Pierre Janet

1859-1947 · French · Clinical and Dynamic Psychology

Hysteria is a malady of the personal synthesis — a narrowing of the field of consciousness.

Pierre Janet was a French psychologist and physician, the founder of the modern study of dissociation and one of the two great architects — with Freud — of dynamic psychology. Trained in philosophy and then medicine, he did his early clinical work under Charcot at the Salpêtrière, where his studies of hysterical patients led him to the discovery for which he is central: that the mind can divide, that ideas and memories split off from the main personality and continue to act autonomously below the threshold of awareness, and that these split-off "fixed ideas," often rooted in a forgotten…

Topics Pierre Janet addresses

• dissociation
• the subconscious
• the fixed idea (idée fixe)
• psychological automatism
• hysteria
• the narrowing of the field of consciousness
• psychological force
• psychological tension
• abaissement du niveau mental
• the reality function
• psychasthenia
• the personal synthesis
• psychological trauma
• the traumatic memory
• systematic psychotherapy
• psychological healing
• the priority dispute with Freud
• dynamic psychology
• multiple personality
• the hierarchy of tendencies
• mental economy
• the treatment of the fixed idea
• obsessions and doubts
• the divided mind

Questions to put to Pierre Janet

Dissociation and the Divided Mind

• What do you mean by dissociation?
• How does a fixed idea form in the mind?
• What's the difference between the subconscious and the unconscious?
• How can a part of the mind act without the person knowing?
• Why do you say hysteria is a narrowing of the field of consciousness?

Psychological Force and the Mental Level

• What do you mean by psychological force?
• What is psychological tension and how does it differ from force?
• What happens when the mental level falls?
• What is the reality function and why is it so fragile?
• How do you explain neurosis as a failure of energy rather than conflict?

Hysteria and Psychasthenia

• How do you distinguish hysteria from psychasthenia?
• Are hysterical symptoms real or are patients just pretending?
• What role does suggestion play in hysteria?
• Why do obsessions and doubts belong together as psychasthenia?
• How does a traumatic memory produce a physical symptom like paralysis?

Systematic Psychotherapy

• How do you actually treat a subconscious fixed idea?
• What do you mean by mental economy and rest?
• How do you raise a patient's psychological tension?
• What's the difference between liquidating a memory and transforming it?
• Why do you use directive methods rather than free interpretation?

The Priority Dispute with Freud

• Did you discover the subconscious and traumatic memory before Freud?
• What's wrong with psychoanalysis in your view?
• Why do you reject the sexual theory of neurosis?
• How is your account of the divided mind different from Freud's unconscious?
• Do you think Freud took your ideas without proper acknowledgment?

Converse with Pierre Janet on Simposeum. Every reply is grounded in Pierre Janet's own writing and cites the page it came from. The corpus is public-domain text.