ABSTRACT
It is well known that in their general aspects hysteria and schizo phrenia present a strik ing contrast, which is partic u larly evident in the atti tude of the patients to the external world. In their rela tions to the object, the hysteric displays as a rule an intens ity of feeling that surpasses the normal, while in the schizo phrenic the normal level is not reached at all. The clin ical picture is exag ger ated emotiv ity in the one, and extreme apathy in the other, with regard to the envir on ment. In their personal rela tions this differ ence is marked by the fact that we can remain in affect ive rapport with our hysterical patients, which is not the case in schizo phrenia. The contrast between the two types of illness is also observ able in the rest of their symp to mat ology. So far as the intel lec tual symp toms of hysteria are concerned, they are fantasy products which may be accoun ted for in a natural and human way
by the ante cedents and indi vidual history of the patient; in schizo phrenia, on the contrary, the fantasy products are more nearly related to dreams than to the psycho logy of the waking state. They have, moreover, a distinctly archaic char ac ter, the myth o lo gical creations of the prim it ive imagin a tion being far more in evid ence than the personal memor ies of the patient. Finally, the phys ical symp toms so common in hysteria, which simu late well-known and impress ive organic illnesses, are not to be found in the clin ical picture of schizo phrenia. All this clearly indic ates that hysteria is char ac ter ized by a cent ri fu gal
move ment of libido, while in schizo phrenia the move ment is more cent ripetal. The reverse obtains, however, when the illness has fully estab lished its compens at ory effects. In the hysteric the libido is then hampered in its move ment of expan sion and is forced to regress upon itself; the patients cease to partake in the common life, are wrapped up in their daydreams, keep to their beds, remain shut up in their sick rooms, etc. During the incuba tion of his illness the schizo phrenic like wise turns away from the outer world in order to with draw into himself, but when the period of morbid compens a tion arrives, he seems constrained to draw atten tion to himself, to force himself upon the notice of those around him, by his extra vag ant, insup port able, or directly aggress ive beha viour. I propose to use the terms extra ver sion and intro ver sion to describe these two
oppos ite move ments of libido, further qual i fy ing them as regress ive in patholo gical cases where delu sional ideas, fictions, or fant astic inter pret a tions, all inspired by emotiv ity, falsify the judg ment of the patient about things or about himself. We speak of extra ver sion when he gives his whole interest to the outer world, to the object, and attrib utes an extraordin ary import ance and value to it. When, on the contrary, the object ive world sinks into the shadow, as it were, or under goes a devalu ation, while the indi vidual occupies the centre of his own interest and becomes in his own eyes the only person worthy of consid er a tion, it is a case of intro ver sion. I call regress ive extra ver sion the phenomenon which Freud calls trans fer ence, when the hysteric projects upon the object his own illu sions and subject ive valu ations. In the same way, I call regress ive intro ver sion the oppos ite phenomenon which we find in schizo phrenia, when these fant astic ideas refer to the subject himself. It is obvious that these two contrary move ments of libido, as simple psychic
mech an isms, may operate altern ately in the same indi vidual, since after all his tra ver-
sion the person al ity seeks to get rid of disagree able memor ies and impressions, and to free itself from its complexes, by a process of repres sion. The indi vidual clings to the object in order to forget these painful contents and leave them behind him. Conversely, in the mech an ism of intro ver sion, the libido concen trates itself wholly on the complexes, and seeks to detach and isolate the person al ity from external reality. This psycho lo gical process is associ ated with a phenomenon which is not prop erly speak ing “repres sion,” but would be better rendered by the term “devalu ation” of the object ive world. To this extent, extra ver sion and intro ver sion are two modes of psychic
reac tion which can be observed in the same indi vidual. The fact, however, that two such contrary disturb ances as hysteria and schizo phrenia are charac ter ized by the predom in ance of the mech an ism of extra ver sion or of intro ver sion suggests that there may also be normal human types who are distin guished by the predom in ance of one or other of the two mech an isms. And indeed, psychi at rists know very well that long before the illness is fully estab lished, the hyster ical patient as well as the schizo phrenic is marked by the predom in ance of his specific type, which reaches back into the earli est years of child hood. As Binet has pointed out so aptly,1a a neur osis simply emphas izes and
throws into excess ive relief the char ac ter istic traits of a person al ity. It has long been known that the so-called hyster ical char ac ter is not simply the product of the mani fest neur osis, but pred ated it to a certain extent. And Hoch has shown the same thing by his researches into the histor ies of schizo phrenic patients; he speaks of a “shut-in” person al ity2 which was present before the onset of the illness. If this is so, we may certainly expect to find the two types outside the sphere of patho logy. There are moreover numer ous witnesses in liter at ure to the exist ence of the two types of mental ity. Without pretend ing to exhaust the subject, I will give a few strik ing examples. So far as my limited know ledge goes, we have to thank William James
for the best obser va tions in this respect. He lays down the prin ciple: “Of whatever tempera ment a profes sional philo sopher is, he tries, when philo soph iz ing, to sink the fact of his tempera ment.”3 And start ing from this idea, which is alto gether in accord with the spirit of psycho ana lysis, he divides philo soph ers into two classes: the “tender-minded” and the “tough-minded,” or, as we might also call them, the “spir itu ally-minded”
and the “mater i ally-minded.” The very terms clearly reveal the oppos ite move ments of the libido. The first class direct their libido to the world of thought, and are predom in antly intro ver ted; the second direct it to mater ial things and object ive reality, and are extra ver ted. James char ac ter izes the “tender-minded” first of all as ration al istic, “going
by prin ciples.”4 They are the men of prin ciples and systems; they aspire to domin ate exper i ence and to tran scend it by abstract reas on ing, by their logical deduc tions and purely rational concepts. They care little for facts, and the multi pli city of empir ical phenom ena hardly bothers or discon certs them at all; they forcibly fit the data into their ideal construc tions, and reduce everything to their a priori premises. This was the method of Hegel in settling before hand the number of the planets. In the domain of patho logy we again meet this kind of philo sopher in para noi acs, who, unper turbed by all factual evid ence to the contrary, impose their deli ri ous concep tions on the universe, and find a means of inter pret ing everything, and accord ing to Adler “arranging” everything, in conform ity with their precon ceived system. The other char ac ter ist ics of this type which James enumer ates follow
logic ally from these premises. The “tender-minded” man is “intel lec tu alistic, ideal istic, optim istic, reli gious, free-willist, monistic, dogmat ical.”5 All these qual it ies betray the almost exclus ive concen tra tion of libido upon his intel lec tual life. This concen tra tion on the inner world of thought is nothing else than intro ver sion. In so far as exper i ence plays any role with these philo soph ers, it serves only as a fillip to abstrac tion, to the imper at ive need to fit the multi pli city and chaos of events into an order which, in the last resort, is the creation of purely subject ive think ing. The “tough-minded” man, on the other hand, is empir ical, “going by
facts.” Experience is his master, facts are his guide and they colour all his think ing. It is only tangible phenom ena in the outside world that count. Thought is merely a reac tion to external exper i ence. For him prin ciples are always of less value than facts; if he has any, they merely reflect and describe the flux of events, and are incap able of forming a system. Hence his theor ies are liable to inner contra dic tion and get over laid by the accu mu la tion of empir ical mater ial. Psychic reality limits itself for him to obser va tion and to the exper i ence of pleas ure and pain; he does not go beyond that, nor does he recog nize the rights of philo soph ical thought. Remaining on the ever-chan ging surface of the phenom enal world, he himself partakes of its
instabil ity; he sees all its aspects, all its theor et ical and prac tical possib il it ies, but he never arrives at the unity of a settled system, which alone could satisfy the tender-minded. The tough-minded man is reduct ive. As James so excel lently says: “What is higher is explained by what is lower and treated for ever as a case of ‘nothing but’—nothing but some thing else of a quite inferior sort.”6
