Unconsciousness (Paperback)

Unconsciousness BY JAMES GRIER MILLER SOCIETY OF FELLOWS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY NEW YORK JOHN WILEY SONS, INC. LONDON CHAPMAN HALL, LIMITED 1942 PREFACE The enigma of unconsciousness has been studied and disputed by psychologists for many years. It has been approached from many angles, from the neurological at the one extreme to the philosophical at the other. It has been the subject of careful experimentation on the one hand and of soaring theorizing on t ggfji f ff robkm has embraced such different phenomena as fainting, hypnosis, in attention, creativity, repression, and instinctual behavior. Some who have interested themselves in these questions have seen that all these sorts of unconsciousness cannot be identical, and they have often insisted that they do not even have similar char acteristics. Therefore various terms have been invented, compounds of the word conscious, in order to distinguish and explain these different phenomena. Such words are subconscious, prcconscious, joreconscious, supcrconscious t coconscious, and so forth. The result of this neologizing, however, has not been increased clarity, but greater confusion. Moreover, many dissimilar sorts of behavior are still called unconscious, without any efforts being made to define the various senses of this wide term. This book attempts to distinguish the various meanings of the word unconscious which have been used, and to describe and differentiate carefully the diverse sorts of human behavior which have been included under this term. Then each of the phenomena is considered at length the clinically and experimentally determined facts about each one are reviewed and an evaluation is made of the present state of knowledge onthat specific subject. Not until this detailed study of each sort of unconsciousness has been made can the common aspects of them all be thrown into their proper light in a way that is even slightly more than speculative. When such a procedure is followed, however, solid bases for a tentative theory of unconsciousness begin to appear. Only by such an approach vi PREFACE can any conclusion be reached as to how conscious behavior is like unconscious and how it is different. This is a central problem for both the psychological laboratory and the psychiatric clinic, for academic psychologists, psychoanalysts, and psychiatrists alike. There has, however, been little co-operation between them in investigating it. It is essential that a rapprochement between the various psychological sciences be accomplished. The issue of unconsciousness offers an excellent occasion to illustrate how this can be achieved. It is only one of many problems in which all branches of the psychological science will find mutual benefit in co-operation. Such a co-ordinated program is the procedure offering the greatest hope that, in the future, sense can be made in many fields of human personality and behavior which today are realms of ignorance and nonsense. JAMES GRIER MILLER CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS November, 1941 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In the conception and in the execution of this book I have always been able to turn to Professor Edwin G. Boring for advice. From basic concepts to banal commas his criticism has been of immeasur able value, and I here express my gratitude. I am also deeply grate ful to the others who have spent hours reading the manuscript and suggesting improvements Professor Lawrence J. Henderson, Professor Henry A. Murray, Dr. Stanley Cobb, Professor Herbert S. Langfeld, Dr. J. Keith Butters, Mr. and Mrs. Donald W. Fiske, and my father. I wish also to thank my wife for her long-suffering and con tinual co-operation in every aspect of the preparation of this book. She was a Without Whom Who. To the Society of Fellows of Harvard University, of which I have been a member during the writing of these chapters, and to my friendly relationships with each of the Senior Fellows, I am deeply indebted...