Rhetorical Investigations by Gardner Leslie;Boyd Susan C.;

Author:Gardner, Leslie;Boyd, Susan C.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1170326
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

8

WORD ASSOCIATION TESTS AND DELIBERATIVE LOGIC

Forensic Jung

the evidence of the senses is also an operation of the mind in which conviction creates the evidence

(Proust, The Captive, 1999: 141)

Proust’s idea of the role of memory is distinctive; the senses are gateways into memory (interior) and into reality (exterior). The resulting connection brings empirical evidence together with memory to make significance. In Swann’s Way, the madeleine dipped in tea triggers specific memories of his childhood and this process and event shapes the novel, closely interweaving interior perception with real exterior event.

At nearly the same time Proust was writing this work, in Switzerland, Jung was initiating word association experiments but after the first excitement, he realised he had disappointing results. He was struggling to bring human sensory material to bear as evidence in a scientific context. The results frustrated him, and, years later, in 1927, Jung proclaimed, “whosoever wishes to know about the human mind will learn nothing, or almost nothing, from experimental psychology …’ (Jung CW2: 1904/1973). Yet he had made his name internationally with the association experiments despite setbacks.

This work was the basis of an important stream in Jung’s career that began before his encounter with Freud’s psychoanalysis. To explore development of what he hoped would be reliable tools to evaluate anomalous data, I propose to apply the heuristic of deliberative rhetoric as a mode of enquiry. However, the failures of the logical, positivist and causal rationale of this experimental method set Jung not only to be receptive to Freud, but also to turn to other speculative modes of enquiry.

Jung’s work on the word association experiments had followed on from hospital director Bleuler’s and colleague Riklin’s work at the clinic, following ideas set out by earlier psychologists, Kraeplin and Wundt. The association tests were an attempt to find an objective way to assess mental patients’ internal worlds. With this knowledge, the doctor could communicate with the patient on her own ground, and treat her. Despite his own disappointments, as Ellenberger tells us (1970: 667), the association tests were used as a diagnostic tool for years afterwards.

Jung presented his paper, ‘Association experiments on normal subjects’ (CW2: 1905), and had hopes that the tests could be used in criminal cases. But despite what appeared often to be valuable results later contrasting results from ‘abnormal’ subjects, he concluded that this technique was not useful in detecting specific criminal behaviour.

Many psychologists, including William Stern, were critical; and Freud too had a negative response. Freud published a paper in 1907 (translated 1924) in which he thought results were interesting but not reliable.

Months after Jung published the results Freud mentioned the experiments during a lecture to law students. He was interested to note how these new experiments used objective scientific probes into the criminal mind. He referred to both Jung’s and Stern’s work. He also reminded them of his own earlier work in the ‘Psychopathology of everyday life’ (1901) that had laid down similar groundwork. He had proposed then that certain deep-seated neuroses in the individual seemed to interfere in their daily living.

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