ABSTRACT
In the foregoing chapter we have briefly considered the nature and genesis of dissociative symptoms. We have seen that internal conflict commonly, perhaps in every case, prepares the way for the onset of such symptoms. We have seen that the appearance of the disability brings, in some sense, a termination of the conflict, solves in some degree, however unsatisfactorily, the problem that has engendered the conflict. Such termination of conflict by dissociation is apt to occur in persons of markedly extrovert temperament. In others, especially in well-marked introverts, dissociation does not readily take place; in these persons conflict, once engendered, continues either until the circumstances that gave rise to it are favourably altered, or until the patient learns to adapt himself to them by some resolute action or decision, achieved by means of some new and wiser evaluation of the factors involved.
