J.— PSYCHOLOGY. 171 



along these lines. They are cases of alternating personality with 

 reciprocal amnesia, as it is called, in which each personality is unable to 

 re< all the experiences of the other. The two individuals A and B alternate 

 with one another. A has his own system of memories and, when he 

 disappears and makes way for B, B has his system of memories distinct 

 from the memories of A. We may explain this in terms of two general 

 systems of interests which are mutually incompatible and in conflict 

 with one another. As a rule, one part of the personality is more 

 fundamental, i.e. more stable, than the other. But difficulty arises in 

 cases where one personality is shut up within its own memories and 

 experiences, while the other personality has access to those memories 

 as well as to its own. A may have his system of memories but be quite 

 ignorant of B, except from indirect evidence, whereas B not only has a 

 special set of memories, but also has direct knowledge, of A's memories, 

 thoughts and feelings. This is a difficult problem which needs to be 

 faced. We find an analogous, though not identical, situation in most 

 cases of deep hypnosis. When a patient passes into the hypnotic state, 

 he may remain fully aware of his waking consciousness, and may have free 

 access to the memories of his waking self. But on awaking he does not, 

 as a rule, remember his hypnotic experiences. The relation is a one- 

 sided one. The hypnotic personality is acquainted with the waking 

 personality, and all its memories, but the waking personality is not 

 acquainted with the hypnotic personality. The range of the hypnotic 

 personality is wider than the range of the waking personality. This 

 similarity between one-sided multiple personality and the hypnotic 

 personality is significant, when we remember that such cases have been 

 investigated by the hypnotic method. Pierre Janet, Morton Prince and 

 others used the hypnotic method in studying cases of multiple personality, 

 and the criticism has been made against them that in doing so they were 

 manufacturing personalities — that the personalities were artifacts pro- 

 duced by the method. Everyone recognises that these investigators are 

 psychologists of exceptional ability and circumspection and honesty of 

 purpose, thoroughly trained and alive to the possibilities and difficulties 

 of their method. We cannot dismiss their observations as false observa- 

 tions, or as misunderstandings on their part. But we must nevertheless 

 allow for the influence of the process of hypnosis in the result, and as 

 contrasted with that earlier period of investigation — the hypnotic period in 

 psycho-pathology — we find that, now that hypnosis is seldom used and 

 has been replaced by deep analysis, cases of multiple personality are not 

 on record. The psycho-analysts to-day seem to have no such cases to 

 report. Moreover, if we contrast the very large number of cases of 

 severe nervous disturbance caused by the late war with the absence of 

 cases of multiple personality there, we may become still more impressed 

 by the argument that it was the persistent use of the hypnotic method 

 that was mainly responsible for the complexity of most of the earlier 

 cases reported. 1 



1 Cases of extensive amnesia, fugues, <fec., were numerous during the war ; but 

 the first aim of the army doctors in the battle areas was to remove these amnesias and 

 reassoeiate the patients as quickly as possible, so that the latter might be either 

 returned to the line or sent down to the base with the minimum of delay. 



