ABSTRACT
A GOOD deal has been said in the last four chapters about neurosis, since the work of the psycho-analytic schools is chiefly concerned with this; and, as has been said, it seems justifiable to consider the instable person while dealing with the subject of personality as a whole, because although the fully developed neurotic and delinquent may justly be regarded as pathological, nevertheless in many respects, a study of such persons’ behaviour illustrates tendencies and reactions present in the normal, albeit exhibited in a more crude and exaggerated form. The study of a group of these instable personalities is like studying a series of cartoons. They may be distorted and inartistic, but they do represent many salient features which the orthodox portrait leave unnoticed. There has been a tendency amongst psychologists in the past to paint a picture of the ideal norm, to which none of us attain, and from which the majority of mankind is very far removed. The organization of personality as it should proceed, and would, if it could, has been sketched out in the preceding chapters, and a survey of the failures, and the way they fail, may be instructive, and may explain why all our acquaintances do not emerge on the level of Deity in Alexander’s sense. It may be asked, why not proceed a little further, and discuss the insane, who may also illustrate points in the personality of the normal? This argument is apposite to a certain extent, yet there is a marked difference between the normal and the instable on the one hand, and the insane on the other. Apart from structural defects and disease of the brain, the insane person is characterized by the fact that he is not making the least attempt to adapt himself to life, or to aspire to Deity; he accepts the state he is in with pleasure or grief, as the case may be, but makes no effort to change it, nor does he believe that any real change is in any way possible.
