The major symptoms of hysteria : fifteen lectures given in the Medical School of Harvard University [between the fifteenth of October and the end of November, 1906] / by Pierre Janet.

  • Janet, Pierre, 1859-1947.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The major symptoms of hysteria : fifteen lectures given in the Medical School of Harvard University [between the fifteenth of October and the end of November, 1906] / by Pierre Janet. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    somnambulism, and even to remember the principal idea which played a part in this state. Irene, whom I have repeatedly spoken of, had forgotten after the crisis not only the comedy she had played but also her mother's death and illness, which were its starting point. We accepted at that moment, without discussing it, the description of this amnesia, for we did not want to complicate the matter, but in reality that oblivion was very strange. Was it real oblivion, the obliteration of the recollections, the destruction of the images ? By no means, since the patient could be cured and is now able to relate clearly all those events. Was it then the inability to reproduce them? Was it that the brain, while keeping their traces, was nevertheless not able consciously to cause them to reappear? By no means, since the patient had dreadful fits every day during which she recited all the details of the events. In a word, she had forgotten nothing and she had the power to recite everything. Then where was the oblivion? The oblivion consisted only in this, that she could not recite in a waking state, with full consciousness of the other events and of herself. She could relate, it is true, but in a dream, in a delirium, without having at the same time the notion of herself. As soon as she had the personal consciousness of her name, of her situation, she could no longer associate the remembrance in question. We tried to sum this up by saying that somnambulism is not the destruction of an idea but the dissociation of an idea, that has emancipated itself from the ensemble of consciousness, and that the en- semble of consciousness can neither recover nor control.