PART 2. DISORDERS OF THE INSTINCTS
AGGRESSION AND GUILT
Aggressivity, as well as feelings of guilt over real or imaginary
acts of aggression, play a decisive role in the etiology of mental disorders. In fact, even manifestly sexual derangements are due primarily to a contamination of sexuality by aggression. Hence, in a
broadly theoretical sense, it is not really legitimate to single out certain psychiatric disorders as being caused by conflicts related to aggressivity, since problems related to aggressivity are present, to a
variable extent, also in every other psychiatric illness.On the other hand, the Mohave themselves seem dimly aware of
the fact that certain mental disorders are especially likely to affect
persons who engage in certain aggressive activities, or fear retribution
for real, magical, or unconscious acts of aggression, or seek to inhibit,
but not sublimate, their aggressive impulses. Suicide also results from
aggression, which is first directed at others and then, self-punitively,
at oneself. However, for reasons of expository convenience, occurrences which the Mohave define as suicide will not be discussed in this
section, but in part 7, and will therefore not be included in the following classification of disorders related to problems of aggression.Neuroses and psychoses related primarily to aggression may be
classified as follows: | Pathological outbursts of homicidal rage: | Pi-ipa: teeva: rȧm: People scarcity |
|
| Pathological sequelae of socially approved aggression: | Against game: Hunter's neurosis | | Against the outgroup: Scalper's psychosis |
|
| Against antisocial members of the ingroup: |
| Pathological sequelae of hyperactivity, which is apparently equated with
aggression: | An illness of ordinary active persons | | The god Mastamho's psychosis | | The psychopathology of singers | | The corruption of shamanistic powers |
|
| Pathological sequelae of inhibited aggressivity or power: | Heartbreak (=jealousy): Hi: wa itck. (See also pt. 3, pp. 91-106) | | Psychoses resulting from the inhibition of magical powers |
|
| Pathological sequelae of imagined counteraggression on the part of hated
aliens (a paranoid mechanism) (pt. 4, pp. 128-150): | Disease from aliens: Ahwe: hahnok | | Disease from enemy ghosts: Ahwe: nyevedhi: |
|
-39-
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Publication information:
Book title: Mohave Ethnopsychiatry and Suicide:The Psychiatric Knowledge and the Psychic Disturbances of an Indian Tribe.
Contributors: George Devereux - Author.
Publisher: U.S. Govt. Print. Off..
Place of publication: Washington, DC.
Publication year: 1961.
Page number: 39.
This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may
not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.
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