Pierre Janet
French philosopher, physician and psychologist
French philosopher, physician and psychologist who studied hysteria and psychological automatism, used dissociation and subconscious as technical terms, and held the chair of experimental and comparative psychology at the Collège de France from 1902.
Why this person matters
Janet linked past experiences to present symptoms and described dissociation in the same years that Freud was developing psychoanalysis. Jung and Adler drew on his ideas, and a priority dispute with Freud followed.
Main contributions
Dissociation and automatism
His 1889 philosophy thesis, L'Automatisme psychologique, introduced automatism. He argued that fixed, often traumatic ideas could split off from the main personality and act independently. William James wrote about patients Janet had observed at Le Havre.
Hysteria and psychasthenia
His medical thesis on the mental state of hysterics is dated 1892 in most sources. He described psychasthenia in Les obsessions et la psychasthénie (1903), and The Major Symptoms of Hysteria (1907) came from lectures at Harvard Medical School in late 1906.
Hierarchy of tendencies
He described a hierarchy of nine 'tendencies' of increasing complexity, an ordering of elementary and complete acts of psychic activity.
Context and limits
A priority dispute with Freud emerged at the 1913 Congress of Medicine in London; one account says Janet published related ideas about four years before Freud presented similar findings. Janet worked with Jean-Martin Charcot at the Salpêtrière. Sources differ on the dates of his medical thesis and doctorate (1892 to 1894) and on when he left the Collège de France (1934 or 1936).
In your introductory course
Psychological disorders.Appears in discussions of dissociative disorders and in histories of the unconscious as an alternative to Freud's account.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 15.1. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1889
Defended his philosophy thesis, L'Automatisme psychologique.
- 1892
Completed his medical thesis on the mental state of hysterics (some sources give 1894).
- 1902
Became professor of experimental and comparative psychology at the Collège de France, where he taught until 1936.
- 1907
Published The Major Symptoms of Hysteria from his Harvard lectures.
Sources
- New World Encyclopedia, Pierre JanetReference work. Reference article inspected.
- Encyclopaedia Universalis, Janet, Pierre (1859 to 1947)Reference work. Reference article inspected.
- Wikipedia, Pierre JanetReference work. Reference article inspected.