Churchill's Black Dog and Other Phenomena of the Human Mind Read online

  ANTHONY STORR

  CHURCHILL’S BLACK DOG

  And Other Phenomena of the Human Mind

  Copyright

  HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

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  Previously published in paperback by Flamingo 1990

  Reprinted twice

  First published in Great Britain by Collins 1989

  Copyright © Anthony Storr 1989

  Anthony Storr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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  Source ISBN: 9780006375661

  Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780007392476

  Version: 2016-12-08

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Preface

  1. Churchill: The Man

  2. Kafka’s Sense of Identity

  3. Isaac Newton

  4. C. P. Snow

  5. Othello and the Psychology of Sexual Jealousy

  6. Aspects of Adult Development

  7. Psychoanalysis and Creativity

  8. Intimations of Mystery

  9. Jung’s Conception of Personality

  10. Why Psychoanalysis Is Not a Science

  11. The Psychology of Symbols

  12. Sanity of True Genius

  13. Why Human Beings Become Violent

  14. Psychiatric Responsibility in the Open Society

  Keep Reading

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  About the Publisher

  Preface

  Freud defined psychological health as being able to love and work. The majority of the essays included in this collection are more concerned with the latter activity than with the former. I have long been interested in the psychology of the creative imagination. What internal dynamic forces impel men and women to devote so much time and energy to creative invention, whether in the arts or in the sciences? Although success may eventually bring the conventional rewards of fame and money, many artists and scientists struggle for years without attaining either, and some win recognition only posthumously. For example, Gregor Mendel’s experiments laid the foundation for the science of genetics. Yet it was not until sixteen years after his death that the value of his work became widely appreciated. Creative work must be inspired by drives which have nothing to do with worldly success.

  Freud considered that imaginative activity originated from dissatisfaction.

  We may lay it down that a happy person never phantasies, only an unsatisfied one. The motive forces of phantasies are unsatisfied wishes, and every single phantasy is the fulfilment of a wish, a correction of an unsatisfying reality. (Standard Edition, 9:146)

  Freud tended to dismiss fantasy as illusory, escapist wish fulfillment, along with dreams and play; a view which I regard as profoundly mistaken, and which is dealt with at some length in the essay “Psychoanalysis and Creativity.” The great creative achievements of mankind are not to be equated with idle daydreams. Nor, as Freud claimed, is the creativity of the artist quite different from that of the scientist, an assumption which is examined in “Why Psychoanalysis Is Not a Science.”

  Yet there is a sense in which Freud was right to derive imagination from dissatisfaction. For is it not part of human destiny never to be content with what is, but always to be seeking something better? This “hunger of imagination,” as Dr. Johnson called it, operates at every level, from mundane desires for more food or money to utopian visions of universal harmony, whether on earth or in heaven. It is surely this hunger which accounts for man’s supremacy as a species. If man, like some insects, was preprogrammed to be more or less perfectly adapted to his environment, he would live a stereotyped life with neither the need to look for anything better nor the capacity to imagine it. But man is extremely flexible. Because he is not specifically adapted to one particular environment, he can adapt to many. Because he only has a few inbuilt responses, he is capable of learning, of invention, of assimilating novelty, and of creating symbols, a capacity considered in the essay “The Psychology of Symbols.” Man’s creative adaptability paradoxically derives from his primary lack of adaptation.

  Moreover, the life-span of both men and women extends far beyond the period of life during which reproduction is a prime concern. “Aspects of Adult Development” explores some of the changes which take place during the mid-life period and afterward, and underlines the fact that some of the works of art which we most treasure have been created by those past middle age.

  Creative imagination is not, as Freud would have it, an escape from reality, but an integral part of human nature which finds every variety of expression from gardening to poetry, from athletics to composing music. We are never content with what is; we must always strive after something better.

  If discontent is the spur to imagination, we might expect to find that the most creative human beings were the most discontented. Although this is far too simple a view of a complex problem, there is some truth in it. Discontent is not the same as neurosis. The inner disharmony which makes particular human beings accomplish marvels is often alleviated by their achievements. It is those who can find no way of expressing or resolving their conflicts who become neurotic. The connection between creativity and mental illness is explored in “Sanity of True Genius.”

  As the essays on Churchill, Kafka, and Newton demonstrate, though dissimilar in temperament and creative in quite different fields, they were all driven men. However, during the greater part of their lives, their creative gifts protected them against breakdown. The same is true of C. G. Jung, who, in mid-life, admitted being threatened by psychosis.

  No one reading the novels of William Golding can fail to recognize his preoccupation with the darker depths of human nature; but friendship, as well as ignorance, bars me from further speculation. The same considerations apply to my essay on C. P. Snow, which is a tribute to a warm and generous friend rather than a detailed exploration of either his novels or his personality.

  The opposite of creativity is destructiveness; and so I have included the essay “Why Human Beings Become Violent.” Murder, the ultimate act of violence, is briefly referred to as predominantly a domestic crime, a reflection which is explored in more detail in “Othello and the Psychology of Sexual Jealousy.”

  The last essay, “Psychiatric Responsibility in the Open Society,” may seem anomalous. During the course of my professional life, I have been very little involved with public affairs. But the employment of doctors, and more particularly of psychiatrists, in the interrogation of prisoners, aroused my wrath; and the first article which I wrote for a weekly paper was a protest against
this infringement of the Hippocratic oath. I was particularly concerned about the use of sensory deprivation as a means of breaking down detainees in Northern Ireland. It might justifiably be said that this latter abuse was a perversion of creativity, which tenuously links this essay with the others in the book. The Ulster interrogators took research into brain function out of the laboratory, and transformed it into a method of extracting information by causing acute mental distress amounting to torture. I was shocked, not only by the cruelty involved, but by the misuse of scientific investigation.

  1

  Churchill: The Man

  THE PSYCHIATRIST WHO takes it upon himself to attempt a character study of an individual whom he has never met is engaged upon a project which is full of risk. In the exercise of his profession, the psychiatrist has an unrivaled opportunity for the appraisal of character, and may justly claim that he knows more persons deeply and intimately than most of his fellows. But, when considering someone who has died, he is deprived of those special insights which can only be attained in the consulting room, and is, like the historian, obliged to rely upon what written evidence happens to be available. In the analytical treatment of a patient, the psychiatrist is able to check the validity of the hypotheses which he proffers by the patient’s response, and by the changes which occur in the patient as a result of his increased comprehension of himself. The psychiatrist may often be wrong or premature in his interpretation of his patient’s behavior and character; but, as the long process of analysis continues, errors will gradually be eliminated and the truth recognized by both parties in the analytical transaction. Deprived of this constant appraisal and reappraisal, psychiatrists who attempt biographical studies of great men are apt to allow theory to outrun discretion: with the result that many so-called psychoanalytic biographies have been both bad biography and bad psychoanalysis. The disastrous study of Woodrow Wilson by Freud and Bullitt is a case in point.

  In this chapter, I advance a hypothesis about Churchill which I think is warranted by the facts. But what I have to say must be regarded as tentative, for the possibilities of error in this complicated field are very great. Although Churchill himself provided many autobiographical details, especially in My Early Life, these are not the kind of details which are of much service to the psychiatrist. For Churchill showed as little interest in the complexities of his own psychology as he did in the psychology of others; and would have been the first to dismiss this essay as both futile and impertinent. Moreover, as C. P. Snow remarks in his essay in Variety of Men, Churchill’s character was “abnormally impenetrable to most kinds of insight.”1 His deeds, speeches, and career have been lavishly and repeatedly recorded, but very little of what has been written about him reveals anything of his inner life. Although Churchill can be rated as an artist, both as writer and painter, he was not, like many artists, introspective or concerned with his own motives. Indeed, if he had been, he could scarcely have achieved what he did, for introspection is the accomplice of self-distrust and the enemy of action.

  Winston Churchill is still idolized, not only by those of us who remember his speeches in 1940, and who believe, as I do, that it was to his courage that we owe our escape from Nazi tyranny; but by men and women all over the world, to whom he has become a symbol, a personification of valor. But Churchill was also a human being, with the same needs, instincts, hopes, and fears which pertain to all of us. It is no disservice to a great man to draw attention to his humanity, nor to point out that, like other men, he had imperfections and flaws. Churchill, in spite of his aristocratic birth and social position, started life with disadvantages which he never wholly conquered, although his whole career was an effort to overcome them. Without these disadvantages he would have been a happier, more ordinary, better-balanced, and lesser human being. But had he been a stable and equable man, he could never have inspired the nation. In 1940, when all the odds were against Britain, a leader of sober judgment might well have concluded that we were finished. Political leaders are accustomed to dissimulation. Even when defeat at the polls is imminent, or the policies which they support have been shown to be futile, they will, until the eleventh hour, continue to issue messages of hope to their supporters. In 1940, any political leader might have tried to rally Britain with brave words, although his heart was full of despair. But only a man who had known and faced despair within himself could carry conviction at such a moment. Only a man who knew what it was to discern a gleam of hope in a hopeless situation, whose courage was beyond reason, and whose aggressive spirit burned at its fiercest when he was hemmed in and surrounded by enemies, could have given emotional reality to the words of defiance which rallied and sustained us in the menacing summer of 1940. Churchill was such a man: and it was because, all his life, he had conducted a battle with his own despair that he could convey to others that despair can be overcome.

  For Winston Churchill, like his ancestor the first Duke of Marlborough, suffered from prolonged and recurrent fits of depression; and no understanding of his character is possible unless this central fact is taken into account. His own name for depression was “Black Dog”: and the fact that he had a nickname for it argues that it was all too familiar a companion. For great sections of his life, Churchill was successful in conquering his depression; but old age and the narrowing of his cerebral arteries in the end undermined his resistance. The last five years of his protracted existence were so melancholy that even Lord Moran draws a veil over them. It was a cruel fate which ordained that Churchill should survive till the age of ninety; for the “Black Dog” which he had controlled and largely mastered in earlier years at last overcame his fighting spirit.

  Churchill is, of course, not a lone example of a great man suffering from recurrent depression. Goethe was of similar temperament; so were Schumann, Hugo Wolf, Luther, Tolstoy, and many others. The relation between great achievement and the depressive temperament has yet to be determined in detail, but there can be little doubt that, in some natures, depression acts as a spur. When depression is overwhelming, the sufferer relapses into gloom and an inactivity which may be so profound as to render him immobile. To avoid this state of misery is of prime importance; and so the depressive, before his disorder becomes too severe, may recurrently force himself into activity, deny himself rest or relaxation, and accomplish more than most men are capable of, just because he cannot afford to stop. We do not know how many men of exceptional achievement have this tendency towards depression, for it may often be well concealed. That some do, and that Churchill was one of them, admits of no possible doubt.

  There is still dispute as to how far the tendency to suffer from recurrent depression is the product of heredity, and how much it is the result of early conditioning. Until the science of genetics is further advanced than it is at present, we shall not be able to answer this question fully. In Churchill’s case, it is safe to assume that both factors played their part. For we know that at least two of Churchill’s most distinguished ancestors were afflicted by swings of mood of some severity; and there is some evidence to suggest that they were not the only members of the family to be afflicted in this way. A. L. Rowse, writing of the first Duke of Marlborough, says:

  Marlborough was sensible in the French sense, a most sensitive register of all the impressions that came to him. An artist by temperament in his ups and downs—the depression he got before the precipitant of action, the headaches that racked him at all the obstructions he had to put up with, and the self-control he exercised so habitually that it became second nature to him. It exacted its price.2

  In 1705, the Duke wrote: “I have for these last ten days been so troubled by the many disappointments I have had that I think if it were possible to vex me so for a fortnight longer it would make an end of me. In short, I am weary of my life.”3 This weariness is a recurrent theme in his letters: “I am extremely out of heart,” “My dearest soul, pity me and love me.”4 Although it may be argued that many men might write like this in times of stress, Rowse is not
the only historian to observe that the first Duke of Marlborough alternated between optimism and depression in a way which some people would not expect in one of England’s most famous military commanders. Winston Churchill himself observed, “Sometimes he was overdaring and sometimes over prudent; but they were separate states of mind, and he changed from one to the other in quite definite phases.”5

  The other Churchill forebear who exhibited the same kind of temperament was Lord Randolph, Winston’s father. A. L. Rowse writes of him:

  Though a very quick and piercing judge of a situation, his judgement was not really reliable. He was self-willed and impulsive, above all impatient. If he had only had patience all the rest would have come into line. But he had the defect of the artistic temperament, what we in our day of psychological jargon diagnose as the manic-depressive alternation—tremendous high spirits and racing energy on the upward bound, depression and discouragement on the down. This rhythm is present in a more or less marked degree with all persons of creative capacity, particularly in the arts. And clearly this strongly artistic strain we have observed in the stock came out in him, as it has done again in his son.6

  Rowse is wrong in thinking that the manic-depressive alternation is present in all creative persons, some of whom belong to a very different temperamental group; but he is obviously right in his diagnosis of the Churchill family.

  One other member deserves mention in this connection: the Winston Churchill who was father of the first Duke of Marlborough. An ardent Royalist, he retired to his country seat in East Devon after the King’s forces had been defeated in the Civil War. Here he occupied himself by writing history: Divi Brittanici: Being a Remark upon the Lives of all the Kings of this Isle. Although we are not informed in detail of his temperamental constitution, A. L. Rowse describes him as follows: “Sunk in glum resentment, he had, at any rate, the consolation that intelligent people have who are defeated and out of favour: reading and writing.… His spirit was not defeated: it burns with unquenched ardour in what he wrote.”7 The later and more famous Winston adopted the same policy when he was out of office; and we may be thankful that creative activity can and does provide an effective defense against the depression which threatens to overwhelm those who possess this temperament when they are neither occupied nor sustained by holding a position of consequence.