Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-09-24
The Psychology of Escape

Science often seems to make simple
and familiar things complex: that's be-
cause it dips below the surface, where
your interest stops. The United States
Coast Survey sent a commission to a
point on Cape Cod to study the tides.
They employed native fishermen to help
make the soundings. The fishermen
gathered in the country store at eve
ming and discussed the folly of these
wise men from Washington. Every
body knew about the tides! Why all
these instruments and all this fuss?
When pressed for an explanation of
what caused the tides, the old salt re-
piled: "Oh, it's the moon and the sun
and one darn thing and another!"
Tides were simple to him, but a COM
pick study to the scientist.
The same Is true of the mental tides,
the ebb and flow of mood and desire
and idea. Why we behave like human
beings makes long story. In follow
ing it we shall see the reverse principle
that science shows how simple is the
basis of complex behavior; we may
illustrate by the psychology of escape.
Often when we think we behave as
complicated human beings, with COM
pick motives, we may find on analysis
that we are doing such a simple thing
as running away. The original, ele-
mental. fundamental motives endure
we never outgrow them. They merely
take on elaborate CARDS and DISCUSSES.
The most common avenue of escape
is by way of the imagination. We
escape from the house of reality by
the ladder of fantasy This is the
child's favorite way out and It has
many uses and some abuses. On it
the child mind cuts its teeth prepare
tory TIC chewing on the solid food of
knowledge. 1t won't do to keep the
mental diet too long to mushy senti-
ment nor dwell too long in the land
where wishes come true. Fairy tales
will lose their hold as the child mind
grows into life.
But 1t Is more In the field of emo
ton and conduct that the danger of
escape threatens. A lie Is an escape :
and 1t Is true that some children. not
unlike some adults, actually believe
their fabrications. A brilliant liar ex-
ercises imagination; the child usually is
better at imagining than at fabricating
Pretense is another escape-pretendinc
to be Ill when you're not. or not very
III. To children pretense in play Is also
pretty nearly reality; but not when they
act part, which they soon do, and try
to put things over-another escape.
The Freudians have specialized on
the psychology of escape. They make
out that much of child behavior is in
the interest of avoidance and evasion,
getting out of things by playing on
their weakness, appealing to yo,.r SYM
pathy and escaping responsibility. Put
ting the blame on somebody else Is
another form of escape.
But 1t is the adult varieties of escape
that form the serious side of the sub.
1ect. The center of the Freudian doc.
trine is that hysterical symptoms are
typically escapes into illness When 9
situation becomes difficult or impossible
and we cannot face 1t, We become i'll
and that excuses us. In complex indi.
viduals that isn't done by so simple a
mechanism as makes child sick enough
to stay home from school, But wher
mother reports the case of her daugh.
ter, aged IL, who had vomiting spells
at breakfast, but never on Saturdays
and Sundays, when there was no school
1t is already Freudian case.
Shell shock Is Freudian escape into
illness. That doesn't mean that the
soldiers feign illness; they were COM
pletely knocked out, though no bones
were broken, no flesh bruised. They just
succumbed in their nervous systems
The mechanism is sulEonscious; 1t op.