is a negativism taking place in the spinal cord I do not know. The most general standpoint on the question of negativism is taken by Bleuler in his work on negative suggestibility.[1] He shows that negative suggestibility, that is, the impulse toward contrast associations, is not only a constituent part of the normal psyche, but also a frequent mechanism of pathological symptoms in hysteria, impulsive phenomena, and dementia præcox. The contrast mechanism is an independent function entirely rooted in "affectivity." It therefore manifests itself mainly in presentations of strong feeling as in decisions and similar things. "This mechanism protects against a rash act and forces the consideration of, for and against." The contrast mechanism is a counterpart of suggestibility. Suggestibility is the faculty of the reception and realization of strong feeling-toned ideas, while the contrast mechanism guards the opposite. It is for this reason that Bleuler appropriately calls it negative suggestibility. The fact that these two functions are so closely related readily explains why they are met with together clinically. In hysteria we have suggestibility near insuperable contrary autosuggestion; and negativism, automatism and echopraxy in dementia præcox, etc.
The importance of negative suggestibility in every-day psychical occurrences explains why contrast associations are everywhere enormously frequent. They are in the closest relationship.[2]
In language, too, we see something similar. The words which express the usual contrasts are very closely associated and therefore mostly belong to the intimate associations of language, as, white, black, etc. In primitive languages one occasionally finds only one word for contrasting ideas. According to Bleuler a
- ↑ Bleuler: Die negative Suggestibilität ein psychologisches Prototyp des Negativismus, der contraren Autosuggestion und gewisser Zwangsideen. Psych.-Neurol. Wochenschr., 1904.
- ↑ The following express themselves in a similar manner: Paulhan: L'activité mentale et les élements de l'esprit, 1889.—Svenson: Om Katatonie. Hygiea, 1902.—Janet: Les Obsessions, 1903.—Pick: On Contrary Actions. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Jan., 1904.—An instructive case is given by Josiah Royce: The Case of John Bunyon. Psychological Review, 1894, p. 143. [Jelliffe: Pre Dementia Præcox, Am. Jour. Med. Sc. 1907. Ed.]
