Beyond pathology Toward a new dissociationism

Full text.

Toward a new dissociationism .

In order to understand dissociationism, we will need to begin with its predecessor, associationism.

Eighteenth century philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) proposed that ideas are grouped in our minds according to the associations between them.^{footnote 2} Such associations cohere by way of relatedness in:

1. time and place,
2. cause and effect, and/or
3. resemblance.^{footnote 3}

In fact, this makes a great deal of sense.^{footnote 4} When you think of your boss, Shawna, you may also find associated thoughts arising: other people at your workplace (time and place), the day Shawna hired you (cause and effect), and another friend of yours who is also named Shawna (resemblance). The trouble with this model of associationism — posited philosopher Frédéric Paulhan (1856-1931) — is that association is only a work[man] in the service of the higher influence that directed it.^{footnote 5} Many things in psyche are disconnected — dissociated — in fundamental ways. We can call this response to associationism, and the work which sprang from it, dissociationism.

For the sake of clarity, let’s define dissociation. To contemporary theorists, the term denote[s] a division in the personality, and a disruption in the continuity of mental experience for the purpose of defense.^{footnote 6} Multiple personality (now called dissociative identity disorder, or DID, among clinicians) is the classic example. A person, abused as a child, splits off into several disparate personalities in order to house various survival-critical skills and to manage the powerful affects caused by their trauma.^{footnote 7} The psyche is therefore divided — dissociated — for the sake of self-protection.

For myself, I prefer a broader definition — one which is, admittedly, more imagistic than clinical, and is not unilaterally allied with trauma. I contend that dissociation is the separation of self from self. This separation takes many forms, and certainly does include phenomena like multiple personality. But it also relates to less severe and more quotidian ‘disconnects,’ such as the vaguely trance-y feeling one has upon sinking into a good novel. When reading, I move out of my awareness of myself and into another world. This is a beneficial dissociation that contributes to my enjoyment of a story. That said, milder dissociations like reading trances did not attract much attention in the early days of dissociationism. The more extreme forms of dissociation, especially as related to demonstrable pluralities of psyche, were the stars of the show.

The realization that we might consist of different ‘parts,’ or that we might somehow be iatrogenically prodded into forming parts, arose with the practice and study of hypnosis. In those early days, the hypnotic state was known magnetic sleep.^{footnote 8} The term ‘magnetism’ related to the actual application of magnets to the patient, as well as to the belief that our bodies contained a magnetic fluid which was manipulated in hypnotic work.^{footnote 9} Though the use of magnets eventually fell away, hypnotists of that era quickly found that their patients exhibited a dissociation or multiplication of ‘existences’ or personalities.^{footnote 10} In this way, hypnotic and dissociative phenomena were increasingly linked over time, so that when a person engaged in the study of one, they were often involved in the exploration of the other.

As the dissociationist school grew (though, to my knowledge, there was no sense of a coherent ‘movement,’ so to speak), theorists became interested in a variety of dissociative phenomena. For instance, trance mediums in the contemporaneous spiritualist movement (1840s to 1920s), entered hypnotic-type states and channeled the voices of spirits — entities we might today understand as dissociated selves.^{footnote 11} Such phenomena intrigued dissociationists like Theodore Flournoy (1854-1920), who studied these mediums,^{footnote 12} and Frederick Meyers (1843-1901) whose work branched out into related questions such as life-after death.^{footnote 13} Meanwhile, Morton Prince (1854-1929), was among those to focus in on a psychology of plurality both in terms of psychic structure and its use for helping us understand the nature of the unconscious psyche.^{footnote 14} In the end, dissociationism came to study a great many subtle, imaginal-type phenomena: hypnosis, mediumship, automatic speaking and writing, telepathy, double and multiple personality, fugue, trance states, creativity, and secondary and subconscious consciousness.^{footnote 15}

Despite the wide range of dissociationism’s early interests, its principles can be summed up in Paulhan’s three ‘laws’ which may remain useful for us today:

1. The Law of Systematic Association:
   Every psychic fact tends to enter into partnership with and to give rise to psychic facts which can harmonize and cooperate with itself toward a common goal or toward compatible goals which can comprise a system.^{footnote 16} In essence, nodes in psyche — which we may think of as personalities, parts or complexes — draw ‘like’ material to themselves. That which they resonate with, they claim as their own. In this way, connected ideas are associated together.
2. The Law of Inhibition:
   Every psychic phenomenon tends to impede the manifestation and development of [,] or to banish from sight [,] the psychic phenomena which it cannot assimilate according to the law of systematic association, that is to say the phenomena which it cannot assimilate in the interests of a common goal.^{footnote 17} In addition to claiming certain memories and ideas as their own, intrapsychic figures push away those things which do not align with their ‘world view.’ For a contemporary unpacking of associative and inhibitive tendencies in the complex, I recommend clinician Delia Shargel’s article, Psychological and Astrological Complexes: An Evolving Perspective. [.PDF]^{footnote 18}
3. The Law of Contrast:
   A psychic state tends to be accompanied (simultaneous contrast) or followed (successive contrast) by a state which opposes it or which at least in some respects is its contrary.^{footnote 19} Here Paulhan presages John Weir Perry’s contention that complexes are arranged in bipolar systems of pairs; they may be envisaged as opposing entities (much like the upper and lower teeth in their apposition).^{footnote 20} Put another way, complexes come in contrasting pairs. The masculine in psyche is balanced by the feminine, and the presence of a mother complex implies the (inner, and perhaps outer) presence of a child complex.

Importantly, and as we can see from Paulhan’s laws, dissociationism is inherently teleological, it moves toward a goal of some kind.^{footnote 21} Such telos becomes especially important in the work of C.G. Jung, and particularly in his theory of the complex, both points I consider in my monograph, Lit From Within: Telos, giftedness and the personal complex.

From Janet to Jung.

Though there were plenty more early dissociationists than I have mentioned — many of whom did fascinating work — the psychologist most likely to be associated today with dissociationism is Pierre Janet (1859-1947). Especially in his work connecting multiple personality to a diagnosis then called hysteria,^{footnote 22} it was Janet who most systematically studied dissociative phenomena and developed a theory of dissociation.^{footnote 23} For an excellent overview of Janet and his work, see Ellenberger’s chapter Pierre Janet and Psychological Analysis.^{footnote 24} For our present purposes, though, a summary of two foundational Janetian ideas will serve our discussion on dissociationism.

First, Janet was interested in psyche as a field of consciousness.^{footnote 25} When the level of consciousness in this field lowers (the abaissment du niveau mental) we become vulnerable to ‘rough weather’ in psyche — creating conditions which facilitate the constellation of the complex.^{footnote 26} Importantly, this ‘lowering’ of consciousness may, in fact, be a perceptible experience in the dissociative process.^{footnote 27}

Second, Janet developed the idea of the subconscious fixed idea which like a virus develops in a corner of the personality inaccessible to the subject, works subconsciously, and brings about all disorders of hysteria and of mental disease.^{footnote 28} The connection of the dissociated fixed idea to the complex is a strong one; C.G. Jung essentially equated the two.^{footnote 29}

Perhaps even more exciting for contemporary, ongoing research was Janet’s postulation that around primary fixed ideas emerged secondary fixed ideas, through association or substitution.^{footnote 30} Here we see the tendency of the complex — the subpersonality — to magnetically draw like ideas to itself, as I noted above. But there also exists, in Janet’s assertion, a hint of the fractal, evoking the work of Internal Family Systems developer Richard Schwartz: the mind ... seems to contain the repeating pattern of a Self plus parts and subparts, which have their own subparts...Nature seems to love fractals.^{footnote 31} I will not go in depth on this here, but possibilities like these are at the heart of the new dissociationism. Space may be the final frontier for Star Trek Captains Kirk and Picard,^{footnote 32} but for those of us here on earth, the vast territories stretching before us are surely those of psyche.

Because the central figure in my research — and in the new dissociationism as I envision it — is the complex, and the theory of the complex was developed most fully by C.G. Jung (1875-1961),^{footnote 33} Jung’s response to Janet’s work is central:

Jung took the dissociability of the psyche a step further than Janet: he discerned behind insanity typical and significant psychic structures that were symbolically disguised[,] and began to found his theory of complexes on a much broader basis, which Haule has called an ‘archetypal form of dissociationism.’^{footnote 34}

I go into much greater depth on the complex elsewhere on this website. But in order to understand its place in dissociationism then and now, let’s simply consider that the complex functions as a subpersonality in psyche — a self divided from the self who we think of as ‘me’^{footnote 35} In short, a dissociation in psyche.

Additionally, Haule’s term archetypal form of dissociation, above, deserves much more attention. I plan for this to be the subject of a later paper. But in the meantime, let’s consider that the archetype is a pattern which enacts itself in our stories, myths, and behaviors — and that the archetype is understood to sit at the core of the complex.^{footnote 36} An archetypal dissociationism, then, might approach psyche as a plurality of complexes, each containing at their hearts a numinous pattern-in-unfoldment, an intrapsychic model we might think of as polytheistic^{footnote 37} In this view, we are, each of us, home to many ‘small gods.’

Dissociation studies today.

While I am not a clinician, and cannot claim to be well-versed in the extensive body of research on dissociation today, I believe it would be fair to say that most contemporary psychological work on dissociation is linked to trauma and pathology.^{footnote 38} The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), arguably the premier organization for research and training around dissociative phenomena, plainly links dissociation with trauma even in their title. And among their primary offerings are their Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) in Adults.^{footnote 39} Meanwhile, dissociative identity disorder is only one of the dissociative pathologies included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as published by the American Psychiatric Association. Other dissociative disorders include depersonalization and derealization disorders — the experience that oneself or one’s surroundings somehow distant or unreal — dissociative amnesia — an inability to recall autobiographical information that is inconsistent with normal forgetting — and the ‘kitchen sink’ categories of dissociative illness, other specified dissociative disorder (including dissociative trance) and unspecified dissociative disorder.^{footnote 40} While the DSM makes an interesting nod to the idea that not all dissociations may be pathological — that diagnosis of dissociative disorder must exclude broadly accepted collective cultural or religious practice[s]^{footnote 41} — the diagnostic manual unsurprisingly throws its weight behind the pathology of dissociation.

An intriguing exception to the contemporary emphasis on pathology is the work of Michael Grosso, who posits the existence of what Stanley Krippner describes as life-potentiating dissociative experiences.^{footnote 42} In creative dissociation...what looks like fragmentation or disconnectedness may in fact be a prelude to greater wholeness or higher integration.^{footnote 43} Among the non-pathological dissociative experiences Grosso highlights are surrealist art practices and the state of inspiration^{footnote 44} Work like Grosso’s, I contend, opens the door for us on a truly new dissociationism.

In the meantime, however, though it is common to assert that dissociation is a spectrum — and that in cases such as absorption in a work project or sport, creative daydreaming, and meditation dissociation can be be highly adaptive under the right circumstances^{footnote 45} — there remains, to my ear, a general sense among clinicians — and certainly the wider population, as well — that the healthy psyche is viewed as unified, while plurality generally indicates some kind of problem. It is this mono-mind view...so ubiquitous and assumed^{footnote 46} that the new dissociationism challenges, revealing an intrapsychic richness posited by the early dissociationists but never fully unearthed.

The new dissociationism.

Dissociationism was never ‘disproven.’ It merely fell out of favor.

— John Haule^{footnote 47}

In Divided Consciousness: Multiple Controls in Human Thought and Action, psychological researcher Ernest R. Hilgard (1904-2001) proposes what he called a neodissociation interpretation of divided consciousness.^{footnote 48} Strongly reliant upon computing metaphors and, in that way, perhaps partially allied with cognitive psychology,^{footnote 49} Hilgard nonetheless revives the [dissociationist] approach under the label neodissociation.^{footnote 50} Among Hilgard’s important images is that of the hidden observer in psyche, an evidence of divided consciousness, which he describes as a metaphor for something occurring at an intellectual level but not available to...consciousness.^{footnote 51} Though Hilgard excludes the more Jungian idea of a secondary personality with a life of its own,^{footnote 52} he certainly suggests that, especially in hypnotic contexts, some part of us might be aware of things consciousness knows nothing about.^{footnote 53}

My own dissociationist research expands on Jung’s psychology, considering the complex to be the central figure in our experiences with psyche. Essential to my work is the notion that it is time to flip the predominant narrative around dissociation — to acknowledge that excessive dissociation can create illness states, but also to establish that dissociation is foundational and essential to psyche. In particular, my research suggests that our personal sense of meaning inheres in our experiences with the complex, and that our creative life is rooted in our relationship with the complex. To my mind, this is no flimsy, maybe-sorta connection. The complex provides the impetus — and the archetypal connection — to facilitate the making of art. And I believe these connections — the relation of dissociation to meaning and creativity — are just two of the important roles dissociation has in psyche. As transpersonal psychologist John Rowan said in his good-hearted dare to Jungians: cast off the shackles, and explore the world of the complexes with greater vigour and freedom.^{footnote 54} Rowan is spot-on. It is time to throw open new doors on the complex and on the concept of dissociation.

In his review of Hilgard’s book, Science writer Matthew Hugh Erdelyi observes that, dissociation theory, new or old, is remarkably elastic, capable of explaining, or at least dealing with, a vast range of psychological phenomena.^{footnote 55} It is this very elasticity — the way dissociation functions so widely and creatively within the human psyche — which grounds the call for a renaissance of dissociationist thought. And though I prefer the term ‘new dissociationism’ to Hilgard’s neodissociation — an acknowledgement that my interests embrace Hilgard’s work, and Jung’s, and the early dissociationists who first opened this door — the term may be less important than the call for a resurgence of interest in dissociation beyond the pathological.

So, with that overview in mind, here are the principles I propose for a new dissociationism:

• There are no ‘villains’ in psyche.^{footnote 56} It’s time to stop the pathologizing of dissociative processes. Dissociation is a foundational process in a healthy psyche.^{footnote 57} Yes, in extreme forms, dissociation is problematic, painful and even dangerous — but those same forms of extreme dissociation also facilitate survival for victims of trauma. Dissociation may, in fact, have a fundamentally stabilizing, homeostatic function.
• Psyche is a plurality, much of it taking the form of complexes which have an essential place not only in our behavior and our dreams, but also in our literature and art.^{footnote 58}
• We need richer imagery concerning dissociation in psyche, and this image must not be limited to the machine-measurements of neuroscience.^{footnote 59} It’s especially time to braid the images of Jungian thought with as those of other therapeutic schools which embrace the subpersonality, such as Internal Family Systems, Psychosynthesis, and Ego State Theory.^{footnote 60} But even more than a solely psychological stance...
• The new dissociationism is an interdisciplinary field. Let’s embrace the offerings of philosophy, including Bernardo Kastrup’s contention that dissociation is a fundamental process in cosmology.^{footnote 61} Religious scholars and practitioners are also welcome, bringing with them, for instance, imagery of the plural and pluralizing Goddess of Indian Tantra who imagines into the world to become us. We are in a sense, Her subpersonalities.^{footnote 62} And while reductively psychologizing the practices of shamanism and neo-shamanism would be a misappropriation, we must surely consider that the journey-worlds of the shamans may overlap with the inner worlds of psyche, even if we cannot yet account for how this is so.^{footnote 63}
• We are more than we know, and dissociation holds keys to this more-ness. The interests of early dissociationism — hypnosis, mediumship, automatic speaking and writing, telepathy, double and multiple personality, fugue, trance states, creativity, and secondary and subconscious consciousness^{footnote 64} — are just as relevant now as they were then, though we may now choose to interpret these phenomena differently. There is not a name for everything,^{footnote 65} and what we cannot quantify may still be real. On that basis...
• It’s time to expand our definition of reality. One of the tasks of new dissociationism is to develop a broader sense of what it means for something to be real. Jung posited that what is real is what has an effect.^{footnote 66} This is a fine starting point, but we must go further. In Paul Feyerabend’s words, we either call gods and quarks equally real, but tied to different circumstances, or we altogether cease talking about the ‘reality’ of things and use more complex ordering schemes instead.^{footnote 67} The new dissociationism calls on us us to complexify our ‘ordering schemes.’
• We may have an ethical obligation to the figures of our inner worlds. Contrary to the prevalent Jungian/psychoanalytic narrative, the complex is not just a troublemaker or a necessary misery that prompts us to individuate. If the complex is truly autonomous, has its own preferences, and partakes in some form of consciousness, then there are serious ethical questions to consider. What do we owe to these parts of ourselves? What are their needs, and what do they need from us?