PSYCHOLOGY OF THE ABNORMAL. By the psychology of the abnormal is meant the psychology of individuals who are classed as abnormal, or those individuals who evidence in their conduct or speech or in the character of their ideas or emotions responses that stamp them as being unusual or as differing from the usual, the average, along the lines that make them less efficient in dealing with the various problems of life which they meet and have in some way to adjust to. Considered in this way the psychology of the abnormal is not a different psychology from the psychology of the normal; it is only the application of psychological prin ciples of explanation to the understanding of the various kinds of failure of adjustment which may arise in the career of individuals.
An individual, from this point of view, may be considered as one considers a bit of material that is being tested as to its strength, its breaking point. A bar of iron, for example, may be tested by having a force applied to de termine the number of pounds that must be added in order to break it. The breaking point is the function of two factors, the strength of the bar and the force applied. Some bars, the smaller ones, for instance, will break with the application of much less force than others, the larger ones, and theoretically any bar, no matter how strong, can be broken by a force if the force is only great enough. Then again, the exact place where it, the bar, breaks and the way in which it breaks, whether by a clean cut fracture at right angles to the application of the force or in a jagged irregular line de pends upon the nature of the material and its uniformity or lack of uniformity of texture at the point of application. So some individuals will fail at comparatively simple problems of adjustment, while others will only fail when the problems are very difficult. And further the way in which an individual fails will depend upon his personality make-up, the kind and character of material with which he meets the difficulties.
The individuals who can only meet the simplest problems of adjustment are the de fectives: at the lowest level the idiots and imbeciles, higher up the backward children and still higher the types of so-called psychopathic individuals who present an outward appearance of normality but whose lives disclose a continu ous series of avoiding, side-stepping responsi bilities and an incapacity for that continuity of effort necessary for success. Stronger indi
viduals only break down under the most diffi cult of problems, usually only after struggling more or less ineffectually for a long time and then often only as a result of some physical illness which temporarily has reduced their strength and so comparatively increased that of the stressing forces.
Still bearing in mind the analogy to the test ing of the strength of material, those individu als who only break as a result of great stress are the better organized and their failure is due rather to the degree of stress than to a faulty make-up— the failure is largely exoge nous in origin. Those who fail to adjust to rela tively simple problems show that the trouble is within, that it is more dependent upon a faulty make-up than upon the character and degree of stress. In these the failure is largely endogenous in origin.
Abnormal psychological reactions are thus failures of adjustment; failures of the person ality make-up of the individual to adequately meet the stresses and strains. His incapacity to meet these stresses and strains may be due to their very great strength or to his relative weak ness and his weakness may be constitutional, that is, natural to him, the result of inherited in fluences; or acquired as the result, for example, of illness, infectious diseases, injury, more especially to the brain, or methods of life that he cannot escape, such as solitary confinement in prison.
The individual symptoms of the failure are in their general characteristics dependent upon the personality make-up. That is, the disorder of the psyche must manifest itself in terms of the material disordered. Certain details of the symptoms, however, may take their coloring from the surroundings in which the dif ficulty occurs. This is manifest in the false beliefs — delusions —which occur so frequently as symptoms. An individual may compensate himself for his failure by a belief that some baneful influence is exercised over him by others. Now-a-days he not infrequently be lieves the influence to be brought to bear by means of wireless electricity. Manifestly, be fore the days of wireless transmission no such belief would have been possible.