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1.5 THE BRAIN AND PERSONALITY 27

REAL-WORLD IMPLICATIONS

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He understood the awful pain of depression which drove him to take risks for those who were de pressed—because he knew they would take risks with their lives. Yet for him the truest tribute was to be honoured by those who knew him best—the patients and physicians who worked for him.

that specifically related to the brain. Indeed, all roads to personality neuroscience can be traced back to him (see Gray, 1979).We saw Pavlov’s influence of psychol ogy developing along the lines of the careful observa tion and experimental manipulation of behaviour by various forms of reinforcement, which had the exact aims of prediction and control . Although Pavlov hoped that by this route ill-defined notions would play lit tle part outside what could be observed, measured, and controlled, his ideas were very abstract, relating to various notions of inhibition, excitation, equilib rium, and such like. This led to somewhat confused ideas about the biology of personality, as can be seen in Hans Eysenck’s (1957) attempt to relate Pavlov’s concepts to the personality factors of Extraversion and Neuroticism—for a flavour of the criticism of this book, see Corr (2016a, pp. 308–310). A little later in 1964, Eysenck’s PhD student, Jeffrey Gray, published William Walters Sargant was a noted British psychiatrist who pioneered biological treatments for various mental disorders, including deep sleep treatment, electroconvul sive therapy, insulin shock therapy, and psychosurgery. We see Sargant as a staunch advocate and practitioner of what he called ‘practical rather than philosophical approaches’ to treating mental illness. He pioneered the dissemina tion of various physical treatment methods and strongly opposed the use of psychoanalytic techniques. Although, this did not stop him treating psychiatric military personnel evacuated from Dunkirk with the use of abreaction tech niques with patients reliving traumatic experiences under the influence of a barbiturate , which is a powerful sedat ing drug said to release inhibition (hence it is sometimes called a ‘truth drug’). In all of this, Sargant was especially in spired by the work of Ivan Pavlov, famous for conditioning theory but also much interested in psychiatry. Although Sargant was a major force in British psy chiatry, his reputation has been tarnished by his ap parently ‘unethical’ treatments. However, many saw him as a pioneer, for example, no less than the former UK Foreign Secretary, Dr David Owen, who worked as an assistant to Sargant. Owen notes in Kelly (1988):

Sargant had been hospitalized himself for depression during his early life, so he could empathize with those

suffering from this debilitating disorder. Considering these issues, ask yourself:

a major conceptual and literal translation of Pavlov’s work, titled Pavlov’s Typology . We see the lasting influ ences of Pavlov’s work in other chapters of this book, notably in the behaviourist account of personality (Chapter 3), the development of biological ideas of personality (Chapter 5), and the neuroscience of per sonality (Chapter 13). In anticipation of these later developments, it is worth noting that Pavlov’s work ushered a useful dis tinction between the development of a conceptual nervous system (cns; i.e. theorizing and model build ing based on behavioural data) and a central nervous system (CNS; i.e. theorizing based on the study of the brain and nervous system). Popularized in general psychology by the neuropsychologist Donald Hebb in 1955, this cns/CNS approach has played a pivotal role in personality neuroscience, where the pace of devel opment of behavioural (cns) and brain (CNS) research 1. Was Sargant justified in using biological treat ment with the intention of helping seriously de pressed people who otherwise did not respond to therapy? 2. Might have Sargant’s own battle with depression sensitized him to the distress experienced by the depressed person and, thus, motivated him to seek fast-acting treatments? 3. In what specific ways did the work of Pavlov inspire such biologically inclined psychiatrists as William Sargant?

© Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press