The Origins of the Concept of Dissociation: Paul Janet,His Nephew Pierre,and the Problem of Post-Hypnotic Suggestion

Janet Paul , “De la suggestion dans l'état d'hypnotisme”, Revue politique et littéraire, xxxiv (1884), 100–4, 129–32, 178–85, 198–203.

Janet Pierre , “Les actes inconscients et le dédoublement de la personnalité pendant le somnambulisme provoqué”, Revue philosophique, xxii (1886), 577–92.

Freud's debt to Janet is well documented in Ellenberger Henri F. , The discovery of the unconscious (New York, 1970). Freud personally acknowledges the debt psychoanalysis owes to experiments in post-hypnotic suggestion: “Even before the time of psychoanalysis, hypnotic experiments, and especially post-hypnotic suggestion, had tangibly demonstrated the existence and mode of operation of the mental unconscious.” This passage appeared, in 1915, in Freud's paper, “The unconscious”, under the section, “Justification for the concept of the unconscious” in The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, xiv (London, 1957), 161–204.

The scholarship is immense, but the most comprehensive survey and analysis of the literature is Hacking Ian , Rewriting the soul: Multiple personality and the sciences of memory (Princeton, 1995).

The frontline scholarship bearing upon the history of dissociation is principally: Antze Paul Lambek Michael (eds), Tense past: Cultural essays in trauma and memory (New York, 1996); Borch-Jacobsen Mikkel , Souvenirs d'Anna O: Une mystification centenaire (Mesnil-sur-l'Estrée, 1995); idem, “L'effet Bernheim (fragments d'une théorie de l'artefact généralisé)”, Corpus des oeuvres de philosophie en langue française, xxxii (1997), 147–73; Burnham John C. , “The fragmenting of the soul: Intellectual prerequisites for ideas of dissociation in the United States”, in Quen J. M. (ed.), Split minds/split brains (New York, 1986), 63–83; Carroy Jaqueline , Hypnose, suggestion et psychologie: L'invention de sujets (Paris, 1991); idem, Les personnalités doubles et multiples: Entre science et fiction (Paris, 1993); Castel Pierre-Henri , La querelle de l'hystérie: La formation du discours psychopathologique en France (1881–1913) (Paris, 1998); Crabtree Adam , From Mesmer to Freud: Magnetic sleep and the roots of psychological healing (New Haven, 1993); Ellenberger , Discovery (ref. 3); Gauld Alan , A history of hypnotism (Cambridge, 1992); Hacking Ian , Rewriting the soul (ref. 4), and Mad travelers: Reflections on the reality of transient mental illnesses (Charlottesville, Virginia, 1998); Hilgard Ernest R. , Divided consciousness: Multiple controls in human thought and action (New York, 1977 [expanded edition, 1986]); Leys Ruth , “Traumatic cures: Shell shock, Janet, and the question of memory”, Critical inquiry, xx (1994), 623–62; Young Allan , The harmony of illusions: Inventing post-traumatic stress disorder (Princeton, 1995).

The author also reviewed the scientific literature from the 1960s to the present and found no mention of dissociation having originated in the problem of post-hypnotic suggestion. This survey included special issues devoted to Janet in the Bulletin de psychologie, xiv (1960), 2–193, and the Annales médico-psychologiques, clxvii (1989), 935–1016.

For biographical information on Paul Janet see Brooks John I. III , The eclectic legacy: Academic philosophy and the human sciences in nineteenth-century France (Newark, 1998), 39; Ellenberger , Discovery (ref. 3), 332–4; Lacour-Gayet Georges , Pour la mémoire de Paul Janet (Paris, 1923); and Picot Georges , Paul Janet: Notice historique (Paris, 1903).

Fouillée Alfred , Critique des systèmes de morale contemporaine (Paris, 1883; eighth edn, Paris, 1911). Ellenberger mentions Fouillée's remark in Discovery (ref. 3), 401–2, but paraphrases it in such a way that it refers to all of Janet's work and not only his book La morale.

Janet Paul , “De la suggestion” (ref. 1).

Ibid., 103; his emphasis.

Ibid., 103.

Ibid., 103; his emphasis.

Ibid., 201.

Bernheim Hippolyte , “De la suggestion dans l'état d'hypnotique et dans l'état de veille”, Revue médicale de l'est, xv (1883), 545–59, pp. 555–6.

Janet Paul , “De la suggestion” (ref. 1), 201; his emphasis.

Richet Charles , “De la suggestion et de l'inconscience”, Revue politique et littéraire, xxxiv (1884), 253–4. It is the same Richet who won the Nobel prize for medicine in 1913.

Ibid., 254.

Beaunis H. , “L'expérimentation en psychologie par le somnambulisme provoqué”, Revue philosophique, xx (1885), 1–36, pp. 18–21.

Ibid., 20.

Ibid., 21.

Beanis H. , Le somnambulisme provoqué: Études physiologiques et psychologiques (2nd edn, Paris, 1886), 243; Bernheim Hippolyte , “Souvenirs latents et suggestions à longue échéance”, Revue médicale de l'est, xvii (1886), 97–111; Delboeuf Joseph , “Sur les suggestions a date fixe”, Revue philosophique, xx (1885), 514–15; and Janet Pierre , Automatisme psychologique: Essai de psychologie expérimentale sur les formes inférieures de l'activité humaine (Paris, 1889; 4th edn reprinted, Paris, 1989), 248–62.

Janet Pierre , “Les actes inconscients et le dédoublement” (ref. 2). The idea of dissociation is present in the 1886 paper but the term itself appears a year later in Janet, “L'anesthésie systématisée et la dissociation des phénomènes psychologiques”, Revue philosophique, xxiii (1887), 449–72. Janet more frequently employed the term ‘désagrégation’ at this period. Throughout this paper I use the term ‘dissociation’, which was later adopted by the majority of writers, including Janet himself, to refer to Janet's early work, in particular, and the mechanism of multiple consciousnesses, in general.

Bourru Hippolyte Burot P. , “Un cas de la multiplicité des états de conscience chez un hystéro-epileptique”, Revue philosophique, xx (1885), 411–16. See Hacking , Rewriting the soul (ref. 4), 171–82.

Janet Pierre , “Les actes inconscients et le dédoublement” (ref. 2), 582–4.

Ibid., 584–6.

On automatic writing, see Koutstall Wilma , “Skirting the abyss: A history of experimental explorations of automatic writing in psychology”, Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences, xxviii (1992), 5–27; and Shamdasani Sonu , “Automatic writing and the discovery of the unconscious”, Spring, lxiv (1993), 118–21.

Janet Pierre , “Les actes inconscients et le dédoublement” (ref. 2), 586.

Ibid., 589.

Ibid., 592.

Ibid., 590–2.

“[T]he result of his work with the patient Lucie”, Ellenberger writes, “in retrospect is considered as the first cathartic cure”, Discovery (ref. 3), 755.

Janet Pierre , “L'anesthésie systématisée et la dissociation” (ref. 22), and “Les actes inconscients et la mémoire pendant le somnambulisme provoqué”, Revue philosophique, xxv (1888), 238–79.

Crabtree Adam Gauld Alan also acknowledge Janet as having been the first to formulate the concept of dissociation. Gauld seems not to have noticed that the concept originated as a solution to the problem of post-hypnotic suggestion although he does mention that some researchers, especially L. Loewenfeld, worked on the problem. See Crabtree , From Mesmer to Freud (ref. 5), 307–26; and Gauld, History of hypnotism (ref. 5), on Janet, 369–75, and on Loewenfeld, 454–7.

Janet very likely modelled his automatic writing experiments upon those reported by Myers Frederick W. H. , a founding member of the Society for Psychical Research in London. On the important conceptual debt Janet owed to Myers, see Shamdasani , “Automatic writing” (ref. 26).

See Hacking , Rewriting the soul (ref. 4), 159–70.

For recent work on Charcot and the concept of psychological trauma, see Gasser Jacques , Aux origines du cerveau moderne: Localisations, langage et mémoire dans l'oeuvre de Charcot (Paris, 1995), 217–88; Gauchet Marcel Swain Gladys , Le vrai Charcot: Les chemins imprévus de l'inconscient (Paris, 1997); Hacking , Rewriting the soul (ref. 4), 183–97; Micale Mark , “Charcot and the idea of hysteria in the male: Gender, mental science, and medical diagnosis in late nineteenth-century France”, Medical history, xxxiv (1990), 363–411, pp. 390–1; idem, “Charcot and les névroses traumatiques: Historical and scientific reflections”, Revue neurologique, clx (1994), 498–505.

James William , The principles of psychology (London, 1890), 165 and 203–13.

Prince Morton , The dissociation of a personality: A biographical study in abnormal psychology (New York, 1906).

See Micale Mark , “On the disappearance of hysteria: A study in the clinical deconstruction of a diagnosis”, Isis, lxxxiv (1993), 496–526.

Ellenberger , Discovery (ref. 3), 413.

Hilgard Ernest R. , “A neodissociation interpretation of pain reduction in hypnosis”, Psychological review, lxxx (1973), 396–411.

See also Hilgard , Divided consciousness (ref. 5).

See Hacking , Rewriting the soul (ref. 4). Some of the books generated by the general controversy include: Crews Frederick , The memory wars: Freud's legacy in dispute (New York, 1995); Loftus Elizabeth Ketcham Katherine , The myth of repressed memory: False memories and allegations of sexual abuse (New York, 1994); Nathan D. Snedeker M. , Satan's silence: Ritual abuse and the making of a modern American witch hunt (New York, 1995); Ofshe Richard Watters E. , Making monsters: False memory, psychotherapy, and sexual hysteria (New York, 1994); Pendergrast Mark , Victims of memory: Sex abuse accusations and shattered lives (2nd edn, Hinesberg, 1996); Showalter Elaine , Hystories: Hysterical epidemics and modern culture (New York, 1997).

Schreiber Flora Rheta , Sybil (New York, 1973).

Breuer Joseph Freud Sigmund , “On the psychical mechanism of hysterical phenomena: Preliminary communication”, Standard edition (ref. 3), ii (1893), 3–17.

See American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders , 4th edn [DSM–IV] (Washington, 1994); and Hacking , Rewriting the soul (ref. 4), 39–54.

Binet Alfred , “L'automatisme psychologique”, Revue philosophique, xxix (1890), 186–200; Lalande André , “L'automatisme psychologique”, Revue de l'hypnotisme, iv (1889–90), 363–69; Myers Frederic W. H. , “Professor Pierre Janet's ‘Automatisme psychologique’”, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vi (1889–90), 186–99.

Janet Paul , Principes de métaphysique et de psychologie: Leçons professées à la faculté de lettres de Paris — 1888–1894 (Paris, 1897), 556–72. The critical essay, “L'automatisme psychologique. Janet” M. Pierre , is in the appendix and corresponds to the report he prepared as a jury member of Pierre Janet's doctoral defence.

Ibid., p. vi.

Ibid., p. viii.

Brooks III also notes that Paul Janet “questioned the notion of the split ego” and raised “objections” that were “quite penetrating”, The eclectic legacy (ref. 7), 170, and note 28 on p. 283.

Janet Paul , Principes de métaphysique (ref. 48), 570.

Brooks III , The eclectic legacy (ref. 7), 39.

Cousin Victor , Du vrai, du beau, et du bien (Paris, 1836), 11, cited in Janet Paul , Victor Cousin et son oeuvre (Paris, 1885), 420.

Janet Paul , Principes de métaphysique (ref. 48), 571–2; on eclectic spiritualism, see Brooks John I. III , “Philosophy and psychology at the Sorbonne, 1885–1913”, Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences, xxix (1993), 123–15, and The eclectic legacy (ref. 7).

Janet Paul , “Principes de métaphysique” (ref. 48), 571. See Janet Pierre , “Les actes inconscients et le dédoublement” (ref. 2), 589. One hundred years on, Alan Gauld came to much the same conclusion. In a detailed critique of dissociation, he demonstrated how the concept complicates theoretical matters much more than it simplifies them and urged that we be extremely cautious about accepting evidence for secondary streams of consciousness. But while he criticised dissociation for its implausibility, he nevertheless admited that he “can see no reason for arguing that the concept of a secondary stream of consciousness, or second ‘apperceptive centre’, is incoherent or totally without instantiation”, History of hypnotism (ref. 5), 591–5, p. 595.

Until at least 1898, Janet continued to build upon the general theory of dissociation he advanced in the late 1880s. See especially, “Étude sur un cas d'aboulie et d'idées fixes”, Revue philosophique, xxxi (1891), 258–87, 382–407; “Quelques définitions récentes de l'hystérie”, Archives de neurologie, xxv (1893), 417–38 and xxvi (1893), 1–29; “Histoire d'une idée fixe”, Revue philosophique, xxxvii (1894), 121–68; and Névroses et idées fixes (Paris, 1898).