SOCIAL FACTORS IN MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 277 



This obviously varies in different cultures. However, those instincts which, 

 in a given society may not find direct expression, must be sublimated or 

 repressed and these two processes start practically from birth. What 

 forms are taken depend probably, in part, on innate abilities and character- 

 istics, and in part on environment, but some expression for these energies 

 must be found either in the individual's own mental life or in his physical 

 activities. It is obvious that the opportunity to find outlets through 

 which sublimation may occur also varies widely in different cultures. But, 

 not only does this opportunity vary according to the society in which the 

 individual finds himself but also with his immediate surroundings, partic- 

 ularly his home and family. 



Consider the plight of the child reared in a home with an unstable parent. 

 It is of the very essence of our concept that the child's original ideals of 

 conduct come from his parents — that both what is right and wrong and 

 how he may and may not act are determined by the way in which he is 

 conditioned by them. Furthermore, this conditioning occurring in the 

 earliest years has a profound and lasting effect. The unstable parent, ac- 

 cording to our definition of mental illness, is one who has himself been 

 unable to make a successful compromise between his instinctual urges and 

 what he has been taught to consider right and wrong. The resulting conflict 

 must find some expression. It is inevitable, therefore, that the environ- 

 ment that such a parent provides would be a distorted one. 



This may be made clear if we consider briefly some of the recent theories 

 on the nature of mental disease. It seems probable from the evidence, 

 that in some individuals there is relatively little ability to handle the in- 

 stinctual demands; the forces of repression are weak in comparison with them. 

 The balance is lost between external reality with the demands and satis- 

 factions of social living that it implies, and the instinctual wishes. The 

 scale is tipped in favor of the latter. Since development for such a person 

 is rendered difficult and, at times impossible, along the lines which his 

 milieu has laid down for him, he escapes from it by developing a psychosis. 

 But even though there seems to be a constitutional weakness as shown by 

 this inability, it is highly probable that if the life surrounding such a child 

 happens to be, or can be made, acceptable to him, he can adjust to it in a 

 satisfactory manner. In the psychoneuroses the inherent weakness seems 

 to lie in the relative inability to find suitable, healthy, satisfactory outlets 

 in relation to the repressing forces which are too strong. There is too 

 much "conscience," so to speak. The part played by the environment is 

 thus obvious. 



In a family in which there is a markedly unstable parent or parents, 



