Psychological Automatism

phenomena that were already present in the latter. If we understood mental illnesses well, it would not be difficult to study normal psychology. Moreover, from another point of view, "man is only half known if he is observed only in a healthy state; the state of illness is as much a part of his moral existence as of his physical existence" ¹ The author uses "moral" here in the 19th-century sense, meaning "psychological" or "mental" rather than ethical.. It is not a bad thing for psychology to delve a little into the details of various moral disturbances, instead of always remaining in generalities that are too abstract to be of any practical use. This is why an experimental psychology will necessarily be, from many points of view, a morbid psychology A study of diseased or abnormal mental states..

Every experimentation assumes that one varies the phenomena and the conditions in which they appear: illness indeed performs some of these modifications for us, but in a manner that is too slow and under conditions that are not very precise. One only performs true psychological experiments if one artificially modifies a person's state of consciousness in a determined way that is calculated in advance. Moreau (of Tours), one of the most philosophical among the alienists term: alienist (an early term for a psychiatrist), claimed to achieve this result by means of intoxication brought about by hashish. "It was," he said, "an excellent means of experimentation on the origin of madness ²." While sharing this desire for psychological experimentation that Moreau (of Tours) was one of the first to express, I hardly appreciate the process he employed. Having witnessed—only once, it is true—an intoxication produced by hashish, I found that the physical disturbance caused by this substance was quite serious and quite dangerous for a rather meager psychological result. Furthermore, the moral modifications obtained in this way are very little at the disposal of the experimenter and cannot be directed by him. Thus, this method of psychological experimentation is, in reality, impractical.

On the contrary, there is a state that is easy to induce and which is not at all dangerous, in which moral modifications are obtained very easily, and which Moreau would have preferred to any other had he known it well: it is the state of induced somnambulism term: induced somnambulism (a state of artificial sleep-walking or trance, often associated with hypnosis). Already Maine de Biran, one of the precursors of scientific psychology, in his new considerations on sleep, dreams, and somnambulism, insisted on the advantage that psychology could derive from the study of these phenomena: he was interested in the experiments of the magnetizers term: magnetizers (practitioners of "animal magnetism" or early hypnosis) of his time; he followed their sessions and spoke of them frequently.

Later, Mr. Taine also indicated the use of somnambulism in psychology ³; we are also familiar with the works of Jouffroy, Maury, and many other psychologists on this subject. The magnetizers insisted on the advantage that could be drawn from their procedures: "By giving us the means to make the various gears of thought function separately, to reduce their exercise to elementary operations... by teaching us, moreover, to draw from their latency an entire class of ways of being of the faculties of the soul, Braidism term: Braidism (an early term for hypnotism, named after James Braid) provides an experimental basis for psychology, which from then on becomes a positive science and takes its place in—"

¹ Broussais. On Irritation and Insanity, 26. original: "De l'irritation et de la folie"
² Moreau (of Tours). On Hashish and Mental Alienation, 30. original: "Du haschich et de l'aliénation mentale"
³ Taine. On Intelligence, 1878, I, 5. original: "De l'intelligence"