MODULE 2 BEGINNINGS OF DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY Questions to be answered while reading: 1. What is the difference between the Salpetriere and the Nancy school of hypnotism? 2. What was the relationship between hypnotism and hysteria as seen by Charcot? 3. Why did hypnotism lead to the psychology of motivation? MOTIVATION AND DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY Much of what we have examined so far has been concerned with how the mind develops - new ideas and old ideas getting connected together to form more complex new ideas. Asking why behavior occurs was not considered of vital importance during most of the 20th century, except as to how the environment contributed to the understanding of behavior. The why is concerned with the causes. And in psychology the causes can be external pushes and pulls or internal forces initiating and sometimes directing behavior. The history of the internal pushes goes back to hedonistic doctrines - the belief that people do things because of the pleasure that it brings. Epicurus, we saw, suggested that everything was based on matter and that the pleasure principle directing activity. Augustine, as we have seen, was interested in the why as well as the what of the mind. And most of Catholic psychology,. With it's emphasis upon personality responsibility and choice recognizes that motives are important. John Stuart Mill's utilitarian philosophy explained economic and social theory on hedonistic principles in the 19th century. Thorndike's law of effect stated that behavior that produces a satisfying state of affairs is "stamped in" and remembered as a habit. Freud's pleasure principle is probably the most obvious and famous principle based upon a hedonistic doctrine. But more broadly, dynamic psychology has included a whole host of personality theorists who have emphasized the internal forces of humans rather than the external forces that account for action and movement. McDougall and his hormic psyuchology; Tolman and purposive behaviorism; Woodworth and his dynamic psychology; Lewin and his Gestalt psychology; most of the Gestaltists who, though calling into play perception rather than motivation have had to give some credence to the drive forces that account for perception. ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY But the field of motivation psychology is perhaps most closely linked with clinical psychology because drive and need and want are closely tied up with frustration and conflict and emotion. And when the organism is blocked or the emotion becomes all powerful or when need is expressed in bizarre or unprincipled ways, then society makes judgments about whether restraints or reprisals are in order. One of the most prominent forms of mental illness had been a form of neurosis called hysteria. This is not to be confused with hysterical or agitated excitement. The medical classification of hysteria referred to the apparent loss of some physical function, sensory or motor. Individuals appeared to be blind, or deaf or lacking in cutaneous feelings. Or, they lacked the capacity to move certain body parts (paralysis of arms or limbs). Upon neurological examination, such individuals appeared to be physiological healthy. Further, the symptoms appeared not to follow any rational physiological pattern. For example, one might lose sensation in the hand but not the arm. Yet this was impossible from a physiological standpoint, since the same afferent fibers serving the hand also served the forearm. One of the great nuerologists of the 19th century, known for his work with hysterics, was Jean Martin Charcot (1825-1893). Charcot worked at the Salpetriere, a famous mental hospital in Paris. To this clinic came neurologists from all over Europe to learn about his techniques for diagnosing and treating hysterical patients. During these workshops, Charcot demonstrated how hysterical patients, unable to walk, could be placed under hypnosis and then with post hypnotic suggestion, told to get up and walk across the room -- which they did, to the amazement of all concerned. Or, others who were presumably deaf might be placed under hypnosis and then observed to react in a startled fashion when a loud noise was made behind them. These demonstrations convinced the medical profession that something besides physiological factors were at play. But Charcot's theory about the reason for this phenomenon was in conflict with an opposing point of view advanced by Bernheim and Liebeault and others. Charcot believed that the phenomenon was essentially a female disease, since the word "hysteria," came from the Greek word meaning uterus. In fact, the known cases of hysteria appeared to be only among women. Hypnotism worked with hysterics; and conversely, hysterics (and therefore women) must be hypnotizable. It was not until Freud discovered a man with hysteria that the tide changed, though people thought that was impossible, since men had no uterus. Freud went in 1885-86 to study with Charcot. While there he heard Charcot claim over and over that in these cases it was always something genital. The opposing point of view was held by Liebeault and Bernheim in the town of Nancy, south of Paris and which came to be known as the "Nancy school" of thought. They were on the track that eventually proved correct -- that hypnosis was based on a psychological form of attention or mental concentration. Freud went to observe their methods. The man who took over from Charcot was Pierre Janet, the dean of French psychology. He became convinced that there were unknown causes for these hysterical symptoms and. He attempted to bring together the clinic and the academic side of psychology and believed that he actually proposed the idea of the unconscious prior to Freud. FREUD AND PSYCHOANALYSIS After visiting Nancy, Freud became convinced that this hysterical phenomenon had both a sexual (Charcot) and an unconscious (Nancy) component. He and Bernheim began treating hysterical patients near the end of the century and wrote a book on the subject in1895. But Freud soon became convinced that while the symptoms could be cured by hypnosis, they were not permanently removed. They kept coming back. Further, what seemed to produce a permanent cure was what one of his patients (the first person to become a social worker) called her "talking cure." This talking cure occurred when the patient recalled past events that occurred when the paralysis or the amnesthesia first happened. Or, Freud had patients recall slips of the tongue or dreams or any other phenomena that might be related to this unconscious world. His method then expanded into a theory of personality. This theory involved a structure: the id, ego, and superego. And a function: repression, transference, projection and the various complexes of Oedipus and Electra. DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY These ideas were based on the notion that there were internal tensions or pressures -- ideas borrowed partly from physics (force and activity) and from philosophy. We have seen how Leibnitz and his tradition of monadology believed in unconscious physical (spiritual) centers of activity that were in a continual state of flux and change. And then Herbart, who explained mind in terms of ideas that were above or below the limen of consciousness, and how ideas with more tension were able to push through and fit into the apperceptive mass of consciousness. Fechner tried to show how awareness or sensation could be measured by having subjects report what stimuli produced just noticeable differences. It was obvious that psychology was beginning to take note of not only external but internal pressures. Freud tried to base these pressures in childhood sexuality; base biological needs and urges which gave rise to mental energy. But many of his disciples disagreed. Neofreudians. A number of physicians associated with Freud, became his disciples, and in various ways modified his thinking to fit their own points of view. The main colleagues of his were Jung, Adler, Horney, and Fromm. In order to gain support for his ideas, Freud, aware of the anti-Semitism in Viennese society, asked his colleague Carl Jung to be the spokesman for the group. Jung was the only Christian among the group. And he agreed to serve as President of the Psychoanalytic association that furthered Freud's ideas. Jung's ideas were perhaps the most divergent of any of the psychoanalysts. First, he objected strongly to the sexual connotations in Freud's theory. Second, he believed that some dreams represented inherited memories, what he called the collective unconscious. Similar racial and national groups, he held, frequently reported similar dreams. Third, he had a highly developed theory about the structure of personality. His theory was filled with dichotomous branches. Personality was either introverted or extroverted. Alfred Adler, another colleague of Freud maintained that children, when born, observe adults as being so much bigger and powerful. As a result, they develop an inferiority complex which gets converted into a superiority complex. This would explain a "Hitler," who presumably had feelings of inferiority which got expressed in a controlling and authoritative manner. Karen Horney, one of the few lay and women analysts had a theory that was not complicated. She observed many patients as trying to deal with various conflicts in their life. She identified ways in which people resolved those conflicts by "moving toward" moving "against" and moving "away" from people. Influence on Mainstream Psychology: Psychoanalytic theory made a bit splash on the American continent. Americans were interested in practical, materialistic, and sometimes the bizarre. Freud seemed to fit all of these dimensions. He had ideas for curing common every day forms of mental illness. His theory was based on the notion that physical energies (libidinal drives) got turned into psychic energies. And he believed that childhood sexuality was the basis for understanding adult personality development. Freud was invited to visit America in 1909. He came as a guest of G. Stanley Hall, president of Clark University. Arrangements were made for all the leading psychologists of the time, and there were not many, to attend his lectures there. William James, Edward Titchener, Jung, Brill, Cattell, Sanford, were all there. Freud's theories quickly introduced into psychology a dynamic point of view. Attention soon focused on the conative, rather than the cognitive, side of personality. Drive, motivation, interest, desire - all the aspects of personality that accounted for action came to the fore. During that first decade or two of the twentieth century, psychologists not particularly imbued with Titchener and Wundt's mentalistic psychology attracted attention. William McDougall, a prominent English psychologist who got transplanted to American soil at Harvard and Duke and was advocating, as the English sometimes do, an instinct psychology to account for action. His personality and social psychology were among the first in America. Thorndike, the Columbia University educational psychologist attracted attention by his laws of learning, one of which was the law of effect - one does something because of a resulting satisfying state of affairs. His studies of hungry cats learning how to escape from a crate to obtain food seemed to prove that animals learned because of a deprivation. The behaviorists soon incorporated this hedonistic principle in some of their systems. Clark Hull was unique among the behaviorists for attempting to include all possible variables in his predictive formulae. Drive reduction was a central part of his theory. And Tolman, the cognitive behaviorist, attempted to bridge the gulf between the Gestaltists and the behaviorists by suggesting that even rats "think" their way through the maze. His introduction of cognitive factors into behavorism softened the edges of a system long criticized for being too mechanistic. His molar, rather than molecular approach was much closer to the personality theorists like Gardner Murphy who sought to make the totality of personality (emotion, thought, desire) as well as reflexes and associative ideas the way to go. Although Freudian psychology had Psychology was thus turning purposive. Humans as well as animals had some end goal in mind, a future orientation; not just the product of the past. Progress Check 1 1. Hedonism was: a. An old theory going back to Epicurus b. The basis for Freudian theory c. Part of the utilitarianism of British Empiricism d. All of the above 2. Charcot was a neuroligist that worked at: a. Nancy, France b. Paris, France c. The Saltpeterier d. A psychiatric clinic 3. Charcot believed that hysteria: a. was a psychotic condition b. could be cured by hypnosis c. responded to "talking out" the problems d. always indicated the presence of hypnotic suggestibility 4. Which of the following were true of Jung: a. He believed that sex was an integral part of any psychological theory b. Freud and he were similar in their views c. He was the accepted head of the psychoanalytic association d. Had a theory of inferiority/superiority complexes 5. Adler maintained that there were: a. Two directions for psychic energy to flow - inward and outward b. Two basic complexes that were interrelated c. Had a theory of "life space." d. Internal and external bases for psychic energy Now check the Answers November 24, 1999