Pierre Janet, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
Psychological automatism is what remains of mental life when the personal synthesis has failed — when the higher, voluntary functions can no longer gather and hold the phenomena of the mind into a unified self, and what is left acts on its own, without the knowledge or direction of the person. The clearest mark of an automatic act is its repetition of the past.
A voluntary act, by contrast, is new: it reunites and synthesises psychological elements not previously grouped in precisely that way, and it is conscious — connected at every point with the idea we have of our own personality.1 Automatism is the inverse of this: it reproduces what has already been formed, by associations laid down long ago, without any fresh synthesis, and it is performed without personal perception.
The case of Bertha illustrates this with some exactness. Under suggestion she caresses a dog she believes to be on her knees, and she appears to have a certain mental activity — but examine her closely and the personal self has effectively vanished. She cannot tell her name, her age, where she is; the totality of sensations and recollections constituting her personality has disappeared, leaving only the one all-dominating idea.
She is not present in the act she is performing.2 The theoretical distinction that underlies this is one I drew carefully: the automatic association of ideas is one thing, and the synthesis which forms personal perception at each moment — the very idea of the Ego — is another.3 The former is an elementary synthesis already accomplished, connecting phenomena with each other once and for all.
The latter is an actual synthesis, repeated at every instant by a continued effort, bringing all produced phenomena back to the unity of the Ego. The patient may lose personal perception entirely while the old automatic associations remain undisturbed — and it is precisely those undisturbed associations that then act without her, producing movements, images, and effects she does not will and of which she is ignorant.
Hysterical patients report this with a characteristic phrase: "It is not I that walk; it is my legs which walk quite alone." This dissociation of the personal from the automatic appears again in the motor disturbances.4 When Maria or Isabella performs a movement consciously and voluntarily, the hand goes at hazard; but when the same act is induced in a subconscious manner, the unconscious arm rises and touches the target directly.5
The indecision exists only in the personal and conscious act. The automatic execution is, in its own domain, precise — because it does not require the effortful synthesis that personal consciousness demands and can no longer sustain. Further, the hysteric can consciously make but one movement at a time; the field of consciousness has contracted to the point where it cannot hold several simultaneous acts together.6
In the paralyses the same logic applies. Brodie observed that in hysterical paralysis it is not the muscles that fail to obey the will — it is the will itself that does not enter into the action; the patient does not make the initial effort, does not even form the representation of the act.7 What has dissociated itself is the idea — in the broad sense I give that word — of the movement, the ensemble of kinaesthetic and motor images that would normally be synthesised into a voluntary act.
Psychological automatism, then, is not disorder in the sense of chaos. It is the orderly functioning of the lower levels of mental life after the higher synthesis has given way — the mind acting from habit, from old association, from subconscious fixed ideas, without the person who should be directing it. The science of these acts, their forms and their laws, is what I set out to establish.
A voluntary act is an act, at least to some extent, new, which, to adapt itself to new circumstances, reunites, synthesises certain psychological elements not as yet exactly grouped in that manner. It is, in the second place, a conscious and personal act; this act is in every respect connected with the idea we have of our personality.The Mental State of Hystericals
she can no longer tell us her name, nor her age, nor her costume; she does not know any more where she is; she does not remember anything at all. In a word, the totality of sensations and recollections which constituted her personality seem to have disappeared, or rather there seems to be no longer any personality at all.The Mental State of Hystericals
The automatic association of ideas is one thing, and the synthesis which forms the personal perception at each moment of life and the very idea of the Ego is another. The latter may be destroyed, while the former remains.The Mental State of Hystericals
It is not I that walk; it is my legs which walk quite alone.The Mental State of Hystericals
If Maria or Isabella puts her hand to her ear consciously and voluntarily, the hand goes at hazard and strikes her hair; but if, by the processes already described, we induce the performance of this same act in a subconscious manner, the unconscious arm is raised and touches the ear directly.The Mental State of Hystericals
the hysterical is no longer capable of executing complex acts, acts which necessitate simultaneously several different movements. The patient can consciously make but one movement at a time.The Mental State of Hystericals
Brodie had already said: 'In hysterical paralysis, it is not the muscles which do not obey the will, it is the will itself which does not enter into the action.'The Major Symptoms of Hysteria