View source for Pierre Janet

{{Short description|French physician and psychologist (1859–1947)}}
{{for|the 19th-century French bibliographer|Pierre Jannet (bibliographer)}}
{{Expand French|topic=bio|Pierre Janet|date=June 2012}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Pierre Janet
| image             = Photo of Pierre Janet.jpg
| caption           = 
| birth_name        = Pierre Marie Félix Janet
| birth_date        = {{birth date|1859|5|30|df=y}}
| birth_place       = [[Paris]], France
| death_date        = {{death date and age|1947|2|24|1859|5|30|df=y}}
| death_place       = Paris, France
| residence         = 
| citizenship       = 
| field             = [[Psychology]], [[philosophy]], [[psychiatry]]
| education         = [[École Normale Supérieure]] ([[B.A.]], 1882)<br>[[University of Paris]] ([[Ph.D]]. 1889; [[M.D.]], 1893)
| work_institutions = [[Collège de France]] (1902–1934)<br>[[University of Paris]] (1898–1902)<br>[[Salpêtrière Hospital]] (1890–1910)
| doctoral_advisor  = 
| doctoral_students = 
| known_for         = 
}}
{{Hypnosis|key}}

'''Pierre Marie Félix Janet''' ({{IPAc-en|ʒ|ɑː|ˈ|n|eɪ}}; {{IPA|fr|ʒanɛ|lang}}; 30 May 1859 &ndash; 24 February 1947) was a pioneering French [[psychologist]], physician, philosopher, and [[psychotherapist]] in the field of [[dissociation (psychology)|dissociation]] and [[Psychological trauma|traumatic memory]].

He is ranked alongside [[William James]] and [[Wilhelm Wundt]] as one of the founding fathers of psychology.<ref>Graham F. Reed, 'Janet, Pierre', in Richard Gregory ed., ''The Oxford Companion to the Mind'' (1987) p. 397</ref> He was the first to introduce the link between past experiences  and present-day disturbances and was noted for his studies involving induced [[Sleepwalking|somnambulism]].<ref name="Blunden-2012">{{Cite book |last=Blunden |first=Andy |author-link=Andy Blunden |title=Concepts: A Critical Approach |publisher=BRILL |year=2012 |isbn=978-90-04-22847-4 |location=Leiden |pages=211 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Foschi |first1=Renato |title=A Critical History of Psychotherapy, Volume 1: From Ancient Origins to the Mid 20th Century |last2=Innamorati |first2=Marco |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-000-76750-6 |location=New York, NY |language=en}}</ref>

==Biography==
Janet studied under [[Jean-Martin Charcot]] at the Psychological Laboratory in the [[Salpêtrière Hospital]] in [[Paris]].<ref name="Blunden-2012" /> He first published the results of his research in his philosophy thesis in 1889 and in his medical thesis, ''L'état mental des hystériques'', in 1892. He earned a medical doctorate the following year after completing a study on the mental state of hysterics.<ref name="Rich-2015">{{Cite book |last1=Rich |first1=Grant J. |title=Pathfinders in International Psychology |last2=Gielen |first2=Uwe |publisher=IAP |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-68123-144-0 |location=Charlotte, NC |pages=55 |language=en}}</ref>

In 1898, Janet was appointed lecturer in psychology at the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne.]]<ref name="Zuylen-2018">{{Cite book |last=Zuylen |first=Marina Van |title=Monomania: The Flight from Everyday Life in Literature and Art |publisher=Cornell University Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-5017-1745-1 |location=Ithaca, NY |pages=21, 22 |language=en}}</ref> In 1901, he founded the French Psychological Society<ref name="Rich-2015" /> and a year later he attained the chair of experimental and comparative psychology at the [[Collège de France]], a position he held until 1936. He was a member of the [[Institut de France]] from 1913, and was a central figure in French psychology in the first half of the 20th century.<ref>E. Roudinesco, ''Jacques Lacan'' (2005) p.16–21.</ref> He was elected an international honorary member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1932,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Pierre Marie Felix Janet |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/pierre-marie-felix-janet |access-date=2023-05-01 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |date=9 February 2023 |language=en}}</ref> a member of the United States [[National Academy of Sciences]] in 1938,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Pierre Janet |url=http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/deceased-members/20001315.html |access-date=2023-05-01 |website=www.nasonline.org}}</ref> and an international member of the [[American Philosophical Society]] in 1940.<ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Pierre+Janet&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2023-05-01 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref>

==Theories==
Janet was one of the first people to allege a connection between events in a subject's past life and their present-day trauma, and coined the words "[[dissociation (psychology)|dissociation]]"<ref>O. L. Zangwill, 'Hypnotism, history of', in Gregory ed., p. 332</ref> and "[[subconscious]]".<ref>Henri F. Ellenberger, ''The Discovery of the Unconscious'' (1970) p. 147 and p. 406.</ref> His study of the "magnetic passion" or "rapport" between the patient and the hypnotist anticipated later accounts of the [[transference]] phenomenon.<ref>Peter Gay, ''Freud: A Life for Our Time'' (1988) p. 50.</ref>

The 20th century saw Janet developing a grand model of the mind in terms of levels of energy, efficiency and social competence, which he set out in publications including ''Obsessions and Psychasthenia'' (1903) and ''From Anguish to Ecstasy'' (1926), among others.<ref>Ellenberger, p. 386</ref> In its concern for the construction of the personality in social terms, this model has been compared to the social [[behaviorism]] of [[George Herbert Mead]]<ref>Ellenberger, p. 405–406.</ref> something which explains [[Jacques Lacan|Lacan]]'s early praise of "Janet, who demonstrated so admirably the signification of feelings of persecution as phenomenological moments in social behaviour".<ref>Jacques Lacan, ''Écrits: A Selection'' (1997) p. 17.</ref>

===Developmental hierarchy===
Janet established a developmental model of the mind in terms of a hierarchy of nine "tendencies" of increasingly complex organisational levels.<ref>Reed, p. 398.</ref>

He detailed four "lower tendencies", rising from the "reflexive" to the "elementary intellectual"; two "middle tendencies", involving language and the social world; and three "higher tendencies", the "rational-ergotic" world of work, and the "experimental and progressive tendencies".<ref>Ellenberger, p. 387–394.</ref>

According to Janet, [[neurosis]] could be seen as a failure to integrate, or a regression to earlier tendencies,<ref>Red, p. 398</ref> and he defined [[subconscious]]ness as "an act which has kept an inferior form amidst acts of a higher level".<ref>Quoted in Ellenberger, p. 387.</ref> Janet also introduced the concept of ''idee fixe'' during his research and dialogues with patients. Here, the subconscious, is considered the root of all hysterical manifestations.<ref name="Evans-2019">{{Cite book |last=Evans |first=Martha |title=Fits and Starts: A Genealogy of Hysteria in Modern France |publisher=Cornell University Press |year=2019 |isbn=978-0-8014-2643-8 |location=Ithaca, New York |pages=58 |language=en}}</ref> It constitutes the nucleus of the second state of personality, which he called as ''[[État second|etat second]]''.<ref name="Evans-2019" />

==Influence on depth psychology==
[[File:PierreJanet.jpg|thumb|260px|{{center|Pierre Janet, by [[Dornac]]}}]]

===William James===
In his 1890 essay ''The Hidden Self'',<ref>{{cite journal |last=James |first=William |year=1890|title= The Hidden Self |publisher=Scribner's Magazine Vol. 7 Issue 3 |url=http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=scri;cc=scri;rgn=full%20text;idno=scri0007-3;didno=scri0007-3;view=image;seq=369;node=scri0007-3%3A7;page=root;size=100 |pages=361–373 |access-date=March 30, 2014}}</ref> [[William James]] wrote of P. Janet's observations of "[[Hysteria|hysterical]] [[somnambulist]]" patients at Havre Hospital, detailed in Janet's 1889 doctorate of letters thesis, ''De l'Automatisme Psychologique''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Janet |first=Pierre |year=1899 |title=De l'Automatisme Psychologique |trans-title=Of Psychological Automatism |url=https://archive.org/details/lautomatismepsyc00jane |language=fr |access-date=March 31, 2014}}</ref> James made note of various aspects of [[Automatism (medical)|automatism]] and the apparent multiple personalities ("two selves") of patients variously exhibiting "trances, subconscious states" or alcoholic [[delirium tremens]]. James was apparently fascinated by these manifestations and said, "How far the splitting of the mind into separate conciousnesses may obtain in each one of us is a problem. P. Janet holds that it is only possible where there is an abnormal weakness, and consequently a defect of unifying or coordinating power."{{Citation needed|date=May 2023}}

===Freud===
Controversy over whose ideas came first, Janet's or [[Sigmund Freud]]'s, emerged at the 1913 Congress of Medicine in London.<ref name="Ellenberger, p. 817">Ellenberger, p. 817</ref> Prior to that date, Freud had freely acknowledged his debt to Janet, particularly in his work with [[Josef Breuer]], writing for example of "the theory of hysterical phenomena first put forward by P. Janet and elaborated by Breuer and myself".<ref>Sigmund Freud, ''On Metapsychology'' (PFL 11) p. 52.</ref> He stated further that "we followed his example when we took the splitting of the mind and dissociation of the personality as the centre of our position", but he was also careful to point out where "the difference lies between our view and Janet's".<ref>Sigmund Freud, ''Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis'' (1995) p. 25–33.</ref>

Writing in 1911 of the [[Neurosis|neurotic]]'s withdrawal from reality, Freud stated: "Nor could a fact like this escape the observation of Pierre Janet; he spoke of a loss of 'the function of reality'",<ref>Freud, ''Metapsychology'', p. 35.</ref> and as late as 1930, Freud drew on Janet's expression "psychological poverty" in his work on civilisation.<ref>Sigmund Freud, ''Civilization, Society and Religion'' (PFL 12) p. 306–307.</ref>

However, in his report on psychoanalysis in 1913, Janet argued that many of the novel terms of psychoanalysis were only old concepts renamed, even down to the way in which his own "psychological analysis" preceded Freud's "psychoanalysis".<ref name="Ellenberger, p. 817"/> This provoked angry attacks from Freud's followers, and thereafter Freud's own attitude towards Janet cooled. In his lectures of 1915-16, Freud said that "for a long time I was prepared to give Janet very great credit for throwing light on neurotic symptoms, because he regarded them as expressions of ''idées inconscientes'' which dominated the patients".  However, after what Freud saw as his backpedalling in 1913, he said, "I think he has unnecessarily forfeited much credit".<ref>Sigmund Freud, ''Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis'' (PFL 1) p. 296.</ref>

The charge of plagiarism stung Freud especially. In his autobiographical sketch of 1925, he denied firmly that he had plagiarized Janet,<ref>Freud, Sigmund  ''An Autobiographical Study'' WW Norton and Company 1989 page 11</ref> and as late as 1937, he refused to meet Janet on the grounds that "when the libel was spread by French writers that I had listened to his lectures and stolen his ideas he could with a word have put an end to such talk"<ref>Quoted in Ernest Jones, ''The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud'' (1964) p. 633</ref> but did not.

A balanced judgement might be that Janet's ideas, as published, did indeed form part of Freud's starting point, but that Freud subsequently developed them substantively in his own fashion.<ref>Ellenberger, p.539–540.</ref>

===Jung===
[[Carl Jung]] studied with Janet in Paris in 1902<ref>Gay, p. 198</ref> and was much influenced by him, for example equating what he called a [[Complex (psychology)|complex]]  with Janet's ''idée fixe subconsciente''.<ref>Ellenberger, p. 149.</ref>

Jung's view of the mind as "consisting of an indefinite, because unknown, number of complexes or fragmentary personalities"<ref>Quoted in Neville Symington, ''Narcissism: A New Theory'' (1993) p. 20</ref> built upon what Janet in ''Psychological Automatism'' called "simultaneous psychological existences".<ref>Ellenberger, p. 406.</ref>

Jung wrote of the debt owed to "Janet for a deeper and more exact knowledge of [[Hysteria|hysterical symptoms]]", and talked of "the achievements of Janet, [[Théodore Flournoy|Flournoy]], Freud and others"<ref>C. Jung, ''The Practice of Psychotherapy'' (1993) p. 112 and p. 139.</ref> in exploring the [[Unconscious mind|unconscious]].

===Adler===
[[Alfred Adler]] openly derived his [[inferiority complex]] concept from Janet's ''Sentiment d'incomplétude'',<ref>Reed, p. 398</ref> and the two men cited each other's work on the issue in their writings.<ref>O. Brachfeld, ''Inferiority Feeling in the Individual and the Group'' (2000) p. 53</ref>

==Publications==
In 1923, Janet wrote a definitive text on [[suggestion]], ''La médecine psychologique'', and in 1928-32 published several definitive papers on memory. His two-volume ''Obsessions et la psychastenie'' also proposed more than 60 different kinds of obsessions.<ref name="Zuylen-2018" />

While Janet did not publish much in English, the 15 lectures that he gave at [[Harvard Medical School]] between 15 October and the end of November 1906 were published in 1907 as ''The Major Symptoms of Hysteria''.  He received an honorary doctorate from Harvard University in 1936.

Of his great synthesis of human psychology, [[Henri Ellenberger]] wrote that "this requires about twenty books and several dozen of articles".<ref>Ellenberger, p. 387.</ref>

==See also==
{{Columns-list|colwidth=30em|
* [[Alfred Binet]]
* [[Henri Bergson]]
* [[Henri Ey]]
* [[Henri Piéron]]
* [[Jean Piaget]]
* [[Josiah Royce]]
* [[Loevinger's stages of ego development]]
}}

== References ==
{{Reflist|22em}}

==Further reading==
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
* Brooks III, J. I. (1998). ''The eclectic legacy. Academic philosophy  and the human sciences  in nineteenth - century France''. Newark: University of Delaware Press.
* Carroy, J. & Plas, R. (2000) . How Pierre Janet used pathological psychology to save the philosophical self.  ''Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences'', 36, 231-240.
* Foschi, R. (2003) 'La Psicologia Sperimentale e Patologica di Pierre Janet e la Nozione di Personalità (1885–1900)', [http://www.polistampa.com/asp/sl.asp?id=3271 ''Medicina & Storia''], 5, 45-68.
* Johnson, George M. ''Dynamic Psychology in Modernist British Fiction''.  Palgrave Macmillan, U.K., 2006.
* LeBlanc, A. (2001). The Origins of the Concept of Dissociation: Paul Janet, his Nephew Pierre, and the Problem of Post-hypnotic Suggestion, ''History of Science'', 39, 57-69.
* LeBlanc, A. (2004). Thirteen Days: Joseph Delboeuf versus Pierre Janet on the Nature of Hypnotic Suggestion, ''Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences'', 40, 123-147.
* Lombardo G.P, Foschi R. (2003). The Concept of Personality between 19th Century France and 20th Century American Psychology. History of Psychology, vol. 6; 133-142, {{ISSN|1093-4510}}, {{doi|10.1037/1093-4510.6.2.123}}
* Serina F. (2020) « Janet-Schwartz-Ellenberger: the history of a triangular relationship through their unpublished correspondence » History of Psychiatry, 31, 1, p.&nbsp;3-20.   {{doi|10.1177/0957154X19877601}}
{{div col end}}

==External links==
{{wikisource|works=or}}
{{Commons category}}

===About Pierre Janet===
*[http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/2467.html Short biography]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20050402130032/http://www.sidran.org/refs/ref12.html Bibliographic site]
*[http://www.trauma-pages.com/a/vdhart-89.php Reading guide]
*[http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Janet/murchison.htm "Autobiography" of his early years]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20061118162825/http://buildfreedom.com/tl/tl04ab.html Pierre Janet & the 'Reality Function']
* [http://pierre-janet.com/JanetianStudiesBody.htm JANETIAN STUDIES electronic journal of the Institut Pierre Janet]

===Works of Pierre Janet===
* [http://neuroclusterbrain.com/books/Pierre_Janet/Pierre_Janet_-_Psychological_Automatism_%281903%29.doc Psychological Automatism: Essay of Experimental Psychology on the Lower Forms of Human Activity] Doctorate of Science thesis of Pierre Janet.
* [http://www.pnl-nlp.org/download/medecinepsychologique/ La Médecine Psychologique] Important book by Pierre Janet. It clarifies what he thought about Suggestion. (PDF download) {{in lang|fr}}
* [http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/janet_pierre/janet_pierre.html Books by Pierre Janet on line] {{in lang|fr}}
* {{Librivox author |id=14507}}

{{Psychotherapy}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Janet, Pierre}}
[[Category:1859 births]]
[[Category:1947 deaths]]
[[Category:French hypnotists]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the Collège de France]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Paris]]
[[Category:Harvard Medical School people]]
[[Category:École Normale Supérieure alumni]]
[[Category:French psychiatrists]]
[[Category:19th-century psychologists]]
[[Category:20th-century French psychologists]]
[[Category:Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:International members of the American Philosophical Society]]