The concept of hysteria.

In this study, the author noted how Pierre Janet studied hysteria based on observations concerning anaesthesia, to evaluate and confirm the significance of the effect of suggestion. Pierre Janet remarked: "For each sensation that arises within us, there is an accompanying dual operation of assimilation and synthesis." In hysterical anaesthesia, the existence of certain affective states outside the state of consciousness is observed. Janet considered that certain ideas take on a particular importance, and that there is a tendency to reproduce or recreate an organised system of images from the past; this process is qualified by Charcot as the dissociation of mental unity. In parallel to the studies of Freud, Janet emphasises the traumatic etiology and symbolic dimension of the hysterical symptom. The states of somnambulism or doubling of the personality constitute a psychic organisation in which a second personality focussed on an unconscious fixation coexists with the first. This model is the basis for Janet's conception of hysteria. Given the precision of his clinical observations, Janet was able to clearly disengage himself from references to magic or voluntary simulation. Although he was not able to recognise the primary process underlying these unconscious representations, he provided a significant confirmation of Charcot's hypotheses in which hysteria is considered to be a real mental illness. G. Parcheminey considers that "psychonanalysis has developed from the abandon of hypnosis and the negation of the clinical aspect of hysterical dissociative states";his article also raises the question of the clinical aspect of hysterical dissociative disorders (C) 1999 Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.