SAPIR the Contribution of Psychiatry to an Understanding of Behavior in Society

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The Contribution of Psychiatry to an Understanding of Behavior in SocietyAuthor(s): Edward SapirReviewed work(s):Source: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 42, No. 6 (May, 1937), pp. 862-870Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2767807 .Accessed: 20/12/2011 22:36

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THE CONTRIBUTION OF PSYCHIATRY TO ANUNDERSTANDING OF BEHAVIOR

IN SOCIETYEDWARD SAPIR

ABSTRACTPsychiatrists re becoming more aware of the social component n conduct while

social scientists re becomingmore ware of the concerns f psychiatry. he concept of"interpersonal elations" onstitutes good meeting-ground. sychiatrists, argely ueto the problems with which their cience began, have been excessively ndividualisticand have tended o regard s universal nd invariant, modes of conduct found only ncertain ultures. n the rebound from his view t is necessary o avoid the dangers f"sociologism"which would disregard he true task of psychiatry which s the under-standing of the fundamental nd relatively nvariable structure f the personality.Psychiatry will be of assistance o social analysis to the extent hat t aids in revealingthe ntricate ymbolic network whichbinds ndividuals ogether nto collectivities.

It is with great pleasure that I accede to the request to commentin a general way on the present symposium n psychiatry nd thesocial sciences. The relation between the two suggests many inter-

esting nd complicated problems, both of definition nd interpreta-tion. It is a bold man who would venture to speak with assuranceabout such abstruse entities as "individual" and "society," butwhere t is difficult or any intelligent erson to withhold theoryor an opinion, may be pardoned for not doing o either. I have readthe sevenpsychiatric apers with great nterest. Unless I am greatlymistaken, the language used in these contributions s a whole ismeasurably nearer the terminology sed by social scientists han

was formerly he case in psychiatric iterature. doubt if this isentirely due to the fact that the psychiatrists have felt under acompulsion to be courteous to the sociologists responsible for thejournal to which they now find hemselves collective contributor.I find no "pussyfooting" here; rather a sincere recognition f theimportance, erhaps even the reality, f the things onnoted by thewords "society" and "culture." Even if these words still remainlargely unanalyzed n terms hat ought o be completely atisfying oa psychiatrist, t is a great gain to have them given a hearing. Theextreme ndividualism of earlier psychiatry s evidently passing.Even the pages of Freud, with their haunting magery f society as

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PSYCHIATRY AND BEHAVIORIN SOCIETY 863

censor nd of culture s a beautiful xtortion rom he sinisterdepths of desire, re beginning o take on a certain haracter fquaintness; n other words, t looks as though sychiatry nd thesciencesdevoted to man as constitutive f societywere actuallybeginning o talk bout the ame events-to wit, hefacts f humanexperience.

In the ocial ciences, oo, here as been complementary ove-ment oward he oncerns f he psychiatrist. t ong ast the ctualhuman being, lways set in a significant ituation, ever merebiological llustration r a long-sufferingarrier f cultural tems,has been caught rowling bout the premises f society, f culture,of history. t is true hat ong nd anonymous onfinements ithinthe narrow olumns f statistics asmade him timid ubject orinquiry. He seems always to be slinking ff nto anxiety-drivenflesh nd boneor else, t the ddest moments, nexpectedlywellinghimself p into an institution. ut it is easy to see that the firmhand of the psychiatric ociologist ill ome day nab him n oneofhis ess rapid moments f transition.

Ofthese evenpapers, t s chiefly r. Sullivan's nd Dr. Alexan-der's that giveme the most omfortable ousing. hey seemto becamped omewhere bout the crossroadseading o pure psychiatryand pure ociology nd confess hat find he uncertainty f theirlocation ery greeable ndeed. n an atmosphere f mollified on-trasts ne may hope to escape the policemen f rival conceptualheadquarters. ot being othered y too strict loyalty o aristo-cratic onventions, ne may hope to learn something ew. I am

particularly ond of Dr. Sullivan'spet phrase of "interpersonalrelations." he phrase s not s innocent s it seems, or, while uchentities s societies, ndividuals, ultural atterns, nd institutionslogically mply nterpersonal elations, heydo little o isolate nddefine hem.Too great gility as been gainedover the years njumping from the individual o the collectivity nd from hecollectivity ia romantic nthropological aths back again to theculture-saturated ndividual. Reflection uggests hat the loneindividualwas never lone, that he never marched n line withcollectivity, xcept on literal tate occasions, nd that he neversigned p for culture. herewasalways omeone round obother


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864 THE AMERICANJOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY

him; herewere lways great many eople whom isfriends alkedabout nd whom enevermet; nd there as always much hat omepeopledid that he never heard bout. He was never ormed ut ofthe nteraction f ndividual nd society ut started ut being scomfortable s he could na world nwhich ther eople xisted, ndcontinued his way as long s physical onditions llowed. t is outof hismanifold xperiences hat different inds f cientists erivedtheir ipsfor he nvention f twoor three ealms f being.

Fora long ime sychiatry peratedwith conception f the n-dividual that was merely biological n nature. This is easy tounderstand fwe remember hat sychiatry as not, o begin with,study f human nature n actual situations, oreven a theoreticalexploration nto the tructure f personality, ut simply nd solelyan attempt o interpret diseased" modes of behavior n termsfamiliar o a tradition hat was operating with the concepts fnormal nd abnormal hysiological unctioning.t is the great ndlastingmerit f Freud hat he freed sychiatry rom ts too strictlymedical resuppositionsnd introduced n interpretative sycholo-

gy which, n spite f all its conceptualweaknesses,ts disturbinglyfigurative odes of expression, nd its blindness onumerous ndimportant spects of the field f behavior s a whole, emainssubstantial ontribution opsychologyn general nd, by implica-tion, osocialpsychology n particular. is use of social data wasneither more nor ess inadequate han the use made of them bypsychology s a whole. t ishardly air oaccuseFreud f naivetewhich s still the rule among the vast majority f professional

psychologists. t is not urprising hathisview f ocialphenomenabetrays t many points a readiness o confuse arious specificpatterns fbehavior, hich he ulturalists an show obe derivativeof pecific istorical ackgrounds, ith hosemore undamentalndnecessary atterns f behavior which roceed from he nature fman and of his slowlymaturing rganism. or s it surprising hathe shared, otonlywith he majority fpsychologists ut evenwiththe very ounders f nthropologicalcience, n nterest nprimitivemanthat didnot ddress tself o a realistic nderstanding fhumanrelations n the ess sophisticated ocieties ut rather o the sche-matic askof finding n the patterns f behavior eported y the


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PSYCHIATRY ANDBEHAVIOR IN SOCIETY 865

anthropologist uch confirmation s he could of his theories findividually archaic" attitudes nd mechanisms. f the contem-porary nthropologist s scandalizedby the violencewith whichFreud and his followers ave torn many of the facts f primitivebehavior ut of their atural ultural etting, e should ecall hatjust such violencewas the hallmark f the most pproved inds fthinking bout ethnological ata not so long go. When ll is saidand done, and in spite of the enormous ocumentation f thecultures fprimitive roups, ow asy s it to get even n inkling, nstrictly sychological erms, f the tempo, he relative lexibility,the individual ariability, he relative penness r hiddenness findividual xpression, hecharacteristic motional ualities,whichare implied or "carried" by even the most penetrating ulturalanalyses hat we possessof primitive ommunities?t seems un-expectedly ifficult oconjure p the mageof ive people n intel-ligibly ive relationships ocatedwithin reas defined s primitive.The personalities hat nhabit ur ethnological onographs eemalmost schizoid n their unemotional cceptance of the heavy

colors, apestries, nd furniture f their thnological tage. s it anywonder hat ctors o vaguely onceived, o absent-mindedly ypi-cal of something r other, an be bludgeoned y a morepersistentintelligencehan heirs nto awing woodfor till emoter tages, aythat dread drama f the lainfather nd the birth f totemism?

At the present ime he dvanceguard f psychiatric hinkingsrapidly iscovering hefruitfulness f the concepts f society ndculture or a richer nd a more realistic nalysis f personality.Theclose elation f

personal abit ystems othegeneral atterningof culture-that ery nsight hich as for o longbeenthe pecialpride f nthropology-comes opsychiatry s something ssentiallynew. Supposedly niversal eelings nd attitudes, entiments boutparents nd children nd sexmates, re found o be almost s rela-tive to a culture's et patterns f behavior s fashions n clothes rtypes of artifacts. At any rate, this formula f the relativity fcustomhas long been a commonplacen anthropology n purelydescriptive rounds nd s nvading sychiatry s a new basisfor hephilosophy f behavior.

Anage-old lindness ends o be corrected yopened yes hat re


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too confident nd undiscriminating, nd one wonderswhether hespecialviewpoint fpsychiatry s not tending o yield ooreadily othe enlightened rejudices f anthropology nd sociology. he pre-sumptive r "as if" psychological haracter f a culture s highlydeterminative, o doubt, of much n the externalized ystem fattitudes ndhabitswhich orms hevisible personality" f givenindividual, nd, until his special ocialframe f reference s clearlyestablished, nalyzed, nd applied to his behavior,we are neces-sarily t a loss to assign him a place in a more general cheme fhuman behavior. t does not follow, owever, hat strictly ocialdeterminants, ending, s they o,to give visible orm nd meaning,in a cultural ense, o each of the thousands f modalities f experi-ence which um up the personality, an define he fundamentalstructure f such a personality. f culture nd its presumptivepsychology ere ll that s needed o explain what we dimly eachout for nd call "individual ersonality," e shouldbe put n theposition f a man whoclaimed, or nstance, hat hefeeling alledlove couldnot have started ts history ntil he vocabulary f a

specificanguage uggested ealities, alues, nd problems ithertounknown. llofwhichwould e true n a sensewhichmattersmoreto the culturalist han to the closer tudent f behavior.A culturewhich s constantly eing nvoked oexplain henecessities nd theintimacies f ndividual elations s like an ex postfacto egalizationof damagedone. The biological nd implied sychological eedsofindividuals re continuous nd primary. f wethink, otof cultureinthe bstract or f ociety s a hypothetically ntegrating oncept

in human elations, ut rather f the ctual day-to-day elations fspecific ndividuals n a network f highly ersonalized eeds,wemust ee that ulture s the nevitable oinof the realm f behaviorbut that t is far from ynonymous ith hose ctual systems fmeaning, onscious nd unconscious, hichwe call personalities,and that hepresumptive sychology f a culture s a whole s notequatablewith ny actualpersonalized sychology. ultural nal-ysis s hardly more than a preliminary ow to the human cene,

givings to know hathere re people, resumably eal, nd that t

is here ather han here hat wemust bserve hem.It is theprivilege fpsychiatry o be always ooking t ndividuals


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fundamental, nd relatively nvariable, tructure f the ndividualpersonality ith s great conceptual conomy s our still nade-quatepsychologiesllow.

It is the obvious duty of psychiatry, nce it has enriched tsinterpretative echniques ith hehelpof the ocial sciences, o bealwaysreturning o its original ask of the close scrutiny f theindividual ersonality. ot what he culture onsists f or what rethe values t seems o point o willbe the psychiatrist's oncern, utrather how this culture ends itself o the ceaseless need of theindividual ersonality or ymbols f xpression nd communicationwhich an be intelligently ead by one's fellow-men n the socialplane,but whose relative epth or shallowness f meaning n theindividual's otal economy f symbols eed never be adequatelydivined ither y himself r by hisneighbor. t should e the im ofthepsychiatrist o uncover ust uchmeanings s these. Hemust etoo little atisfied ith purely ocial view of behavior o acceptsuchstatements s that A's reason for oining he orchestra s thesame s B's, or that he motive f either an ever be strictly efined

in terms f a generalized leasure which ocialized umanbeingsderive rom istening o music r participating n the production fit. Suchblanket xplanations s these re useful n that hey nablepeopleto join hands and give each other n effective earing. othe culturalist oining n orchestra s a valuable llustration f animportant ocialpattern. To the psychiatrist t is as irrelevant sthe nteresting iographical act hat his lover f music"firstmethis future wife t the corner f Fifth Avenue and Forty-second

Street. What the psychiatrist an get out of the orchestra-joiningpattern epends ltogether n what ymbolic ork ecan discoverthis behavior o accomplishn the ntegrated ersonality ystems fA and B. To the culturist 's joining he orchestra s "like" B'sjoining heorchestra. o the psychiatrist hechances f these woevents eing n the east similar re quite mall. He will ather indthat A's joining heorchestra s "like"his earlier endency owastean enormous mount f time n trashy ovels, while 's apparentlysimilar ehavior s more nearly like" his slavish adherence oneedlessly xacting able manners. he psychiatrist ares ittleabout descriptive imilarities nd differences, or, n his view of


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PSYCHIATRY AND BEHAVIOR IN SOCIETY 869

things, ll manner f flotsam nd jetsam of behavior ush nto anindividual ortex f few nd necessarymeanings. e does well toleave the study of the scheme of society o those who care forunallocated lueprints f behavior.

I have, erhaps, verstressed hefundamental ivergence f piritbetween he psychiatric nd the trictly ulturalmodes f observa-tion. have doneso because t is highly mportant hatwedo notdelude urselves nto elieving hat lovingly omplete nalysis fgiven ulture s ipso facto contribution o the science f humanbehavior. t is, ofcourse, n invaluable uide o the potentialities fchoice nd rejection n the ives of ndividuals, nd suchknowledgeshould rm one against foolish xpectancies. o psychiatrist anafford othink hat ove s made n exactly he ameway n all thecorners f the globe,yet he would e too docile convert o anthro-pology f he allowedhimself obe persuaded hat that fact madeany pecial ifference or he primary ifferentiation f personality.With every ndividual f whom he psychiatrist ssaysan under-standing e must of necessity eanalyze he supposedly bjective

culture n which his ndividual s said to play his part. When hedoesthis e nvariably inds hat cultural greement s hardlymorethan terminological, nd that, f culture s to be saddled withpsychological eanings hat re more han uperficial, eshallhaveto recognize s many ffective ultures s there re ndividuals o be"adjusted" o the one culture which s said to exist out there" ndto which we are supposed obe able to direct he telescope f ourintelligent bservation.

It would ppear rom ll this hat he psychiatrist hohasbecomesufficientlyware f ocialpatterning obegranted hearing y thesocial scientist asat least as much o giveas to receive. t is truethat he cannot be given the privilege f making psychologicalanalysis f ociety nd culture s such. He cannot ellus what nycultural attern s "all about" npsychologicalerms, orwecannotallowhim to indulge n the time-honored ursuit f indentifyingsocietywith personality, r culture ith ctual behavior.He can,of course,make hese dentificationsn a metaphorical ense, nd twould e harmful o his freedom f expressionfhe were enied heuseofmetaphor. n hisparticular ase, however, etaphor s more


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than normally angerous. n economist r historian an talk of thesoul of a peopleor the tructure f a societywith ery ittle angerof turning nybody's head. It is generally nderstood hat suchphraseology eans omething ut that he peed ofverbal ommuni-cation s generally oo great o make t seem worthwhile o try oconvert he convenientmetaphor nto its realistically elevantterms. ut the psychiatrist eals with actual people, not withillustrations f culture r with he functioning f society. t is ourduty, herefore, oholdhim o the very trictest ccount n his useof social terms. f he, too, s the victim f slipshod metaphor, ehaveno protection gainst ur own redulity. We cannot e blamedifwetend o read out of he ociety nd culture hich henecessitiesofverbal ommunication aveconjured nto ghostly eality f heirown n impersonal andate o behavior nd ts nterpretation.

So far hepsychiatrist as had too many uperstitions f hisownto helpusmaterially ith he ask of translating ocial nd culturalterms nto hat ntricate etwork fpersonalistic eanings hich sthe only onceivable tuff fhuman xperience. n the future, ow-

ever,wemust e constantly urning ohim or eminders fwhat sthe rue ature f he ocial rocess. Theconceptual econciliationfthe ife f ociety with he ife f he ndividual an never ome roman indulgencen metaphor. t will ome from heultimate mplica-tions f Dr. Sullivan's interpersonal elations." nterpersonal ela-tions re not finger xercises n the art of society. They are realthings, eserving f the most areful nd anxious tudy. We knowvery ittle bout hem s yet. If we could nly et reasonably learconception f how the ivesof A and B intertwine nto

mutuallyinterpretable omplex f experiences, e should eefar more learlythan s at present he case the extreme mportance nd the rrevo-cable necessity f the concept f personality.We should lso bemoving orward o a realistic nstead f a metaphorical efinition fwhat s meant by culture nd society. Onesuspects hat the sym-bolic ole f words asan mportance or he olution f ur problemsthat s far greater hanwemight ewilling o admit. After ll, fAcallsB a "liar," hecreates reverberating osmos f potential ctionand judgment. nd if the fatal word can be passed on to C, thetriangulation f ociety nd culture s complete.

YALE UNIVERSITY

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SAPIR the Contribution of Psychiatry to an Understanding of Behavior in Society