Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 2.djvu/61

This page needs to be proofread.

NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 217

gations have shown the ease with which ideas may overflow into the domain of perception. Perceptions do not always possess the character of objectivity; more especially in connection with the body of the percipient, perceptions of purely subjective — and therefore 'unreal' — character are often to be met. The quality of 'being real' gives quite a special character to an idea. All concept-form- ation rests in the last resort on an irrational foundation: it is the individual's 'will to live' and his need for adaptation to real- ity that find expression here. Affective attitudes produce sometimes symbolic ideas, sometimes symbolic hallucinations, sometimes 'desire-concepts' (Begehrungsbegriffe). Affective mechanisms come into play where cognition fails or where it is insufficiently de- veloped.

Miiller-Freienfels (23) regards it as one of the merits of Freud tliat he hcis sought to give weight once again to 'analysis' (i. e. here, introspection). Miiller-Freienfels adopts a polemical attitude towards Associationist Psychology; his basic principle is that thought and phantasy are reactive phenomena, only feeling and motility being fundamental. 'Feeling* is here taken in a wide sense to in- clude every adoption of an attitude. Even perception and attention are reduced to feeling. Thought is an act of selection and relation judgements and concepts are actions. It must" be noted that MuUer- Freienfels' position is quite distinct from that of the psycho- analyst.

L. J. Martin (22) has devised a new experimental method for the investigation of subconscious thought: pictures and forms were exhibited to her subjects, who were then asked to produce a visual image of what they had seen. The image arising under these conditions proved to be powerfully influenced by imageless (and in the last resort subconscious) thought. This method, it is contended, is better suited for the study of subconscious thought than is that of psycho-analysis.

In view of its importance, Bleuler's work (2) must be con- sidered in rather greater detail. In medicine a much larger part is played by autistic thinking than is absolutely necessary, i. e. the behaviour of the physician is controlled by instincts and aflfec- tive factors. Even the admission that 'I do not know* demands an inhibition of aflfect Physicians are in the habit ot thinking carelessly and do not follow out the implications of their actidns to their, logical conclusion. To bring about an improvement itk this