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Inner VoyageBy Yves Chesni, M.D.
In two earlier works (2,3), I treated human development. Human being is an object of privileged study. Despite the enormity of our imperfections, we are at the high point of evolution. We are able to perceive our own "selfs" under our inner aspect, without for all that forgetting our body and that which is not we ourselves, our relations with others. "Know thyself:" the device once graven on the temple at Delphi is forever contemporary; knowing oneself is one of the conditions of a wiser and happier life. The inner state of our fellows can be inferred by an analogy of behaviors. It is the same for the supposed inner state and observable behavior of animals, all the more so to the extent that they more closely resemble us. But only the knowledge that we have of ourselves is direct, however long and difficult, burdened as we are with obscurities, illusions, and futilities. We now come to deal with me. But, under individual differences, human nature is one; in perusing this book the reader will come to understand, as Victor Hugo used to say, that in speaking of me it is of him also that I speak. It is not a question of "memoires," which betoken pride and vanity, still less is it about "confessions," with their touch of exhibitionism. It involves, if you will, a stroll among some chosen memories along with commentary. To be sure, in the choice and interpretation of these remembrances I have been aided by a didactic psychoanalysis, continuing on into the present through self analysis, and by a long practice of psychotherapy. But it was much earlier that I began to observe others and to observe myself. P = f G.E.: the phenotype, the realized individual, at each moment of its development is a function of its heredity and its environment; biology, it seems, takes no account of that which we call our freedom of choice. After a few genetic considerations, it is through a little description of my family that I will begin. The family, indeed, is the infant's natural environment. It can have a great influence on a still very malleable youngster. Then I will talk about my infancy, my youth, my mature years, and the onset of my old age. I will try not to take things out of chronological order too much, and to avoid repetitions; I will ask the reader's indulgence if he still finds a few. I will lay bare some of my plans, the wrong paths I have taken, my failures, and my achievements. I will recall certain persons whom life has given me to encounter: their trajectories are, or have been, partly like mine and partly different. I will speak of what I have been able to see of my human "brothers" during my travels, both local and abroad. Contents
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