which was never conscious. Certain phylogenetic, inherited characteristics of the individual reside there, such as the instincts, psychic predisposition, and other constitutional factors in the person…
Psychosexualism.
It is during this later stage of the infancy period, known as the phallic, that the child encounters a situation extremely important to his future development. Oedipus complex refers to the unconscious development of libidinal strivings for sexual satisfication with the parent of the opposite sex…
Psychoanalytic Point of View.
It should be remembered that although psychoanalysis was founded on the observation of neurotics, as a system of psychology it purports to show the psychological basis of all human behavior, normal and abnormal. It is a dynamic, comprehensive interpretation of human behavior. The psychoanalytic point of view has been used by cultural anthropologists as a basis for understanding the behavior of primitive peoples. It has been used to advantage in history, literature, and social psychology. It is an extremely intensive and complex system of psychological theories.
Mental Mechanisms, Defence Mechanisms.
When a person is infected, the body reacts in a protective manner to combat the onslaughts of the invading germ. At once there is a battle between this organism and the individual. In the face of mental injury or under stress defensive or compensatory mechanisms are brought into play…
Types of Mental Mechanisms.
Identification. According to Freud, identification “is the original form of emotional tie with an object.”… As an unconscious mental mechanism, indentification serves to appropriate to oneself the qualities or nature of another individual or object, or to transfer these qualities from one person to another.
Introjection. Introjection is the mental absorption of environmental qualities by an individual… may also serve to turn towards oneself the emotions, such as anger or hostility, felt towards another person.
Projection. Projection is the process of throwing out upon another the ideas or impulses that belong to oneself. It gives objective or seeming reality to what is subjective…
Displacement.… The student who blames his teacher for his own inability to learn and the tennis player who blames his racquet for his own court deficiencies are examples in which affect (emotion) has been displaced from its proper place to an improper one, usually environmental…
Sublimation.… the repressed sexual impulses are deprived of their specific erotic content and aim and deflected towards new goals that are nonsexual in nature and socially acceptable.
Transference. When the displacement is of the tender (masochism or love) emotions and is directed towards individuals, it is termed transference. Transference in medical practice enables the physician to take the lead in treatment, and in psychoanalysis to gain the confidence of the mentally ill patient.
Substitution.… The mechanism of substitution moves the point of view to the objects to which the emotion is attached, as they are succesively substituted for one another. Displacement and substitution are therefore merely two aspects of the same dynamism…
Conversion. Conversion is a process by which a painful emotional conflict is converted into socially acceptable physical symptomatology by means of which the individual is able to maintain his rapport with reality and yet satisfy the unconscious demand for release of emotional tension caused by inner conflict…
Rationalization. Rationalization is the mechanism by which an acceptable explanation is advanced for conduct, which is not the true reason for that behavior, and which moreover effectually disguises and covers up the genuine reason for the subject himself, as well as for others.
–From Collier’s Encyclopedia Volume 16 PHN-REY. New York: P.F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1957. pgs 417, 418 & 419.
Psychology.
See Mind.
–From Chambers’s Encyclopedia: A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge for the People Vol. VII, NUM to PUE. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company. 1875. pg 820.
Psychology, Si kol’ o jy,
the science which seeks to describe and explain the mental processes. It differs from logic, which deals with the truth or falsity of reasoning, from ethics, which has to do with the morals, and from metaphysics, which is the science of being and of knowledge. But just as the physical sciences overlap, so these mental sciences cannot be distinctly separated. In its development psychology has roughly been divided into two great epochs, the first of which extends from the earliest psychological writings of Plato and Aristotle to as recent a date as 1860; and the second, from 1860 to the present. The first period is that of philosophical discussion, while the latter may be called the development of psychology as an independant and practical science. Every science has necessarily passed through these same phases, and the science of psychology differs chiefly in being slower in its applicaiton to practical problems… Many psychological discoveries, especially those of the nervous system, such as brain localization, its health, fatigue, etc., have joined to advance the science until at present psychology has reached the point where it can attack practical problems and become a permanent factor in all departments of life. This new applied psychology will find room for its labors in law courts, in medicine, in schools, in the pulpit and in the factory. The study of psychology deals first with the mind in its various states of consciousness, feeling, imaginating, perceiving, remembering, etc. These it deals with not as distinct faculties but as potential powers, several of which may occupy the mind at a time.
–From The Source Book An International Encyclopedic Authority written from the New World Viewpoint. Volume VI Proverbs to Tapeworm. Chicago, Winnipeg, Toronto: Perpetual Encyclopedia Corporation, 1924, 1926. pg. 2365-6.
Religion, Psychology of,
an attempt to understand religious phenomena in terms of human nature and of the forces operating in it. Its aim is descriptive rather than normative: that is, it does not try to determine the truth or falsity of religious beliefs, or to justify religious practices, but attempts to understand how and why they arose, and what psychological components they empbody and express. Broadly speaking, it is the attempt to relate religion to the rest of man’s intellectual, volitional, and emotional economy.
Psychological interest in religion is not a new thing. Early Greek philosophers explained religion in terms of human sentiments, but usually confined themselves to single emotions… In the period of eighteenth century rationalism, many [Greek] theories were revivied and given fresh currency. With the rise of modern psychology, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the psychological study of religion received a new impetus, and the psychology of religion became a scientific discipline. Questionnaires and other experimental devices were employed to determine the actual content of religious men’s thought, their attituide toward traditional religion, and the extent to which they have been affected by scientific or philosophical criticism. Anthropologists such as Edward B. Taylor, Wilhelm Wundt, James Frazer, Robert R. Marett, and Lucien Lévy-Bruhl sought to understand the religious mentality of primitive people, and to relate primitive religious sentiments and forms of thought to those of higher cultures…
A landmark in the development of the psychology of religion was William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience. James regarded religion from the point of view not of isolated interests and emotions but of the totality of personality. Influenced deeply by Sigmund Freud’s theory of the unconsicous, and by Morton Prince’s studies of dissociated personalities, James sought the roots of religion in the “subliminal consciousness” and its fruits in the sublimation of the primitive and archaic responses to life which emerged from it. James himself experimented with narcotic drugs similar to those used in primitive religions to induce religious states, and connected the mystical ecstasy experienced in the higher religions with the release of the sublimated consciousness under such stimuli. He also distinguished the religion of healthy-mindedness–i.e., a relative lack of conflict–from that of “twice-born” men, who made religious adjustment to life suddenly, under the pressure of inner tensions.
These tensions and conflicts which emerge in religion were studied more closely and systematically by the psychoanalytic school. Its founder, Freud, laid the foundation for this psychoanalytic analysis by perceiving the connection between all neurotic conflict and the unsolved emotional problems of early childhood. His own view of religion was that it represented various wasy of externalizing, and thus easing, these conflicts, and of projecting them into the outside world. Operating with the same fundamental ideas, Freud’s pupil, Theodore Reik, studied various primitive rituals as dramatizations of unconscious, suppressed conflicts, and noted close similarities in structure and dynamic between religious dogmatism and compulsive ideas. Another pupil of Freud’s, Carl Jung, laid more emphasis on the positive and therapeutic influence of religion.
In recent years, an applied psychology of religion has developed which has influenced not only the treatment of religiously oriented personalities by psychiatrists, but also the problems of youth and maturity, and in dealing with the sick and the dying. In this way, a closer relation between the work of the doctor and the pastor has been established.
–From Collier’s Encyclopedia Volume 16 PHN-REY. New York: P.F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1957. pg 645.
Sex (seks), n.
The quality of being male or female; males or females collectively. (F. sexe.) Women collectively used to be spoken of simply as the sex, and men as the sterner sex. Almost all animals and plants are sexed (sekst, adj.), that is, belong to one of the two sexes, but some very simple forms of life are sexless (seks’lės, adj.), which means without sex, or without the characteristics of sex. Sexlessness (seks’ lės nės. n.) is the state of being sexless. From L. sexus sex.
Sex-. A prefix meaning six or sixfold. Another form is sexi-. For examples see under sexangular. (F. sex-.) L. sex six. See six.
–From The Waverley Pictorial Dictionary Volume Six: POLE-SNAG. Edited by Harold Wheeler. London: The Waverley Book Company, Ltd., circa 1900. pg. 3897.
Sexual Pathology,
the study and treatment of disorders arising from compulsions, divagations, and frustrations of the sexual drive. In contemporary civilization the differentiation between pure pathology and deviation is a legal, and, more often, a socio-economic interpretation. What causes sexual deviation and pathology? No one specific etiology is known. Sexual offenses loom large in crime and juvenile delinquency.
One of the most misunderstood forms of activity treated under sexual pathology, is masturbation, also called onanism, after the Biblical character, Onan, son of Judah and Shuah. Onan, having been ordered to marry his brother’s widow, resorted to autoerotic practices to avoid having sexual relations with her, which “displeased the Lord: wherefore he slew him” (Gen. 38:10). Too many parents fail to realize that masturbatory activity is normal for the average infant who, if not reprimanded, will of his own accord abandon the practice before the second year. However, calling the child’s attention to the practice by scolding, or actual punishment, creates mental trauma, the effects of which may perpetuate the practice, or turn the infant into a pervert when adulthood is reached, or produce mental symptoms at a later date. Studies indicate that some masturbatory activity is scientifically normal and, form a purely medical viewpoint, harmless if infrequently practiced. Resorting to masturbation as a constant, repetitive habit, however, indicates maldevelopment or mental illness requiring psychotherapy…
In his Confessions, Rousseau revels in stories of masochism. The term masochism is derived from Leopold van Sacher-Masoch who, in several of his romances, describes the induction of passion by being whipped…
Homosexuality is commonly found in regressive mental disorders, psychopathic personalities, some alcoholics and drug addicts, and in residents of segregated institutions. Freud associated homosexuality with paranoia and with alcoholism. Female homosexuality is know as lesbianism. Similar practice between a man and woman is termed cunnilingus; when undertaken between males, the sexual practice is called fellatio.
–From Collier’s Encyclopedia Volume 16 PHN-REY. New York: P.F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1957. pg 498 & 499.
Will and Self-Control.
What Are the Teachings of Science and Experience on
the Question of the Freedom of the Will?:
The Significance of Self-Respect.
Our study of behavior, from the humblest reflex actions, if they are indeed worthy of the name of behavior, up to the exhibitions of instinct and temperament, has hitherto had nothing to say of a very great fact of man, which we know, or seem to know, in ourselves and others, and which we call the Will. In the latter part of the 19th century, indeed, it seemed to many students that the Will was something of a myth, which might do for poetry and popular speech, but must be banished from science. The tendancy was natural… It has long seemed clear to a certain number of students, however, especially those who have approached psychology from below, through the levels of physiology, that not only does the sphere of Will remain, but our modern knowledge of the nervous systems is the best testimony to its reality…
Man’s greatest power–the power of saying no.
Now, the remarkable fact, for which our special attention is demanded, is that these paths of volition are one and the same as the paths of inhibition which we discovered when were studying the mechanism of the knee-jerk and its exagggeration. It is when, especially, the crossed pyramidal tract is not acting that the knee-jerk is increased, so that this path of volition is demonstrably a path of inhibition. Only one department of medicine and of the medical sciences (if we may except the modern therapeutic practice of hypnotism) helps us as it should in our study of normal psychology, and this is the medical care of the insane…
Man a machine, but with the power of self-government.
The difference is radical and all-important between the case of the horse whose speed doubles because spurs have been jabbed into its side, and the horse whose speed doubles because the pull upon its mouth has been relaxed. The suggestion made by those who have studied the importance of inhibition or control in the behavior of the nervous system, and of the mind, is that, in the case of the Ego, the very Self, and all beneath it, we have the living image, within a single being, of the horse and its rider. And the Will is, above all, the power to say “No,” the Will which will not; which says you may not, or, at times, you may.
–From The Book of Popular Science The Wonders of Modern Discovery, The Triumphs of Inventive Genius, The Story of all Created Things, and the World They Live In. Volume XII. New York: The Grolier Society, 1924. pgs 4065, 4067 & 4068.
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