Solitude

by Anthony Storr

  The religious person might argue that modern psycho-analysts have idealized intimate attachments; that human relationships are, because of the nature of man, necessarily imperfect; and that encouraging people to look for complete fulfilment in this way has done more harm than good. As I suggested in the Introduction, the increasing prevalence of divorce in Western countries has come about not only because there has been a decline in the numbers of those who apply Christian standards to marriage, but also because people have been encouraged to believe in the possibility of finding the ‘right’ person and the ideal relationship.

  Many fortunate people do make intimate relationships which continue until death, and which constitute their major source of happiness. But even the closest relationship is bound to have flaws and disadvantages, and it is often because people do not accept this that they are more unhappy than they need be, and more inclined to abandon one another. If it is accepted that no relationship is ever ideal, it makes it easier to understand why men and women need other sources of fulfilment. As we have seen, many creative activities are predominantly solitary. They are concerned with self-realization and self-development in isolation, or with finding some coherent pattern in life. The degree to which these creative activities take priority in the life of an individual varies with his personality and talents. Everyone needs some human relationships; but everyone also needs some kind of fulfilment which is relevant to himself alone. Provided that they have friends and acquaintances, those who are passionately engaged in pursuing interests which are important to them may achieve happiness without having any very close relationships.

  7

  Solitude and Temperament

  ‘In extroversion and introversion it is clearly a matter of two antithetical, natural attitudes or trends, which Goethe once rrferred to as diastole and systole.’

  C. G. Jung

  Most psychiatrists and psychologists agree that human beings differ in temperament, and that such differences are largely inborn, however much they may be fostered or suppressed by the circumstances of childhood and by subsequent events in a person’s life. This is especially true when considering the individual’s reaction to solitude. At the very least, we all need the solitude of sleep; but, in waking life, people vary widely in how much they value experiences involving human relationships and how much they value what happens when they are alone.

  Jung introduced the terms extravert and introvert in his book Psychological Types, which was first published in 1921. Following his break with Freud in 1913, Jung went through a long period of mental upheaval which was so intense that he described himself as ‘being menaced by a psychosis’.1 This is vividly described in his autobiography. During the next eight years, he published very little, since he was primarily preoccupied with recording and interpreting the stream of visions, dreams, and phantasies which threatened to overwhelm his reason. However, in the course of passing through this period of turmoil, Jung was able to forge from it his own, independent point of view; and the first fruits of this was Psychological Types.

  Jung claims that he became interested in the problem of types when he was trying to understand the alternative interpretations of human nature advanced by Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler. How was it that psychiatrists faced with the same psychological material could furnish such different explanations of its origin and meaning? Jung gives some illuminating examples of how particular cases can be explained by either point of view. He writes:

  For if we examine the two theories without prejudice, we cannot deny that both contain significant truths, and, contradictory as these are, they should not be regarded as mutually exclusive … Now, since both theories are in a large measure correct – that is to say, since they both appear to explain their material – it follows that a neurosis must have two opposite aspects, one of which is grasped by the Freudian, the other by the Adlerian theory. But how comes it that each investigator sees only one side, and why does each maintain that he has the only valid view?2

  Jung concluded that the fundamental difference lay in the way the two investigators regarded the relation between subject and object. In Jung’s view, Freud saw the subject as being dependent upon, and largely shaped by, significant objects; more especially by parents and other important influences in early childhood. Hence, the patient’s difficulties in object-relationships follow patterns established in the first few years. These are repeated in the transference situation which, as we have already observed in Chapter 1, has become the central preoccupation of analysts from a variety of different schools.

  According to Jung, Adler sees the subject as having to protect himself against the undue influence of significant objects.

  Adler sees how a subject who feels suppressed and inferior tries to secure an illusory superiority by means of ‘protests’, ‘arrangements’, and other appropriate devices directed equally against parents, teachers, regulations, authorities, situations, institutions, and such. Even sexuality may figure amongst these devices. This view lays undue emphasis upon the subject, before which the idiosyncrasy and significance of objects entirely vanishes.3

  Jung continues:

  Certainly both investigators see the subject in relation to the object; but how differently this relation is seen! With Adler the emphasis is placed upon a subject who, no matter what the object, seeks his own security and supremacy; with Freud the emphasis is placed wholly upon objects, which, according to their specific character, either promote or hinder the subject’s desire for pleasure.4

  There are certain objections to categorizing Freud and Adler in this way which need not detain us here. But Jung’s description makes it clear that Freud’s attitude, which he calls extroverted, conceives the subject as primarily in search of, and moving toward, objects. Adler, on the other hand, takes the introverted attitude of conceiving the subject as primarily needing to establish autonomy and independence, and hence moving away from objects.

  Jung thought of extraversion and introversion as temperamental factors operating from the beginning of life, and as co-existing in everyone, although in varying measure. No doubt the ideal person would exhibit both attitudes in balanced fashion, but, in practice, one or other attitude generally predominated.

  According to Jung, neurosis followed if either extraversion or introversion became exaggerated. Extreme extraversion led to the individual losing his own identity in the press of people and events. Extreme introversion threatened the subjectively preoccupied individual with loss of contact with external reality. When this kind of exaggeration occurred, an unconscious process would be set in motion which would attempt to compensate for the individual’s one-sided attitude. We need not pursue Jung’s further subdivision of types at this point; but we shall return to his view of the psyche as a self-regulating system in a later chapter, since this is very much concerned with the internal development of the individual as a separate entity, and hence related to the principal subject of this book.

  Other observers have advanced classifications which, although they may emphasize different traits of personality, appear to be closely connected with the extravert-introvert dichotomy.

  The art historian, Wilhelm Worringer, wrote a dissertation in 1906, which became his famous Abstraction and Empathy. It is the subject of a chapter in Psychological Types, but deserves to be read in its own right. Worringer stated that modern aesthetics was based upon the behaviour of the contemplating subject. He wrote:

  Aesthetic enjoyment is objectified self-enjoyment. To enjoy aesthetically means to enjoy myself in a sensuous object diverse from myself, to empathise myself into it.5

  But Worringer perceived that the concept of empathy was not applicable to long periods of art history, nor to every variety of art.

  Its Archiedian point is situated at one pole of human artistic feeling alone. It will only assume the shape of a comprehensive aesthetic system when it has united with the lines that lead from the opposite pole.

  We regard as this counter-pole an aesth
etics which proceeds not from man’s urge to empathy, but from his urge to abstraction. Just as the urge to empathy as a pre-assumption of aesthetic experience finds its gratification in the beauty of the organic, so the urge to abstraction finds its beauty in the life-denying inorganic, in the crystalline or, in general terms, in all abstract law and necessity.6

  Worringer regarded abstraction as originating from anxiety; an attempt by man to create order and regularity in the face of a world in which he felt himself to be at the mercy of the unpredictable forces of Nature. The polarity is between trust in Nature and fear of Nature. Worringer perceived that extreme empathy led to ‘losing oneself’ in the object – the danger already mentioned in connection with exaggerated extraversion. Geometric form, on the other hand, represented an abstract regularity not found in Nature. Worringer wrote of primitive man:

  In the necessity and irrefragability of geometric abstraction he could find repose. It was seemingly purified of all dependence upon the things of the outer world, as well as from the contemplating subject himself. It was the only absolute form that could be conceived and attained by man.7

  Thus, abstraction is linked with detachment from the potentially dangerous object, with safety, and with a sense of personal integrity and power. This is also the kind of satisfaction which the scientist experiences in his encounters with Nature. A new hypothesis leading to a law which will predict events originates from perceived regularities, from the ability of the scientist to detach himself, his own subjective feelings, from whatever phenomena he is studying, and, when proven, gives an enhanced power over Nature. For example, recent work suggests that measuring changes in gravity in the vicinity of volcanoes may lead to an increased capacity to predict eruptions, which are still some of the most powerful and unpredictable natural events threatening the lives of men.

  Abstraction, then, is connected with self-preservation; with the Adlerian, introverted need to establish distance from the object, independence and, where possible, control.

  These two attitudes or poles of human nature are also reflected in Liam Hudson’s classification of human beings into divergers and convergers. Hudson became interested in the preferences of clever schoolboys; whether they were principally attracted toward the arts or the sciences. He found that these preferences were linked with a number of other traits of character which supported the popular notion that the Scientist and the Artist are different sorts of person.

  Convergers, who tend to specialize in the ‘hard’ sciences, or possibly in the classics, have the kind of intelligence which shows at its best in conventional intelligence tests of the kind in which there is only one correct answer to a question. They are less good at ‘open-ended’ tests in which a variety of answers are possible. In their spare time, convergers pursue mechanical or technical hobbies and show comparatively little interest in the lives of other people. They have conventional attitudes to authority, are emotionally inhibited, and seldom recall their dreams.

  Divergers, in contrast, choose the arts or biology as their preferred subjects. They are less good at conventional intelligence tests, better at open-ended tests where creative phantasy is demanded. Their spare-time activities are connected with people rather than with things. They have unconventional attitudes to authority, are emotionally uninhibited, and often recall dreams.

  Modern elaborations of tests purporting to measure extraversion and introversion as defined in textbooks of psychology do not necessarily show such close parallels between extraversion and divergence, and between introversion and convergence as one might expect; but we are here concerned with only one major aspect; the relation between subject and object. Divergers, like extraverts, seem able easily to identify with other people, and to be open toward them. Convergers, like introverts, seem to withdraw from others, and to be more at ease with inanimate objects or with abstract concepts than they are with people. This is a generalization from extremes. No human being is all convergent, or all divergent; but these attitudes do seem to be manifested early in life, and to be remarkably persistent.

  Another dichotomy which marches hand in hand with those we have just outlined is given by Howard Gardner in his book on the significance of children’s drawings. He discerns two types of children whom he calls patterners and dramatists. Both groups are described as being of equal intelligence and charm, but as exhibiting ‘strikingly different approaches to their daily experience’. These differences are detectable from the age of three and a half; that is, from about the time when the child first begins to link the act of drawing with his actual perception of the world about him, rather than simply scribbling whatever subjectively occurs to him. Gardner writes:

  On the one hand we have encountered a cadre of young children whom we have come to call patterners. These youngsters analyze the world very much in terms of the configurations they can discern, the patterns and regularities they encounter, and, in particular, the physical attributes of objects – their colors, size, shape, and the like. Such patterners enthusiastically arrange blocks on top of one another, endlessly experiment with forms on the table or in their drawings, constantly match objects with one another, build pairs and trios and the like; but they spend little time re-enacting familiar scenes in play and they engage in relatively little social conversation (though they certainly understand what is said).

  Sharply contrasted with these youngsters is the population we have touted as dramatists. These children are keenly interested in the structure of events that unfold in their vicinity – the actions, adventures, clashes, and conflicts that befall the world of individuals, as well as the fantastic tales describing even more gripping events, which they ask to hear over and over again. While patterners cling to the activities of drawing, modeling with clay, and arrangement of numerical arrays, the dramatists prefer to engage in pretend play, in storytelling, in continuing conversation and social exchange with adults and peers. For them, one of life’s chief pleasures inheres in maintaining contact with others and celebrating the pageantry of interpersonal relations. Our patterners, on the other hand, seem almost to spurn the world of social relations, preferring instead to immerse (and perhaps lose) themselves in the world of (usually visual) patterns.8

  Although Gardner does not use these terms himself, I think it is clear that the patterners could be described as predominantly introverted, or perhaps as potential convergers; whilst the dramatists are predominantly extraverted, perhaps potential divergers. Moreover, the patterners, who are less concerned with, or even avoidant of, people, resemble convergers in being preoccupied with finding or imposing order. The dramatists resemble divergers in being more concerned with people and with telling stories.

  It is tempting to hazard a guess that, if any of these children later show creative potential, the dramatists will become novelists, poets, or playwrights, whilst the patterners will incline toward the sciences or philosophy. Only research involving years of following the growth and development of the two types of children will confirm or disprove this supposition. We are not even sure that these attitudes are quite as persistent as they appear to be. Perhaps those who begin as patterners later develop more of the characteristics of the dramatists, and vice versa.

  What is important to realize is that Gardner’s observations are another indication that the current emphasis upon relationships as the major determinant of mental health may be misplaced. There is no reason to suppose, from Gardner’s descriptions, that the more introverted children, who were primarily concerned with pattern-making rather than with other people, were neurotic or abnormal; and the same holds true of Liam Hudson’s convergers. Perhaps the ability to distance oneself from over-involvement with others, and the capacity to make a coherent pattern of one’s life, are also important factors in attaining peace of mind and maintaining mental health.

  In the previous chapter, reference was made to two factors which promoted a person’s recovery from neurotic disorders: first, the adoption of some scheme or system of thought wh
ich appeared to make sense of the patient’s distress; secondly, the achievement of a fruitful relationship with another person.

  The need to make sense of one’s experience is, of course, not confined to neurotic distress, but is an essential part of man’s adaptation as a species. The development of intelligence, of consciousness, of partial emancipation from the governance of instinctive patterns, has made man into a reflective animal who feels the need to interpret, and to bring order to, both the world of external reality and the inner world of his imagination. Much of the emphasis placed on the transference situation in psycho-analysis is due to its being an element common to different psycho-analytic schools. The factor of making sense of the patient’s experience is underemphasized partly because different analysts may view the same experience in very different ways.

  In the end, one has to make sense of one’s own life, however influential guidance from mentors may have been. The pattern made is not necessarily ‘true’ in any provable fashion, although it is possible to say that some views are closer to what is objectively known of the world than are others. But the need is there; and if it appears more obviously in the psychology of introverts, convergers, and patterners than it does in the psychology of extraverts, divergers, and dramatists, this does not mean that it is not present in the latter group as well as in the former. Even the most introverted persons need some human relationships; even the most extraverted persons need some pattern and order in their lives.