Pierre Janet and Félida Artificielle: multiple personality in a nineteenth-century guise.
In the wake of the recent epidemic of multiple personality phenomena, it is important to get a clear idea of what similar phenomena looked like in previous centuries. Pierre Janet's detailed description of his discovery, made during the 1880s, that he could cure hysteria by creating a healthy second personality offers a close look at a form of multiple personalities very different from what has recently been described. His description of the factors that influenced his discovery allow one to see his work in a historical context and to appreciate his confrontation with the paradoxes that this discovery revealed.
Brown
Edward M
EM
Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.
D003244:Consciousness Disorders / Q000266:history*; D009105:Dissociative Identity Disorder / Q000266:history*; D005602:France; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D006990:Hypnosis; D007046:Hysteria / Q000266:history* / Q000628:therapy; D011572:Psychoanalysis / Q000266:history*; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D013009:Somnambulism / Q000266:history