Hypobulic Mechanisms

HYPOBULIC MECHANISMS, HYPOBULIA (from Greek hypo- below and boule- will), as defined by the person who introduced this term, Kretschmer—a lower type of volitional setup, corresponding to early stages of ontogenetic and phylogenetic development of will, which however is potentially inherent in all people. Being normally subordinate to mechanisms of purposeful activity arising from struggle of motives, hypobulia becomes isolated and begins to act independently in all those cases when conscious will, or, in Kretschmer's terminology, purposeful will, weakens and becomes incapable of guidance. This occurs in strong emotional shocks (anger, fear, etc.), then in persons who find themselves in situations that make demands on them higher than they are able to satisfy, and in certain forms of mental illness (schizophrenia). The most essential feature of hypobulia is that it is blind, inaccessible to persuasion and reasonable arguments, and is set in motion by primitive mechanisms, most often of an affective order. Its motor manifestations are characterized, on one hand, by instinctive-reflex reactions ["motor storm" (see), "pseudo-death reflex" (see Death), etc.], and on the other—by the typical tendency for states of weakened purposeful will toward rhythmic, stereotyped repetitions of the same movement. Kretschmer also considers the following as hypobulic signs: 1) predominant subordination to the influence of elementary irritations (pain, command, etc.), 2) tendency to simultaneous or alternating occurrence of diametrically opposite reactions, most often manifesting in a capricious change between automatic subordination and negativistic stubbornness, and 3) absence of quantitative correspondence between irritation and reaction. The hypobulic type of will manifests particularly brightly in the hysterical attack with its violent motor discharges and characteristic sudden changes in consciousness: in these cases, according to Kretschmer's interpretation, hypobulia, convulsively connecting with the reflex apparatus, breaks with the normal, "purposeful" will, and there occurs a sudden, jerky transition from the normal type of reaction to attacks of twilight states accompanied by paroxysms of disordered movements and trembling. Kretschmer makes hypobulia responsible for the emergence of both catatonic phenomena in schizophrenics and cataleptic states in hypnosis. He also finds its hidden action in the everyday behavior of severe hysterics. For children and higher animals, hypobulia, according to Kretschmer, is the only existing way of wanting, while in healthy adult humans, it, combining with the purposeful function, forms a single whole together with it and the reflex apparatus—in particular, the so-called strong will is based on the ability of hypobulia to prolonged and undistracted by reasoning convulsive tension. Pathology begins from the moment when under the influence of life blows or endogenous processes a dissociation of this complex whole occurs. At this time, an impression is often created that a person has two wills: one—healthy, conscious, rational, and the other—sick, blind, meaningless. They either act alternately or interfere with each other. In the first case, purposeful will only irritates hypobulia, calling it forth but not being able to control it (the hysterical attack often arises as a purposeful reaction which, however, in its course goes beyond obedience to the set goal), in the second—there is a mixing of purposefully directed aspirations and those expressed in half-reflex forms dictated by hypobulia. This mixing, which gives such a distinctive character of capricious inconstancy and unreasonableness to the behavior of chronic hysterics, makes it possible to understand both the purposeful orientation of their reactions and the absurd forms into which they develop. "There result," says Kretschmer, "completely unforeseen zigzag curves of will: thus, rent hysterics for a small pension poison for themselves the joys of life for many years, although they strove for this pension only for the improvement of this very life." As for the localization of H. m., Kretschmer, although undecided, expresses the assumption that they are related to the functional manifestations of the activity of the corpus striatum known to us from pathology. The idea of the connection between hypobulia and the activity of subcortical centers to some extent explains the fact that in hysterical subjects, as long as their mental activity unfolds in the hypobulic plane, they have at their disposal a large reserve of such deep reflex mechanisms (ability to induce vomiting, trembling, paleness, blueness, etc.) which in the normal state they are completely unable to set in motion by the action of direct purposeful impulses. Kretschmer's teaching on hypobulia, insofar as it is connected with his general concept of the layered structure of the psyche (see Hypobulic mechanisms), is still a subject of dispute and does not enjoy general recognition; however, his interpretation of hysterical phenomena as a result of the struggle of automatic mechanisms with conscious ones (here he is essentially developing further ideas already expressed by Janet) can hardly be disputed; his constructions can be quite easily reconciled with Pavlov's teaching on conditioned reflexes.