CHAPTER II.
The Emotional Complex and its General Action on the Psyche.
My theoretical propositions for an understanding of the psychology of dementia præcox are in reality almost entirely exhausted in the contents of the first chapter, for Freud in his works on hysteria, imperative neuroses and dreams has, after all, given all essentials. Nevertheless our ideas gained on an experimental basis differ somewhat from those of Freud. Perhaps my conception of the emotional complex even oversteps the limits of Freud's views.
The essential basis of our personality is affectivity.[1] Thought and action are only, as it were, symptoms of affectivity.[2] The elements of our psychic life, sensations, ideas and emotions are given to consciousness in the form of certain entities, which can in a manner be compared to a molecule, if one may venture upon an analogy with chemistry.
To illustrate: I meet on the street an old comrade and imme-
- ↑ For feeling, mood, affect, and emotion, Bleuler proposes the expression "affectivity," which not only designates the affects in the proper sense but also the light feelings or feeling tones of pleasure and pain in every possible occurrence. Affektivität, Suggestibilität, Paranoia. Halle: Marhold. 1906. p. 6.
- ↑ Bleuler says (l. c., p. 17): "In all our actions and omissions affectivity is a much greater motive element than reflection. It is likely that we act only under the influence of pleasure and pain, and it is chiefly due to the affects connected with them that logical reflections obtain their force. Affectivity is the broader conception of which volition and effort represent but one side."
André Godfernaux says: "The affective state is the dominating force, the ideas are nothing but its subjects. The logic of reasoning is only the apparent cause for the wheeling about of thought. Below the cold and rational laws of association of ideas there are others which conform more to the deep necessities of existence. It is the logic of sentiment." Le sentiment et la pensée et leurs principaux aspects physiologiques. Paris, Alcan, 1894.
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