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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    developed in the mind and in the brain of our patient Irene. Each point is connected with the others, so one cannot excite the first without giving birth to the second, and the entire system has a tendency to develop itself to the utmost. But at the same time in healthy minds these systems pertaining to each idea are connected with an infinitely wider system of which they are only a part, — the system of our entire consciousness, of our entire individuality. The remembrance of the mother's death, even the affection Irene feels for her mother, with all the memo- ries that are connected with it, forms only a part of the whole consciousness of the young girl with all its memo- ries and other tendencies. Let this large circle, P, near the little polygon represent the whole personality of the girl, the memory of all that happened in her previous life. Normally, in good health, the little system must be connected with the large one, and must in great part depend on it. Generally the partial system remains subject to the laws of the total system: it is called up only when the whole consciousness is willing, and within the limits in which this consciousness allows it. Now, to picture to ourselves what has taken place during somnambulism, we may adopt a simple provi- sional resume. Things happen as if an idea, a partial system of thoughts, emancipated itself, became inde- pendent and developed itself on its own account. The result is, on one hand, that it develops far too much, and, on the other hand, that consciousness appears no longer to control it. That general remark may still