1. Psychology and Psycho-Pathology

In this article of 71 pages Prof. Janet deals with the question of the influence which neuropathic subjects exert upon those with whom they are associated. Each point in this paper is emphasised by reference to actual cases, and it contains a wealth of clinical detail which cannot be included in an epitome. To understand fully the therapeutic value of isolation, and to apply it with precision, it is necessary to consider the costly effort which life in society exacts, to consider the influence of one man on another, especially in so far as one individual by his exactions may create a state of lowered psychological tension in another with whom he is associated. A study of the social conduct of a neuropath in relation to his family will indicate how and why separation from certain persons is so important in some instances. These psychasthenics exhibit social abulia, avoidance of any effort, lack of practical achievement; they can neither command nor obey, they are incapable of real affection, and though they talk much of their feelings, these result in no kind of service for others. Not only do they protect themselves from actions which they dread, but they hinder and oppose others in the family and have the whole household at their mercy. There are a number of morbid impulsions and inferior mental operations by means of which the neuropath dominates the family. Thus there is the mania for helping, in which the individual wishes to participate, and actually hinders, the activities of others, an exaggeration of that tendency of those incapable of physical exercise to watch sports or read sporting papers. A patient expresses this attitude in the phrase, “My dream is to sit with a man who works, especially a man who writes. Oh! let me watch you write for a whole evening.” This tendency may extend to an insistence on useless and futile collaborations. Then there is the mania for authority. Giving orders when it implies direction and initiative is a difficult psychic operation, but there is an elementary form of domination in which an individual formulates an action without accomplishing it himself and without any consideration as to the value, utility or interest of the act. Neuropaths find in such orders extreme satisfaction and at times people placed in positions of authority develop a mania of this kind. Neuropathic authoritatives are divided into two types, those who seek to obtain obedience by moaning entreaties, and those who attack and threaten the members of the family in order to reduce them to slavery and to prevent them from having any freedom. Such patients will obtain their desires by threatening to die if they are thwarted, or by insisting on constant sympathy, any relaxation of such an attitude provoking a scene. Obedience is also secured by the mania for love, the constant demand for every expression of affection. Prof. Janet points out that all these abulics are extremely insistent on their “rights,” whereas the man of action is not worried with his rights but devotes himself to the task in hand. Domination is sometimes secured by the mania for devotion, in which individuals are constantly rendering little services and giving useless presents to others, such generosity having always something bizarre and abnormal, designed to humiliate and exact innumerable thanks. It is only a method of acquiring recognition, protection, regard, flatteries, of playing a rôle.