MENTAL CONFLICTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 136, 10 June 1937, Page 6

MENTAL CONFLICTS

AND SOCIAL LIFE

W.E.A. LECTURE

When the Lower Hutt W.E.A. Psychology Class met in the last week Dr. A. G. Butchers delivered a lecture on ''Convention versus Nature."

Among the chief contributions made by modern researchers to the science of psychology, said the lecturer, have been the concepts of "the unconscious consciousness" and of mental conflict withiif the individual mind. Fortunately we are now able to study these phenomena from the sure vantage ground of our physiological knowledge instead of having to woi'k solely upon the speculative foundations of the old conceptual psychology. The mechanisms of means of which' life s experiences' are physically recorded as engram traces upon the nervous tissues, and associated to form clusters of complexes all more or less interrelated as elements of the personality, are gradually becoming more and more clearly revealed. It is now possible to ooserve and study the environmental conditioning of individual lives by fortuitous circumstances, or by the deliberate action of other individuals, or by intelligent self-activity, and to analyse the methods by which men seek to avoid the strain and the consequences of mental conflict. We see clearly, too, how the increasing inter-dependence of human beings combined with the rapid development of world-wide interests and international associations, which cut across the narrower complexes of family, parochial, and national circles, tends to provide everincreasing occasions for such conflict, while the continuing process of social eyoluMon keeps moral standards, as well as scientific knowledge and invention, in a slate of perpetual flux.

The repressive attitude of society towards the natural functions of sex has made,this the most fruitful of all sources of mental conflict and consequently of maladaptation to the conventions of human society. The replacement of the natural laws of the survival of the fittest by the scientific preservation of the unfit, and their physical fecundity," have given rise to the new sciences of eugenics and contraception, the: latter of. which has resulted in the complete physical and economic emancipation of the female sex. The problems incident to the intercourse of the sexes have therefore entered upon a new phase and the institution of marriage is being subjected to searching criticism, the probable outcome of which it is not yet possible to forecast*.

In the same ' way the progress pi science has broken down the old-time influence of religion. The results" of the study of comparative religions, and of psychology, have combined with the discoveries of the physical sciences to reveal the evolutionary origins and development of the great religious faiths of mankind, and thereby to emancipate the human race from the mental slavery of the pre-scientific era. . This breakdown of the old religious sanctions has, however, left the younger generation without any restraining or controlling influence in life. This has accentuated the present revolt against the conventional ■ standards of living and is only to be met by the world-wide concentration of educational agencies upon the development of strength of character, and the intelligent integration of personality as the supreme controlling factor in behaviour. By such means men and women may be taught to recognise the causes of conflict in their own. lives, and to understand-and. choose between Nature's dissociative , avoidance methods and the wiser integrative methods of modern psychology and mental hygiene.

That the present social system is largely responsible for its own disorders, and that many of them will not disappear until the social system itself is fundamentally reorganised, is the belief of many noted thinkers. But whatever social changes may come the main source of mental conflict will always remain as at present in failure to accomplish a satisfying adaptation to the realities of life.

After the lecture questions were freely asked by members of the class and answered by the lecturer, and a general discussion followed.