Introspective psychology, pure and applied: Henry Rutgers Marshall on pain and pleasure.

Abstract

Henry Rutgers Marshal (1852Marshal ( -1927, architect and psychologist, in his aesthetic theory opposed the severing of pain from pleasure in neurological theories in the 1890s. He held that pain and pleasure are poles of the same quale of experience. Marshall's was an introspective psychology, which he used in his architectural criticism and support of the City Beautiful ideal. The practice of introspection educated him, making him a better judge of personal and civic life. Marshall's work represents a road not taken in 20th-century psychology, one centered on the cultivation of the psychologist rather than on the elaboration of objective methods.At the end of the 19th century, psychologists debated the nature of pain and pleasure (Dallenbach, 1939, p. 337). The terms of the debate implicated the nature of psychology itself. Two of the antagonists represented the "new psychology" and its physiological basis: The sensation theorists held that pain is a sensation mediated by specific nerve endings, and the summation theorists argued that pain occurs when a threshold of stimulation is passed, regardless of the nerve being stimulated. The third group of contenders consisted of introspective psychologists. They paired pleasure with pain and viewed both as qualities of mental states, arguing from the evidence of consciousness and from the philosophical tradition, which weighed in heavily in their favor.The sensation and summation theories were still being debated years later, when Melzack and Wall (1965) sought their reconciliation in the gate control theory of pain. However, the pleasure-pain theory of pain had been forgotten, along with the theory's champion, Henry Rutgers Marshall (1852Marshall ( -1927. There is reason to read again the arguments of Marshall and his allies, for what was at stake was not simply a theory of pain. For the sensation and summation theorists, as for most psychology today, pain is a functional matter, a biological warning at best and a medical disorder at worst. However, for Marshall, pain was a quality to take into consideration in all human life. Together with pleasure, it had Robert Kugelmann is associate professor of psychology at the University of Dallas. His publications include Stress: The Nature and History of Engineered Grief. His research interests include the history of conceptions of pain and the history of introspective psychology.