54
THE UNCONSCIOUS
SEES THE MEN BEHIND
THE CURTAINS
PIERRE JANET (1859 –1947)
IN CONTEXT
APPROACH
Neurological scienceBEFORE
1878 Jean-Martin Charcot
in Diseases of the Nervous
System describes the
symptoms of hysteria, then
considered to be a distinct,
biological illness.AFTER
1895 Sigmund Freud suggests
that dissociation is one of the
mind’s defense mechanisms.1900s American neurologist
Morton Prince suggests
that there is a spectrum of
dissociative disorders.1913 French naturalist J.P.F.
Deleuze describes dissociation
as being like the formation of
two distinct people—one of
them fully awake, and the
other in a trancelike state.1977 Ernest R. Hilgard's
Divided Consciousness
discusses the splitting up of
consciousness by hypnosis.If someone shows
physiological signs
of terror or distress for
no apparent reason......they may be caused
by a subconscious idea......that therapy reveals
to be related to an earlier
traumatic incident.This may in severe cases
lead to dissociation—the
existence of two
separate consciousnesses.B
etween around 1880 and
1910, there was a great deal
of interest in the condition
of “dissociation”—the separation of
some mental processes from
a person's conscious mind, or
normal everyday personality. Mild
dissociation, in which the world
seems “dreamlike” and “unreal,” is
common, and affects most people
at some time or other. It is often
caused by illnesses, such as flu, or
drugs, including alcohol, and may
lead to a partial or complete loss of
memory during and after the period
of dissociation. In rare cases of
what was then described as
multiple personality disorder, a
person appears to have two or
more distinct personalities. Such
extreme examples are now classified
as “dissociative identity disorder.”
The French philosopher and
physician Pierre Janet is credited
with being the first person to study
and describe dissociation as a
psychiatric condition. In the late
1880s and early 1890s, he worked
at the Salpêtrière hospital in Paris,
where he treated patients who
were suffering from “hysteria.” He
published case studies of several
women who showed extreme
symptoms. A patient called