Note 245 — LECTURE XVI GENERAL PHENOMENA RESULTING FROM EMOTIONAL CONFLICTS

Inhibition and dissociation, although often loosely used as interchangeable terms, are not strictly synonymous, in that, theoretically at least, they are not coextensive. That which is inhibited may be absolutely, even if temporarily, suppressed as a functioning process, as in physiological inhibition (e. g., of reflexes, motor acts, etc.); or it may be only inhibited from taking part in the mechanisms of the personal consciousness, and thereby dissociated from that psychophysiological system. In the latter case the inhibited process is not absolutely suppressed, but may be capable under favoring conditions of independent functioning outside of that system. This is dissociation in its more precise sense. Inhibition may be said to have induced dissociation, and then the two may be regarded as only different aspects of one and the same thing. In the former case (absolute suppression) the inhibited process cannot function at all, as in certain types of amnesic aphasia when the memory for language is functionally suppressed. Inhibition therefore may or may not be equivalent to dissociation. Practically as observed in psychological phenomena it is often difficult to distinguish between them, and it is convenient to consider them together.