CHAPTER XXIII

THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF PSYCHOLOGY

Those who have read the foregoing pages will see that there are certain broad divisions into which they fall. Let us now review these divisions in their relation to the practical art of living.

The first great division we studied was concerned with the levels into which the mind was divided and the types of thinking which were carried on in each of them. The problems of memory and concentration are closely concerned with these levels and the interrelations between them. If an idea, after entering the mind, disappears into the subconscious, we say it is forgotten and regard it as lost. This, we have seen, is not the case, however. It is stored in the subconscious, and we can make use of it even if we cannot gain direct access to it. There is an old story concerning the advice that was given to a judge newly raised to the bench, “Give your decision, it is probably right; but do not give your reasons, they are very likely to be wrong.” Which is merely a pithy way of saying: “Let your subconscious work out your decision in the light of the enormous masses of data it possesses, including the exact reproduction of every law-book you have ever read, every remark, however casual, you have ever heard, together with the accumulated experience of your race, all of which you are heir to, and it will probably be right; but if you try to rationalise this decision, to explain it in terms of your conscious knowledge, you may make mistakes, because your conscious mind does not know nearly as much as your subconscious.”

If we would learn to trust our subconscious methods of thinking, we should be astonished to find what they are capable of. Genius might be defined as the power of utilising the subconscious mind, and inspiration as a subliminal uprush.

Memory also can be greatly improved by taking advantage of the faculty of association of ideas, a faculty upon which the different memory systems are founded. If we take any idea we wish to remember and clearly image it in association with some idea of the same class that is so familiar to us that it is a permanent part of our mental furniture, then the two concepts will get stuck together, and we can always use the second to summon the first.

The instincts and their development and method of functioning form a second great division of our subject. It will be seen that we must view our life in relation to the instincts and not to the reason, but it must not be forgotten that the instincts themselves are evolving or rather perhaps becoming modified in their expressions by the pressure of new conditions, and in the course of their evolution are being steadily socialised and civilised, so although we must realise that, in their primitive form, they lie at the base of our being, yet in their evolved form they also function at its apex, and that if we are to live well, we must harmonise their manifestation upon every level of our being.

The third and most important division, from the standpoint of practical living, is that which deals with the mechanisms by means of which the mind adapts itself to its environment. We should make it our aim to achieve adaptation in the conscious mind by absorbing and assimilating all experience, realising that we can learn our lessons from that which is evil as well as from that which is good, and that any experience, however evil, from which we learn a lesson is converted from poison into food.

While it is necessary that certain types of ideas should be repressed lest they should translate themselves into action, let us never forget that repression need not necessarily imply dissociation, which is an unmixed evil. Dissociation would never occur if we were honest with ourselves. When we refuse to admit, even to ourselves, that our nature possesses certain primitive aspects, we prevent the ideas connected with these aspects from being affiliated to our personality and taking their place in our mental life; they therefore become foreign bodies in the mind, technically termed dissociated complexes, which function independently of the main ego complex.

Instead of taking this attitude, let us recognise the existence of these primitive impulses in ourselves; and when we find their manifestations obtruding themselves, let us gently but firmly put them in their place, and see to it that they do not obtain the upper hand.

Let us never forget the enormous power of autosuggestion, for the subconscious mind will tend to translate into action any image that is presented to it sufficiently vividly, especially if that image be charged with emotion. Let us therefore be very careful what mental pictures we permit ourselves to dwell upon persistently, whether with fear or desire, for they will mould our lives and even our circumstances to an extent we little realise.

Our whole aim should be to maintain the integrity of the personality, to prevent any splitting off of complexes of ideas, and to see that the instincts, welling up in the deeper levels of our nature, should find their channels clear and unobstructed, so that they may flow out into action on the higher levels of our life.