CHAPTER XVII
SOME CHARACTER TYPES
The Foundations of Personality | ||
17.
CHAPTER XVII
SOME CHARACTER TYPES
THERE is one kind of energy discharger that we may call the hyperkinetic, controlled practical type. This group is characterized by great and constant activity, well controlled by purpose, with eagerness and enthusiasm manifested in each act but not excessively.
1. A. is one of these people. In school he specialized in athletics and was a fine all-round player in almost every sport. When he left high school to go to work he at once entered business. His employers soon found him to be a tireless worker, steady and purposeful in everything. In addition to carrying on his duties by day, A. studied nights, carefully choosing his subjects so that they related directly to his business. Despite the fact that his work was hard and his studies exacting, A. had energy enough left to join social organizations and to take a leading part in their affairs. He became quickly known as one of those busy people who always are ready to take on more work. Naturally this led to his becoming a leader, first in his social relations and second in his business. Always practical in his judgments and actions, A. fell in love with the daughter of a rich family and married her, with the full approval of her relatives, who were keen enough to see that his energy, power and control were destined for success.
The leading traits that A. manifests hinge around his high energy and control. He is honest and conventional, devoted to the ideals of his group and admires
So A. has become rich and respected. As times goes on, as he is brought more and more into contact with large affairs outside of business; as a trustee of hospitals and a director of charitable organizations, he broadens out but not into an "unsafe'' attitude. He pities the unfortunate but is not truly sympathetic, in that it rarely occurs to him that success and failure are relative, that an accident might have shipwrecked his fortunes and that his good qualities are as innate as his complexion. For this man prides himself on his strong will and courage, whereas he merely has within him a fine engine in whose construction he had no part.
2. The hyperkinetic, controlled, impractical person. B. is, in the fundamentals of energy and control, singularly like A., but because of the nature of his interests and purposes their lives have completely diverged so that no one would ordinarily recognize the kinship in type. B. is and always has been a worker, enthusiastic and enduring, and he has stuck to his last with a fidelity that is remarkable. He is very likable in the ordinary sense,—pleasant to look at, cheerful, ready to joke, laugh or to help the other fellow. Nevertheless, he has only a few friends and is a distinctly disappointed man
B. early became interested in physiology. From the very start he found in the workings of the human body a fascination that concentrated his efforts. Poor, he worked hard enough to obtain scholarships and fellowships in one university after another until finally he became a Ph. D. Here was a great error from the practical standpoint; for had he become an M. D., he would have had a profession that offered an independent financial future. But, in his zeal, he did not wish to take on the extended program of the physician, and he saw clearly that he might become a better scientist as a Ph. D. He became a teacher in one school after another, did a good deal of research work, but has not been fortunate enough to make any epoch-making discoveries. He is one of those splendid, painstaking, energetic men found in every university who turn out good pieces of work of which only a few know anything, and from which in the course of time some genius or lucky scientist culls a few facts upon which to build up a great theory or a new doctrine. He married one of his own students, a fine woman but unluckily not very strong, and so there fell on him many a domestic duty that a thousand extra dollars a year would have turned over to a maid.
Thus B. is an obscure but respected member of the faculty of a small university. He teaches well, though he dislikes it, and he is happy at the times when he works hard at some physiological problem. He loves his family and has vowed that his son will be a business man. He feels inferior as he contemplates his obscure existence, with its precarious financial state, its drudgery and most of all the gradual disappearance of his ideals.
Thus, through success, A. is broadening and becoming something of an idealist. B. is narrowing and through failure is losing his ideals. This is not an uncommon effect of success and failure. Where success leads to arrogance and conceit it narrows, but where the character withstands this result the increased experience and opportunity is of great value to character. Failure may embitter and thus narrow through envy and lost energy, but also it may strip away conceit and overestimation and thus lead to a richer insight into life.
3. The hyperkinetic, uncontrolled or shallow. This type, although quick and apparently energetic, is deficient in a fundamental of the personality, in the organizing energy. This deficiency may extend into all phases of the mental life or in only a few phases. Thus we see people whose thinking is rapid, energetic, but they cannot "stick'' to one line of thought long enough to reach a goal. Others are similarly situated in regard to purposes; they are enthusiastic, easily stirred into activity, but rarely do their purposes remain fixed long enough for success. As a rule this class is inconstant in affections, though warm and sympathetic. They gush but never organize their philanthropic efforts, so that they rarely do any real good. Often the most lovable of people, they are at the same time the despair of those who know them best.
M. is a woman who makes a fine first impression, is very pretty, with nice manners and a quick, flattering interest in every one she meets. She is usually classed
M. is interested in something new each week. The "new'' usually fascinates her, and she becomes so extraordinarily busy that she hardly has time to eat or sleep. She is always put on committees if the organization heads do not know her, but if they do, she is carefully slated for something of no importance. After a short time her interest has shifted to something else. Thus she passes from work in behalf of blind babies to raising funds for a home for indigent actors; from energy spent in philanthropy to energy spent in learning the latest dances. Her enthusiasm never cools off, though its goal always changes.
Fortunately she is married to a rich man who views her with affection and a shrug of his shoulders. Her children know her; now and then, she becomes extraordinarily interested in their welfare, much to their disgust and rebellion, for they have long since sized her up.
She has often been on the verge of a love affair with some man who is professionally interested in something into which she has leaped for a short time. She raves about him, follows him, flatters and adores him, and then, before the poor fellow knows where he is at, she is out of love and off somewhere else. This mutability of affection has undoubtedly saved her from disaster.
Were she not rich, M. would be one of the social problems that the social workers cannot understand or handle, e. g., there is a type who never sticks to anything,
Here we must reëmphasize the fundamental importance of the fatigue reactions. The normal fatigue reaction is to feel weary, to desire rest and to be able to rest and sleep. The abnormal reaction, one directly opposed to the well-being of the individual, is to feel exhausted, to become restless and to find it difficult to sleep. There are children who thrive on excitement and exertion; they sleep sounder for it, they recuperate readily and gain in strength and endurance with every ordinary burden put upon them. There are others to whom anything but the least excitement and exertion acts as a poison, making them restless and exhausted. Not all children who show this perverse fatigue reaction grow up with it. It may be only a temporary phase of their lives, but while it lasts it is very troublesome.
In E.'s case the overexcitable hypokinetic stage lasted until about the ninth year, and then there was a great improvement, though he still was of the same general type. He became a fairly good runner for a short distance,
At this stage he made only a mediocre showing in his business career, though his evident honesty secured him promotion to a clerk's position. After his nineteenth year he seemed to gain again in energy and endurance and was fairly well until his twenty-eighth year, though he had to nurse his endurance at all times, developed very regular habits of sleep, diet, etc., and in this manner got along. Once he had an opportunity to join an organization which would have paid him a better salary, but the hours were irregular, and it would have demanded much exertion and excitement, so he passed it by.
In 1917 he joined the army, partly because of patriotic motives, partly because he was convinced that army life might develop his endurance and energy. He was sent to an army post in the South and within two months of his entrance had "broken down.'' He was sleepless, restless, was irritable and "jumpy,'' had lost appetite and the feeling of endurance. Life seemed intolerable, though he had no desire to do away with himself, for he had no quarrel with life itself but was disgusted
This, of course, hurt his pride, but essentially he was greatly relieved. He made but slow improvement until through the munificence of Uncle Sam he was given a new start in life through the Vocational Reëducation Board. Like many other city men, he has dreamed of the "chicken farm'' as the ideal occupation free from too much work and yet lucrative. This, of course, is a mistaken notion, but while learning the work he is happy and is slowly regaining his energy. What time will bring forth no one can tell, but this is certain: throughout his life he will have to rely on good habits, carefully adjusted to his energy, in order to protect himself from the bankruptcy that so easily comes on him. A philosophy of life which will help to control his irritability is necessary, and the intelligent of the hypokinetic irritable acquire the habits and the philosophy necessary for their welfare.
Any neurologist could cite any number of such cases with varying traits of character, high intelligence or feeble-minded, controlled in morals or uncontrolled, happily or unhappily situated, whose central difficulty is an irritable and easily exhausted store of energy. They are easily excited and excitement burns them out; that is the long and short of their situation. Sex, love, hatred, anger, strain, fear in all its forms, illness,— all these and many other emotions and happenings may break them down. Such people, and those who care for them, must not make the mistake of thinking that rough handling, strenuosity, will cure what is apparently a fixed character.
There is an irritable, high-energy type—irritable
Neglecting the further types of energy display for the simple reason that this quality shades off into every conceivable type and is also a part of every nature, we turn to the types of emotional mood display. With these it is necessary to consider excitability as well, and the most interesting beings are here our objects of study.
I wish first to emphasize my belief that where there is a great natural variation in excitability and emotionality in individuals, there is not nearly so much in races as we think, and that social heredity is tradition and cultural level plays the more important rôle in this. My friend and colleague, Dr. A. Warren Stearns, has made a study which shows that while the immigrant Italian is excitable and quick to anger and of revengeful reactions, his American-born descendent has so far controlled and changed this type of reaction that he does not especially figure in police records, in murders or assaults. My own studies of the second and especially the third generation Jew show there is an almost complete approach to the "American'' type in emotional display, in what is known as poise. This third generation
1. The generally excitable, overemotional type. This type is more common in the Latin, Hebrew and Celtic races. In some respects it corresponds to the hypokinetic irritable, but it is not necessarily hypokinetic. The artistic type of person, so called, is of this group, but is, of course, talented as well. Talent need not be present, and there are persons of no artistic ability whatever who show a generalized, excitable-emotional temperament. All young children show the main traits of this type, and there is something essentially simple about all these folk, no matter how civilized or sophisticated they get to be.
A. L., a woman of fifty, belongs to this group. She is a Jewess and now a widow. All of her life her character and temperament have been the same, and though her experiences have been varied she has not in any essential altered. This last is rather characteristic of the group, for experience has but little effect on their emotional reactions.
A. L. cries very easily and readily, but her tears are easily dried and her joy is grotesquely childlike. She is readily frightened, worries without restraint and finds a melancholy satisfaction in the worst. At the same time, her fears do not persist and are easily dissipated by encouragement or good fortune. She is readily angered and "raises a row'' with great facility and without restraint. For this reason her relatives and friends become panic-stricken when she becomes angry, for they know that she does not hesitate to make an embarrassing scene. In the efforts to conciliate her they are apt
Our Jewess uses her emotions for effect, which means that she has become theatrical. Though there is reality in her emotional display, time and the advantages she has gained have brought enough finish and restraint to her manifestations to gain the designation artistic. True, it is a crude artistry, for intelligence does not sufficiently guide it, and her art is used sometimes indiscriminately and inopportunely. As she grows older the value of her tears is less, and she is becoming that prime nuisance, the elderly scold.
Among the emotional types well recognized by the neurologist is that known as the cyclothymic. In the individuals of this group there is a periodicity to mood (rather than to emotions). There is a definitely pathological trend to the cyclothymic, and in its most marked form one sees the recurring depressions and excitement of Manic Depressive Insanity.
Aside from these pathological forms, there are persons who show curious periodic changes in mood. They become depressed for no especial reason, are "blue'' for day after day and then quickly return to their normal. Sometimes these blue spells alternate with periods of exaltation and happiness, but in my experience this is far less common than periodic blue spells, a kind of recurrent anhedonia.
L. D. is ordinarily what is known as a vivacious person. Bright, talkative, keen in her discriminations, she has all her life been at the mercy of strange alterations in mood, alterations which come and go without what seems to others adequate reason.
As a child L. D. was sick a great deal. She showed an unusual susceptibility to infection, and it was not
Let there come a sickness, and this woman's stock of hopeful mood goes and there results a loss of interest in life, a loss of zest and joyousness.
A digression,—and a return to the theme of the first chapter of this book. The dependence of the mental life on bodily structure, equally true in the both sexes, is exquisitely demonstrated in woman. In many women there occurs an extraordinary increase of sex desire just before the menstrual period and in some to the point where it causes great internal conflict. Others show moderate depression and even confusion at this time, and to the majority of women some mood and thought change is taken for granted. At the menopause mental difficulties to the point of insanity are witnessed, and in some cases the change is permanent. Back of mood is the entire organic life of the organism, and back of the nature of our thoughts and deeds is mood.
A peculiarity of fatigue is remarkably well shown by this person. When she is tired or convalescent a depressing thought sticks, becomes an obsession, a fixed idea, to the plague of her life. Thus when she was nursing her first baby the night feedings exhausted her. One night, half asleep and half awake, with the vigorous little animal pulling away at her breast, she watched the pulsing fontanelle on the top of the baby's head, and the thought came to her how dreadfully easy it
Indeed, one might speak of persons of this type as hypothymic as well as cyclothymic. The hypothymic are those whose stock of courage and hope is easily exhausted, who become easily discouraged. They are borrowers of energy and vigor, they need sturdier folk around them; often they are said to be sensitive, and while this is sometimes true, it is more often the case that they are more affected. That is, two persons may notice the same thing or suffer the same sickness, but the so-called sensitive has a reserve of courage and energy that disappears, whereas the other has enough left in stock so that he does not feel any change.
The extraordinary complexity of human character is well illustrated by C. D. She is hypothymic or cyclothymic to the little affairs of life and to the minor illnesses. Yet when her family fortunes were greatly imperilled by a financial crisis, she stood up against the strain far better than did her husband, a man sturdy and buoyant in most of the affairs of life. His ego was more concerned with financial fortune than was hers, and against this ill she was the philosopher and not he.
We may well contrast L. D. with her husband. He belongs to the sturdy in emotions and morals,—the stable. Dark days and bright days, sickness and health, fatigue and rest seem to impair his courage, hope and
He has built up his ego around a business, one in which there was sunk not only his own fortune but that of a host of friends. When this was so threatened as to seem inevitably lost, his ego was deeply wounded, he lost courage and hope and then needed the strength of his wife. This she gave, and when the tide of affairs turned, his own courage was ready and unimpaired. We are like trees,—the hard, strong, knotty parts of our fiber are distributed in irregular fashion, and he who seems strongest has a weak place somewhere. Attack that, and his resistance, courage and hope disappear.
While there are the types of mood and emotional make-up, there are curious monothymic types, people who habitually tend to react with one emotion or mood.
The fear type. It must again be emphasized that we cannot separate emotion, mood, instinct, intelligence in our analysis. And so we shall speak of individuals of this or that type when what we mean is that they reacted habitually and remarkably in one direction. Thus with the man F., who has quick imagination, and
F. feared animals excessively as a child and injury to himself as a boy, so that he played few rough games. To a large extent his parents fostered this fear in him by carefully guarding and watching him, by putting him through that neurasthenic regimen so brilliantly described by Arthur Guiterman in his story of the aseptic pup. Yet he had a brother as carefully brought up as himself who became a rough-and-tumble lad, with as little likelihood to fear as any boy. So that we may only assume that F.'s training fostered fear in him; it did not cause it.
At the age of thirteen the fear of death entered F.'s life, the occasion being the death of an uncle. The mourning, the quick fleeting sight of the dead man in the black box, the interment of the once vigorous, joyous man in the earth struck terror into the heart of the boy. From that time much of his life was controlled by his struggles with the fear of death, and his history is his reaction to that fear. At fourteen he astonished his free-thinking family by becoming a devout Christian, by praying, attending church regularly and by becoming so moral in his conduct as to warrant the belief that there was something wrong with him. Indeed, had a psychiatrist examined him at this time, there is no doubt he would have diagnosed his condition as a beginning Dementia Precox. But he was not; he simply was compensating for his fear of death.
At sixteen he entered an academy where he was forced to go into athletics. The fear of injury and death
In college he fell under the influence of Omar Khayám and the epicurean reaction to death. He feverishly entered pleasure and swung easily from religious fervor to a complete agnosticism. He became a first-nighter, knew all the chorus girls it was possible for him to become acquainted with, learned to drink but never learned to enjoy it. In fact, after each sensual indulgence his reaction against himself led him to a despair which might have terminated in suicide were it not that he feared death more than the reproaches of his conscience. Then he fell under the influence of a group of men and women in his college town, philanthropists and social reformers, whose enthusiasm and energy seemed to him miraculous, and as he grew to know them he realized with a something like ecstasy and yet governed by intelligence, that in such work was a compensation for death that might satisfy both his emotions and his intelligence. Again to the surprise of his parents, and in the face of their prediction that he would soon "tire'' of this fad, he entered into their activities and proved himself a devoted worker. Too devoted, for now and then he needs medical attention, and it was in one of these "neurasthenic'' periods that I met him.
F. might almost stand for mankind in his reactions to death. He seemed to me almost too good to be true as a demonstration of a pet thesis of mine, namely, that the fear of death is behind an enormous amount of men's deeds and beliefs. His reaction was of the compensatory type, where the fear arouses counter-emotions, counter-activities. F.'s is a noble response to fear, just as the cowardly reaction is the ignoble response.
I shall not depict the coward. There are some in whose lives the fear of death, injury, illness or loss is in constant operation to prevent activity, to lower energy and effort. One finds the coward very commonly in the clinics for nervous diseases, and in some cases the formidable term of psychasthenia is merely camouflage for the more direct English word. There is a type of the timid, who will not stand up for their rights, who receive meekly, as if it were their due, the buffets of fortune. This type is well exemplified in F. B., who passes through life cheated by every rogue and walked on by any strong-willed person that comes along. As a boy he was bullied by nearly all his playmates, did the chores, was selected for the "booh'' parts in games and never dared resent it, though he was fully conscious that he was being put upon. When he went to work in a factory he was the one selected for all those practical jokes in which minor cruelty manifests itself. His parents also bullied him, so that he was compelled to turn over most of his earnings to them and was allowed
F. B. was mortally afraid of girls; they seemed to him to be terrible and beautiful creatures, very scornful and awe-inspiring. They made him feel inferior in a way that sent him edging from their presence, and though he sometimes surged with passion he avoided any contact with them.
As a good workman he received good pay, for he chanced, by the merest luck, to fall into the hands of a kind employer, who profited by his kindness, for F. B. gave more than a dollar of value for each dollar he received. Timid, he gave to the employer a great loyalty, which was in part based on his awe of any aggressive personality.
In society this man was tongue-tied, embarrassed and overawed by the well-dressed and prosperous-looking. His sense of inferiority was in no way compensated for, and to avoid pain he became a sort of recluse, doing his work and returning to his shell, so to speak, each night.
When he was thirty-six his mother died, his father having died earlier. This left him rather well to do, for his thrifty parents had well utilized his earnings. At once a thoughtful woman of his acquaintance, distantly related by marriage, set out to capture him, and by forcing the issue led him to the altar. Needless to say, she ruled the household, and F. B.'s only consolation lay in the crop of children that soon appeared in the house, for timidity is no barrier to parenthood. This consolation rather tends to disappear as the children grow older, for they become his masters. Such men as F. B. have a collar around their necks to which any one may fit a chain.
Does F. B. rejoice in inferiority, in the masochistic sense spoken of before? Is his humility a sign of inversion, in the Freudian sense, a sort of homosexuality? Possibly, and there are very crude and coarse phrases of the common man indicating a sexual feeling in all victory and defeat. But I am inclined to call this a sort of monothymia, a mood of fear and negative self-feeling coloring all the reactions.
I have previously cited the case of the man obsessed by fear in all the relations of life,—shrinking, self-acknowledged inferiority—who lost it with "a few drinks under my belt.'' "Dutch courage'' drove from many a man the inferiority and the fear that plagued his soul. True, it drove him into a worse situation, but for a few moments he tasted something of the life that heroes and the great have. If we can ever find something that will not degrade as it exalts, all the world will rush to use it.
Of the monothymic types the choleric or angry are about as common as those predisposed to fear. The anger emotion is aroused by a thwarting of the instincts and purposes, and in the main the strongly egoistic are those most given to explosive or chronic anger. The angry feeling, however, must be controlled, else failure or social dislike awaits the choleric. When a man wins success he frequently allows himself the luxury of indulging his anger because he feels his power cannot be challenged. The Duchess in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,'' with her choleric "off with his head'' whenever any one contradicted her, is a caricature, and a very apt one, of this type of person. We think of the bull-necked Henry the Eighth—"bluff King Hal''— as the choleric type, though here we also assume a certain
I have in mind G. as a type of the angry person. G. cannot bear to have any one contradict him. Either he swallows his resentment, if he is in the presence of one he cannot afford to antagonize, or else he starts to abuse the victim verbally. He is sarcastic or violent according to circumstances; rarely is he pleasant in manner or speech. Though he is honest and said to be well-meaning, his ego explodes in the presence of other self-assertive egos. When a man truckles to him he is angry at his insincerity; when the other disputes his statements, or even offers other views, he finds himself confronted by one who has taken deep offense. As a result G. has no real friends, and this has added fuel to his anger. Often he has made up his mind to "control'' himself, to keep down his scorn and rage, but rarely has he been able to maintain a proper attitude for any length of time.
In the last analysis a high self-valuation is part of the chronic choleric make-up, a conceit of overweening proportions. The man who realizes his own proneness to err, and who keeps in mind the relative unimportance of his aims and powers, is not apt to explode in the face of opposition or contradiction. G. is as a rule absolutely sure of his belief, tastes and importance, though he is crude in knowledge, coarse in tastes and of no particular importance except to himself. He is the "I am Sir Oracle; when I ope my lips let no dog bark.''
Anger is often associated with brutality or deeds of violence. There is cold-blooded brutality, but by far the most of it has anger behind it. I know one man who in his youth was hot-tempered, i. e., quick to anger
One day he was driving his car when it became obstructed by two young rowdies driving another car. With him was his wife. When he expostulated with the men, one of them turned with a sneer and said something insulting at which the other laughed. The next thing my friend knew he was in the other car, striking heavy blows at the pair (he is a very powerful man.), and it was only the opportune arrival of a policeman that prevented a murder.
"Whatever came over me I hardly understand,'' said he afterwards sadly. "I used to have rages like that as a boy, but I have been very well controlled for over thirty years. I was a raging demon for a while, and it appalls me to think that in me there lurks such a devil of anger.''
Akin to anger, akin to fear, is suspicion. There is a sullen non-social personality type whose reactions are characterized by suspicion. He never willingly gives his trust to any one, and when he hands over his destinies to any one, as all must do now and then, he is consumed with dread, doubt and latent hostility.
Every one is familiar with men like H. He is full of distrust for his fellow men. Himself a man of low ideals, he ascribes to every one the same attitude. "What's in it for you?'' is his first thought concerning anybody with whom he deals.
He has a little store and eyes each customer who comes in as if they come to rob him. As a result his trade is largely emergency, transient trade, those who come because they have nowhere else to go or else do not know him. The salesmen, who supply the articles he
H. is not insane in the ordinary sense, but he is one of those paranoid persons we spoke of previously. Turn to L., a true case of mental disease, a paranoid whose career strangely resembles some of the great historic paranoids, for it must be remembered that man has been imposed upon by those who deceived themselves, who fully believed the strange and incredible things they succeeded in making credible to others.
The fantastic paranoid is made up of the same materials as the rest of us, except that his ego feeling is without insight, and his suspicion grows and grows until it reaches the delusion of persecution. L. was a bright boy, always conceited and given to non-social acts. Thus he never would play with the other boys unless he were given the leading rôle, and he could not bear to hear others praised or to praise them! Parenthetically the rôle that jealousy plays in the conduct of men and women needs exposition, and I recommend that some Ph. D. merit his degree by a thesis on this subject. When he was a little older he got the notion that hats were bad for the hair, and being proud of his own thick black mop, he went without a hat for over a year, despite the tears and protestations of his family and the
He entered the medical school, and to this day there is none of his classmates who has forgotten him. Proud, even haughty, with only one or two intimates, he studied hard and did very good work. Now and then he astonished the class by taking direct issue with some professor, disputing a theory or a fact with the air of an authority and proposing some other idea, logically developed but foolishly based, as if his training were sufficient. It is characteristic of all paranoid philosophy and schemes that they despise real experimentation, that they start with some postulate that has no basis in work done and go on with a minute hyper-logic that deceives the unsophisticated.
Though L. was "bright,'' there were better men in his class, and they received the honors. L. was deeply offended at this and claimed to his own friends that the professors were down on him, especially a certain professor of medicine, who, so L. intimated, was afraid that L.'s theories would displace his own and so was interested to keep him down. This feeling was intensified when he came up for the examinations to a certain famous hospital and was turned down. The real reason for this failure was his unpopularity with his fellow students, for they let it be known to the examiners that L. would undoubtedly be hard to get along with, and it was part of the policy of the hospital to consider the personality of an applicant as well as his ability.
L. obtained a hospital place in a small city and did very good work, and though his peculiarities were noticed they excited only a hidden current of amused criticism, while his abilities aroused a good deal of praise. Stimulated by this, he started practice in the
From this on his career turned. In order to contest the case, and because he began to believe that the courts and lawyers were in league against him, he studied law and was admitted to the bar. He had meanwhile married a rich woman who was wholly taken in by his keen logical exposition of his "wrongs,'' his imposing manner of speech and action; and perhaps she really fell in love with the able, aggressive and handsome man. She financed his law school studies, for it was necessary for him to give up most of his practice meanwhile.
As soon as he could appear before the Bar he did so in his own behalf, for this case had now reached the proportions where it had spread out into half a dozen cases. He refused to pay his lawyers, and they sued. One of them dropped the statement that L. was "crazy,'' and he brought a suit against the lawyer. Moreover, he began to believe, because of the adverse judgments, that the courts were against him, and he wrote article after article in the radical journals on the corruptness of the courts and entered a strenuous campaign to provide for the public election and recall of judges.
These activities brought him in close relations with a group of unbalanced people operating under the high-sounding
This success brought L.'s paranoia to the pinnacle of unreason. He attacked the courts boldly, openly and publicly accused the judges of corruption, said they were in conspiracy with the Bar and the medical societies to do him up, added to this list of his enemies the Irish and the Catholic Church, because the prosecuting attorney in one county and the judge in that court were Irish and Catholic, and then turned against his wife because she now began to doubt his sanity. He brought suits in every superior court in the State, and at the time he was committed to an Insane Hospital he had forty trials on, had innumerable manuscripts of his contemplated reforms, in which were included the doing away with Insane Hospitals, the examination of all persons in the State for venereal disease and their cure by a new remedy of his own, the reform of the judiciary, etc., etc. He accused his wife of infidelity, felt that he was being followed by spies and police, claimed that dictagraphs were installed everywhere to spy on him and had a classical delusional state. He was committed,
While the cases like L. are not common, the "mildly'' paranoid personality is common. Everywhere one finds the man or woman whose abilities are not recognized, who is discriminated against, who finds an enemy in every one who does not kotow and who interprets as hostile every action not directly conciliating or friendly. In every group of people there is one whose paranoid temperament must be reckoned with, who is distrustful, conceited and disruptive. Often they are high-minded, perhaps devoted to an ideal, and if they convince others of their wrongs they increase the social disharmonies by creating new social wars, large or small according to their influence, intelligence and other circumstances.
The type of the trusting need not be here illustrated by any case history. Dickens has given us an immortal figure in the genial, generous and impulsive Mr. Pickwick, and Cervantes satirized knighthood by depicting the trusting, credulous Don Quixote. We laugh at these figures, but we love them; they preserve for us the sweetness of childhood and hurt only themselves and their own. Trust in one's fellows is not common, because the world is organized on egoism more than on fellowship. Where fellowship becomes a code, as in the relations of men associated together for some great purpose, then a noble trust appears.
So I pass over those whose mood runs all one way the hopeful, the despondent, the pessimist and the optimist —to other types. We shall then consider the two great directions of interest, introspection and extrospection, and those whose lives are characterized by one or the other direction.
1. The introspective personality is no more of a unit than any other type. Intelligence, energy and a host of other matters play their part in the sum total of the character here as elsewhere.
H. I. is what might be called the intellectual introspective personality. From the very earliest days he became interested in himself as a thinker. "How do my words mean anything?'' he asked of his perplexed father at the investigative age of five. "Where do my thoughts go to when I do not think them?'' was the problem he floored a learned uncle with a year later. This type of curiosity is not uncommon in children; in fact, it is the conventionality and laziness of the elders that stops children in their study of the fundamentals. H. was not stopped, for the zeal of his interest was heightened as time went on.
He played with other boys but early found their conclusions and discussions primitive. He became an ardent bookworm, reading incessantly or rather at such times when his parents permitted, for they were simple folk who were rather alarmed at their boy's interests and zeal. No noticeable difference from other boys was noted aside from precocity in study, yet even at the age of ten life was running in two great currents for this boy. The one current was the outer world with its ever varied happenings, the other was the inner world of thoughts and moods, deeply, fascinatingly interesting. It seemed to H. I. that there were "two I's, one of which sat just over my head and looking down on the other I, watching its strivings, its emotions, its thoughts with a detached and yet palpitating interest. When I watched the other boys at play I wondered whether they too had this dual existence, whether they chewed the cud of life over and over again as I did.''
Came puberty with the great sex passions. The vibrating life within him suddenly became tinged with new interests. One day at a party a vixen of a girl threw herself boldly in his arms and tried to push him into a chair. The bodily contact and the swift bodily reaction threw him into a panic, for the passion that was aroused was so powerful that he seemed to himself stripped of all thought and reflection and impelled to actions against which he rebelled. For he was fully acquainted, at second hand, with sex; he knew boys and girls who had made excursions into its most intimate practices and despised them.
This episode gave his introspective trends a new direction. From now on sex was the theme his fancy embroidered. Curiously enough, he became more austere than ever, shunned girls and especially the heroine of his adventure, and even avoided the company of boys who spoke habitually and "vulgarly'' of sex. His mind built up sex phantasies, sex adventures in which he was the hero and in which girls he knew and those he imagined were the heroines, but at the same time, standing aloof as it were, another part of him seemed to watch his own reactions until "I nearly went crazy.'' He became obsessed by a feeling of unreality and adopted a Berkleyan philosophy of idealism: nothing seemed to exist except his own consciousness, and that seemed of doubtful existence. He took long walks by himself, read philosophy and science with avidity, yet turned by preference to these dreams of sex adventure, palpitating, alluring, and yet so unreal to his critical self. To others he was merely a bit moody and detached, though friendly and kind.
He went to college, and his interest in sex became secondary almost immediately. His student days were
He disappeared from college for a year and came back tanned, ruddy and at rest. He had found a capacity for interest and emotion outside of himself. He had experienced phases of life about which he would not talk at first, but in later years he admitted that he had been a "man of the world.'' He regretted much that had happened, but on the whole he rejoiced in an equanimity, in a capacity for objective interest, that he had never had before. His introspective trend was still very strong, but it lent subtlety and wisdom to his life, rather than weakness. Now and then he became harassed by a feeling of unreality, by a questioning skepticism that nullified happiness, and he felt himself divided by his intellect. These he shook off by dropping his work, by hunting, fishing and accepting simple goals
There is a personality type, the emotional introspective, whose interest in life is directed toward their own sensations and emotions. They do not view people or things as having a value in themselves and for themselves; they deliberately view them as sources of a personal pleasurable sensation. I do not mean the crude egoist who asks of anything or anybody, "What good is it (or he) for me?'' but I mean that connoisseur in emotions, casually blasé and bored, who seeks new sensations. This is an introspective deviation of a serious kind, for the connoisseur in emotions rarely is happy and usually is most deeply miserable. Bourget in his remarkable psychological novel, "A Love Crime,'' has admirably drawn one of these characters. The exquisite Armand, seeking pleasure constantly, is divided into the sensualist who seduces and ruins and the introspectionist who watches the proceeding with disgust and disillusion. It is not an outraged conscience that is at work but the inability to feel without analyzing the feeling "Ah, for a single passion that might apply my entire sensibility to another being, like wet paper against a window pane.'' This is the eternal tragedy of sophistication, —that there results an anhedonia in large part manifested by a restless introspection. The mind is drawn away from the outside world, and everything is seen out of proportion.
The hypochondriac directs his attention to his health and is in part a monothymic of the fear type. Molière's "Le Malade Imaginaire'' is a classical study of this person, and I do not, presume to better it. Modern popularizing of disease has distinctly increased the numbers
One such hypochondriac, J., after suffering from every disease in the advertising pages of the daily newspapers, developed a system of habits that finally became a disease in itself. He rose at 6.30 each morning, stood naked in the middle of the room, took six deep breaths, rolled around on the floor and kicked his arms and legs about for fifteen minutes, took a drink of cold water, had a shower bath and a rub-down, shaved, attended to "certain bodily functions'' (his term, not mine), ate a breakfast consisting of gluten bread, two slices, one and one-half glasses of milk, a soft-boiled egg (three and one-half minutes) and an orange; walked to work, taking exactly twenty minutes to do it; opened the windows wide in his office (fighting with the other clerks who preferred comfort to fresh air), ate a health luncheon at noon consisting of Postum, nuts, health bread, and two squares of milk chocolate; walked home at six, taking exactly 20 minutes to do it; washed, lay on the couch fifteen minutes with mind fixed on infinity (a Hindoo trick, so he heard), ate dinner, which never varied much from rice, cream, potatoes, milk and, heritage of saner days, a small piece of pie! All the day he watched each pain and ache, noted whether he belched or spit more than usual, and at night went to sleep at 10.30. Needless to say he had no friends, was known as "that nut'' and
The term self-denial has been used from earliest times to indicate what we have called inhibition. But self-denial is fundamentally a wrong term, since it implies that the self is that which lusts and shirks, and that which controls desire and holds the individual to a consistent and ethical line of conduct is not the self. In fact, the self is based on inhibition and control, and when there is failure in these regards there is self-failure.
Interesting is the under-inhibited person. I mean by this term the one who consistently and in most relationship shows an inability to control the primitive instincts, impulses and desires. J. F. may stand as a type that becomes the "black sheep'' and in many cases the "criminal.'' He comes of what is known as a "good family,'' which in his case means that the parents are well-to-do, of good reputation and rather above the average in intelligence. The brothers and sisters have all done well, are settled in their ways and are not to be distinguished from the people of their social set in manners or morals.
It was impossible to discipline J. As a very young child he resisted his mother's efforts to train him into tidiness or restraint. He stole whatever he desired, and though he was alternately punished and pleaded with, though he seemed to desire to please his parents, he continued to steal whenever there was opportunity. At six he entered a neighbor's house, and while there took a purse that was lying on a table, rifled it of its contents and disappeared for nearly a day, when he was found in a down-town district, having gorged himself with candy and cake. From then on his peculations
In school he did poorly. He was bright enough. In fact, he was somewhat above the average in memory and comprehension and may be described as keen, but it was difficult for him to keep his attention consistently on any subject, and the discipline of school irked him. He ran away several times to avoid school, and each time, until he was about fourteen, came back after a few days,—bedraggled, hungry and repentant. The freedom of the streets appealed to him as offering a life varied enough to suit his nature, and with excitement and adventure always in the air. So he mingled with all kinds of boys and men and at the age of fourteen shocked his parents by being arrested as one of a gang that was engaged in robbing drunken men in the slum quarters of the city. It took all kinds of influence to get him released on probation, but this was accomplished and then the boy disappeared from home.
He was gone three years and despite all search had completely disappeared. His people had given up all hope of seeing him again (although certain members of his family were not at all saddened by the prospect) when they received a communication from the police of a distant city with a photograph of the boy, asking if it was true that he was their son. It seems that J. had drifted from place to place, now working as newsboy,
Despite the efforts of the parents and the philanthropist,
This under-inhibited type may suddenly reform and apparently entirely emerge from difficulties. I have in mind a conspicuous case, a young woman now happily married and the mother of fine children. When she was thirteen or fourteen the petty pilferings of her childhood took on a serious character. She began to steal from the person of strangers and from the homes of friends. She romanced in the most convincing fashion, told strangers the most remarkable stories, usually of such a nature as to make her interesting and an object of sympathy, but which tended to blacken the reputation of her family. She lost place after place at work, was sent to a hospital to become a nurse and demoralized her associates by her lies and her thefts. She was a very sweet girl in every other way, kindly, generous, self-sacrificing, studious even, and her character-contradiction made people reluctant to believe she was not insane. She was discharged from the hospital, stayed
The sexually under-inhibited are those whose sex control is deficient. This may be either from over-passionate nature, bad example, deficient mentality, vanity and desire for good times, as in certain girls, etc. To discuss these types would be to write another book, and so I forbear. But this I wish to emphasize: that neither age, sex protestation of indifference and control, occupation or social status, alters the fact that the history of the sex feelings, impulses and struggles is essential to a knowledge of character. Without detailing sex types, these are some that are important.
1. The uninhibited impulsive, passionate (the bulk of the prostitutes).
2. The controlled, passionate. Very common.
3. The frigid. Not so rare as believed.
4. The extremely passionate (nymphomania, satyriasis). Rare. Always in trouble.
5. The sensualist, a deliberate seeker of sex pleasure, often indulging in perversion. Common type.
6. The perverted types,—autœrotic (masturbator), homosexual, masochists, sadists, fetishist, etc. More common than the ordinary person dreams.
7. The periodic, to whom sex life is incidental to certain periods and situations. Common among women, less common among men.
8. The sublimators, whose sexual activity has somehow been harnessed to other great activities. Fairly
9. The anhedonic or exhausted. Found in the sensualists and often reacted to by the formation of religious and ethical codes, which eliminate sex,—Tolstoy, the hermits, certain Russian sects, etc.
There is under-inhibition of a good kind. There are generous-hearted people always ready to give of themselves to anything or anybody that needs help. Often "fooled'' by the unworthy, they resolve to be calm, judicial and selfish, and then,—their generous social natures over-ride caution, and again they plunge into kindness and philanthropy.
F. L. is one of these. As child, boy and young man he was free-hearted to an extraordinary degree. Ragamuffin, stray dog or cat, tramp, down and outer of every kind or description, these enlisted his sympathy and help despite the expostulation and remonstrance of a series of conventional good people, his mother and father, his best friends and his outraged wife. The latter never knew, she used to say, what he would bring home for dinner. "He always forgot to bring home the steak, but he never forgot to lug along some derelict.'' More than once he was robbed, often he was imposed upon. Once he met an interesting vagabond who spoke several languages, quoted the Bible with ease and accuracy, and so fired the heart of our simple man that he bought him clothes and brought him home to stay. His wife threw up her hands in despair. "But, my dear,'' said F. L., "he's a scholar who has fallen on evil days.'' "Ah,'' she answered, "I fear it will be an evil day for us when you took him home.'' She had a good chance to say, "I told you so,'' when the rogue eloped with the best of their silver.
Not only is F. L. impulsive and uninhibited in his generosity, but his "pitch in and help'' quality is about as well manifested in other matters. If he sees a man or boy struggling with a load, he immediately forgets that he is over fifty and well dressed and steps right in to help. He saw an ash and garbage man—this is his wife's star story—struggling to lift a much befouled can into his wagon. F. L. left his wife and some friends without a word and with a cheery word threw the can into the wagon. Unfortunately some of the contents splashed, and F. L. suffered both in dignity and appearance as a consequence. He had to go home by back alleys and had to endure the mirth of his friends for a long time. But it did not change his reactions in the least, although he was really vexed with himself and endeavored to be conventional and self-controlled for a while. The point is that F. L. attempts inhibition of generous impulses and fails as ignominiously as a drunkard struggling with the desire to drink.
Of course he is of the salt of the earth. Upon such uninhibited fellowship feeling as his rests the ethical progress of the world. A dozen inventors contribute less to their fellow men than does he. For their contributions may be used to destroy or enslave their fellows, and it is a commonplace that science has outstripped morals. But his contributions spread kindly feeling and the notion of the brotherhood of man.
The over-inhibited, those whose every impulse and desire is subjected to a scrutiny and a blocking, often come to the attention of the neuropsychiatrist. But there are many "normal'' people who fall into this group, and whose conduct throughout life is marked by a scrupulosity that is painful to behold. The over-inhibition may take specific directions, as in the thrifty
K. has always had "ingrowing scruples,'' as his exasperated mother once said. As a small child he never obeyed the impulse to take a piece of cake without looking around to see if his mother and father approved. He would not play unreservedly, in the whole-hearted impulsive way of children, but always held back in his enjoyment as if he feared that perhaps he was not doing just right. When he started to go to school his fear of doing the wrong thing made him appear rather slow, though in reality he was bright. The other children called him a "sissy,'' mistaking his conscientiousness for cowardice. This grieved him very much, and his father undertook to educate him in "rough'' ways, in fighting and wrestling. He succeeded in this to the extent that K. learned to fight when he believed that he was being wronged, but he never seemed to learn the aggressiveness necessary to get even a fair share of his rights. His mother, a similar type, rather encouraged him in this virtue, much to the disgust of the father.
Not to spend too long a time over K.'s history, we may pass quickly over his school years until he entered college. He was a "grind'' if there ever was one, studying day and night. He had developed well physically and because of his hard work stood near the top of his class. He took no "pleasures'' of any kind,—that is, he played no cards, went to no dances, never took in a show and of course was strictly moral. It seems that the main factor that held him back was the notion he had imbibed early in his career that pleasure itself was
This one example of a high type of the over-inhibited must do for the group. There is a related type who in ordinary speech find it "difficult to make up their minds,''—in other words, are unable to choose. Bleuler has used the term ambivalent, thus comparing these individuals to a chemical element having two bonds and impelled to unite with two substances. The ambivalent personalities are always brought to a place where they yearn for two opposing kinds of action or they fear to choose one affinity of action as against the other. They are in the position of the unfortunate swain who sang, "How happy I could be with either, were t'other dear charmer away.''
M. is one of these helpless ambivalent folk, always
M. is in business with his father and is entirely a subordinate, because he cannot choose. He carries out orders well, is very amiable and gentle, is liked and at the same time held in a mild contempt. He has physical courage but has not the hardihood of soul to take on responsibility for choosing. Sometimes he gets good ideas, but never dares to put them into execution and shifts that to others.
He hates himself for this weakness in an essential phase of personality but is gradually accepting himself as an inferior person, despite intelligence, training and social connection.
Yet his sister is exactly the opposite type. She makes decisions with great promptness, never hesitates, is "cocksure'' and aggressive. If M. is ambivalent, his sister B. M. is univalent. Choice is an easy matter to her, though she is not impulsive. She rapidly deliberates. She never has made any serious errors in judgment, but if she makes a mistake she shrugs her shoulders and says, "It's all in the game.'' Thus she is a
In pathological cases the inability to choose becomes so marked as to make it impossible for the patient to choose any line of conduct. "To do or not to do'' extends into every relationship and every situation. The patient cannot choose as to his dress or his meals; cannot decide whether to stay in or go out, finds it difficult to choose to cross the street or to open a door; is thrown into a pendulum of yea and nay about speaking, etc. This psychasthenic state, the folie du doute of the French, is accompanied by fear, restlessness and an oppressive feeling of unreality. The records of every neurologist contain many such cases, most of whom recover, but a few go on to severe incurable mental disease.
I pass on, without regard for logic or completeness, to a personality type that we may call the anhedonic or simpler a restless, not easily satisfied, easily disgusted group. Some of these are cyclothymic, over-emotional, often monothymic but I am discussing them from the standpoint of their satisfaction with life and its experiences. The ordinary label of "finicky'' well expresses the type, but of course it neglects the basic psychology. This I have discussed elsewhere in this book and will here describe two cases, one a congenital type and the other acquired.
T. was born dissatisfied, so his mother avers. As a baby he was "a difficult feeding case'' because the very slightest cause, the least change in the milk, upset him, a fact attested to by vigorous crying. Babies have a variability in desire and satisfaction quite as much as their elders.
Apparently T. thrived, despite his start, for as a child he was sturdy looking. Nevertheless, in toys, games, treats, etc., he was hard to please and easy to displease. He turned up his nose if a toy were not perfection, and he had to have his food prepared according to specification or his appetite vanished. Moreover, he had a very limited range of things he liked, and as time went on he extended that list but little. He was very choice in his clothes—not at all a regular boy— and quite disgusted with dirt and disorder. "A little old maid'' somebody called him, having in mind of course the traditional maiden lady.
As T. grew his capacity for pleasure-feeling did not increase. On the contrary his attention to the details necessary for his pleasure made of him one of those finicky connoisseurs who, though never really pleased with anything, get a sort of pleasure in pointing out the crudity of other people's tastes and pleasures. This attitude of superiority is the one compensation the finicky have, and since they are often fluent of speech and tend to write and lecture, they impose their notions of good and bad upon others, who seek to escape being "common.'' In T.'s case his attitude toward food, clothes, companions, sports and work created a tense disharmony in his family, and one of his brothers labeled him "The Kill-joy.'' Secretly envious of other people's simple enjoyment, T. made strenuous efforts at times to overcome his repugnances and to enlarge the
When he was twenty be found himself the theater of many conflicts. He was weary of life, yet lusted for experiences that his hyperestheticism would not permit him to take. Sex seemed too crude, and the girls of his age were "silly.'' Yet their lure and his own internal tensions dragged him to one place after another, hoping that he would find the perfect woman, able to understand him. At last he did find her, so he thought, in the person of a young woman of twenty-five, a consummate mistress of the arts of femininity. She sized him up at once, played on his vanity, extolled his fine tastes and never exposed a single crudity of her own, until she brought him to the point where his passion for her, his conviction that he had found "the perfect woman,'' led him to propose marriage. Then came the blow: she laughed at him, called him a silly boy, gave him a lecture as to what constituted a fine man, extolling crudity, vigor and virility as the prime virtues.
His world was shattered, and its shadowy pleasures gone. At first his parents were inclined to believe that this was a good lesson, that T. would learn from this adventure and become a more hardy young man. Instead he became sleepless, restless and without desire for food or drink; he shunned men and women alike; he stared hollow-eyed at a world full of noise and motion but without meaning or joy. Deep was this anhedonia, and all exhortations to "brace up and be a man'' failed. Diversion, travel and all the usual medical consultations and attentions did no good.
One day he announced to his family that he was all right, that soon he would be well. He seemed cheerful,
He was sent away to a sanatorium but left it and came home. He began to eat and drink again, found he could sleep at night (the sleepless night had filled him with despair) and soon swung back into his "normal'' state. He passes throughout life a spectator of the joys of others, wondering why his grip on content and desire is so slender, but also he thinks himself of a finer clay than his fellows.
As a complement to this case let me cite that of the ex-soldier S. He reached the age of twenty-two with a very creditable history. Born of middle-class parents he went through high school and ranked in the upper third of his class for scholarship. His physique was good; he was a joyous, popular young fellow; and wherever he went was pointed out as the clean young American so representative of our country. That means he worked hard as assistant executive in a production plant, was ambitious to get ahead, took special courses to fit himself, read a good deal about "success'' and how to reach it, dressed well, liked his fellow men and
Came the war. Full of the ardor of patriotism and the longing for the great experience, he enlisted. He took the "hardships'' of camp life, the long hikes, the daily drills, the food dished out in tins, as a lark, and his hearty fellowship identified him with the army, with its profanity, its rough friendliness, its grumbling but quick obedience and its intense purpose to "show 'em what the American can do.'' He went overseas and learned that French patriotism, like the American brand, did not prevent profiteering, and that enlistment in a common cause does not allay or abate racial prejudices and antagonisms. This, however, did not prey on his mind, for he took his Americanism as superior without argument and was not especially disappointed because of French customs and morals. He took part in several battles, made night attacks, bayonetted his first man with a horror that however disappeared under the glory of victory.
One day as he and a few comrades were in a front line trench, "Jerry'' placed a high explosive "plump in the middle of it.'' When S. recovered consciousness, he found himself half covered with dirt and débris of all kinds, and when he crawled out and brushed himself off, he saw that of all his comrades he alone survived, and that they were mangled and mutilated in a most gruesome way. "Pieces of my friends everywhere,'' is his terse account. He lay in the trench, not daring to
From that episode dates as typical an anhedonia as I have ever seen. Gradually he became sleepless and woke each day more tired than he went to bed. The food displeased him, and he grumbled over what were formerly trifles. He wearied easily, and nothing seemed to move him to enthusiasm or desire. He gave up friendship after friendship, because the friends annoyed him by their noise and boisterousness. He dreaded the roar of the guns and the shriek of shells with what amounted to physical agony. He brooded alone, and though not melancholy in the positive insane sense, was melancholy in the disappearance of desire, joy, energy, interest and enthusiasm.
Fortunately the armistice came at this time. S. was examined and discharged as well because he made no complaints, for he was anxious to get home. This was his one great desire. At home, with a nice bed to sleep in, good food to eat and the pleasant faces of his own people, his "nerves'' would yield, he had no doubt. But he was mistaken; this was not the case. He became no better, and though he tried his old "job,'' he found that he could not find the energy, enthusiasm or concentration necessary for success. He was then referred to the United States Public Health Service, where I saw him, and he became my patient.
My first problem was to restore the power of sleeping. This I succeeded in doing by means that were entirely "physical.'' With that accomplished, the man became hopeful of further results, and this enabled one to bring about a desire for food, again by physical means, medicine, in short. The problem of awaking S.'s interest simmered down to that of finding an outlet for his ambition. The Federal Vocational Board granted him the right to take up a business course in a college. Though he found the study hard at first, he was encouraged to keep on and told to expect little of himself at first. This is an important point, for if a man holds himself to a high standard under conditions such as those of S., then failure brings a discouragement that upsets the treatment. At any rate this method of readjustment, with its reliance on medicines to bring sleep and appetite and on training to bring hope and relief from introspection, worked splendidly.
The fact is that no abstruse complicated psychological analysis was necessary here or in most cases. A man is "jarred'' from light-hearted health to a grim discouraged state. This discouragement brings with it sleeplessness and loss of appetite, and there gradually develops a series of habits which lower endurance and energy. The habit elements in this condition are not enough recognized, and also the fact that most of the disability is physical in its development though psychological at the start. That is, A. had a severe emotional reaction to a horrible experience; this brought about insomnia and disordered nutrition, and these, by lowering the endurance and ability, brought to being a vicious circle of fatigue and depression, in which fatigue caused depression and depression increased fatigue. The treatment must be directed at first to the physical
It would be interesting to consider other types related to the anhedonic personality. The complainer, the whiner, the nag, all these are basically people who are hard to satisfy. The artistic temperament (found rather frequently in the non-artistic) is hyperesthetic, uncontrolled, irritably egoistic and demands homage and service from others which exceeds the merit of the individual; in other words, there is added to the anhedonic element an unreasonableness that is peculiarly exasperating. I pass these interesting people by and turn to the opposite of the anhedonic group, the group that is hearty in tastes and appetites, easily pleased as a rule and often crude in their relish of life. There are two main divisions of these hearty simple people,— those who are untrained and relatively uneducated, and whose simplicity may disappear under cultivation, and another type—cultivated, educated, wise—who still retain unspoiled appetite and hearty enjoyment.
Briefly let me introduce Dr. O., an athlete in his youth and always a lover of the great outdoors.
O. is Homeric in the simplicity of his tastes. A house is a place in which to sleep, clothes are to keep one warm, food is to eat and the manner of its service is an indifferent matter. He enjoys with almost huge pleasure good things to eat and good things to drink, but as he puts it, "I am as much at home with corned beef and cabbage as I am with any epicurean chef d'œuvre. I like the feel of silk next my body, but cotton pleases me as much.'' He is clean and bathes regularly, but has no repulsion against dirt and disorder. At home, among the utmost refinements of our present-day life, he prefers the rough bare essentials of existence. To
Imbued with a zeal for living and a desire for experience, O. has not been as successful as one more cautious and less impetuous might have been. He loves his profession so well that he would rather spend a day on an interesting case in the ward of some hospital than to treat half a dozen rich patients in his consulting room. His purpose is indeed unified; he seeks to learn and to impart, but the making of money seems to him a necessary irrelevance, almost an impertinent intrusion upon the real purposes of life. He is eager to know people, he shows a naïve curiosity about them, an interest that flatters and charms. All the phenomena of life—esoteric, commonplace, queer and conventional —are grist to his mill.
His sexual life has not differed greatly from that of other men. In his early youth his passions outran his inhibitions, and he tasted of this type of experience with the same gusto with which he delved into books. As he reached early manhood he fell in love and pledged himself to chastity. Though he fell out of love soon his pledge remained in full force, and though he cursed himself as a fool he held himself aloof from sex adventure. When he was twenty-seven he again fell in love, had an impetuous and charming courtship and married. He loves his wife, and there is in their intimacy
O. is no mystic, proclaiming his unity with all existence, in the fashion of Walt Whitman. Rather he is a man with a huge capacity for pleasure, not easily disgusted or annoyed, with desires that reach in every direction yet with controlled purpose to guide his life. As he passes into middle age he finds his pleasures narrowing, as all men do, and he finds his appetites and tastes are becoming more restricted. This is because his purpose becomes more dominant, his habits are more imperious, his energy less exuberant. In thought O. is almost a pessimist because his knowledge of life, his intelligence and his sympathy make it difficult to understand the need of suffering, of disease and of conflict. But in emotion he still remains an optimist, glad to be alive at any price and rejoicing in the life of all things.
Apropos of this contradiction between thought and mood, it is sometimes found reversed. There are those whose philosophy is optimistic, who will not see aught but good in the world, yet whose facial expression and actions exhibit an essential melancholy.
In every category of character there are specialists, individuals whose main reactions are built around one great trait. Thus there are those whose egoism takes the form of pride in family, or in personal beauty, or some intellectual capacity, or in being independent of others, who worship self-reliance or self-importance. There are the individuals whose social instincts express themselves in loquacity, in a talkativeness that is the main joy of their lives, though not at all the joy of
Those whose ego feeling is high, whose desire for superiority matches up well with their feeling of superiority are often called the conceited. Really they are conceited only if they show their feelings, as, for example, does W. Wherever he goes W. seeks to occupy the center of the stage, brags of his achievements and his fine qualities. "I am the kind'' is his prefix to his bragging. W. thinks that everything he does or says is interesting to others, and even that his illnesses are fascinating to others. If he has a cold he takes a remarkable
W. does not know how to camouflage his egoism, but F. does. Fully convinced of his own superiority and with a strong urge at all times to demonstrate this, he "knows enough'' to camouflage, to disguise and modify its manifestations. In this way he manages to be popular, just as W. is decidedly unpopular, and many mistake him for modest. When he wishes to put over his own opinion he prefaces his statements by "they say,'' and though whatever organization he enters he wishes to lead, he manages to give the impression that he is reluctant to take a prominent part. A man of ability and good judgment, the narrow range of F.'s sympathies, his lack of sincere cordial feeling, is hidden by a really artistic assumption of altruism that deceives all save those who through long acquaintance know his real character. One sees through W. on first meeting, he wears no mask or disguise; but F. defies detection, though their natures are not radically different except in wisdom and tact.
Half and more of the actions, poses and speech of men and women is to demonstrate superiority or to avoid inferiority. There are some who feel inwardly inferior, yet disguise this feeling successfully. This feeling of inferiority may arise from purely accidental matters, such as appearance, deformity, tone of voice, etc., and the individual may either hide, become seclusive or else brazen it out, so to speak.
A famous Boston physician was a splendid example of a brusque, overbearing mask used to hide a shrinking,
One day there walked into my office a lady, head of a large enterprise, who had been pointed out to me some time previously as the very personification of self-assurance and superiority. A dignified woman of middle age, whose reserve and correct manners impressed one at once; she bore out in career and casual conversation this impression of one whose confidence and belief in herself were not misplaced, in other words, a harmoniously developed egotist. What she came to consult me about, was—her feeling of inferiority!
All of her life, said she, she had been overawed by others. As a girl her mother ruled her, and her younger sister, more charming and more vivacious, was the pet of the family. Brought up in a strict church, she developed a firmness of speech and conduct that inhibited the frankness and friendliness of her social contacts.
This broke Miss B.'s spirit. "Had I not known friendship I might have gone on, but now I feel that every one must see what a fool I am and what a fool 1 have been. I am more shy than ever, I feel as if every one were really stronger than I am, and that some day everybody will see through my pose,—and then where will I be?''
Hide-and-go-seek is one of the great games of adults as well as of children. We hide our own defects and seek the defects of others in order to avoid inferiority and to feel competitive superiority. But there is a deep contradiction in our natures: we seek to display ourselves as we are to those who we feel love us, and we hide our real self from the enemy or the stranger. The protective marking of birds and insects is amateurish
I forbear from depicting further character types. People are not as easily classified as automobiles, and the combinations possible exceed computation. Character growth, in each individual human being, is a growth in likeness to others and a growth in unlikeness, as well. As we move from childhood to youth, and thence to middle and old age, qualities appear and recede, and the personality passes along to unity and harmony or else there is disintegration. He who believes as I do that the Grecian sage was immortally right when he enjoined man to know himself will agree that though understanding character is a difficult discipline it is the principal science of life. We are only starting such a science; we need to approach our subject with candor and without prejudice. Though our subject brings us in direct contact with the deepest of problems, the meaning of life, the nature of the Ego and the source of consciousness, these we must ignore as out of our knowledge. Limiting ourselves to a humble effort to know our fellow men and our own selves, we shall find that our efforts not only add to our knowledge but add unmeasurably to our sympathy with and our love for our fellows.
CHAPTER XVII
SOME CHARACTER TYPES
The Foundations of Personality | ||