Le trauma et l’émotion : apports de la théorie janetienne et perspectives nouvelles

Abstract

The current designs of trauma associate a symptomatology with specific characteristics of an event. Symptomatology is characterized by a syndrome of repetition regarded as pathognomonic. It consists of a reviviscence of the traumatic experiment in the form of flashback, nightmares, lived “as if” in an intrusive way in psychism of the subject. Current research showed that there exist a dissociative experience made up of depersonalization or derealisation whose, presence at the time of the experience, could predict the gravity of the trauma. This peri-traumatic dissociation is brought closer to dissociation such as defined Janet and which consists of a psychic disintegration. This one comprises a reduction of the field of the conscience and a difficulty of synthesis due to an emotional upheaval. Currently, work of Frijda (1985) around the function of the emotions and their consideration in terms of motivation can help us to give to dissociation a specific direction. This one would not be then related any more to disintegration, but would approach a radical psychic avoidance. This avoidance would be the characteristic of a specific emotion, the fright, whose tendency would be a dissociative motivation. This hypothesis rests on the distinction of the psychic trauma of another trauma such as it appears in hysteria and that Janet considered without distinction. The trauma would result then in to fix the images and the feelings associated with experience. The repetition would appear by the reappearance of this fixing when the state of consciousness of the individual changes. We see how the concept of dissociation at Janet enables us, by his complexity, to consider in a new light the question of the trauma and its demonstrations. It implies that the psychopathological demonstrations are studied in any rigor beyond the a priori which too often lead us to create an ad hoc mechanism to explain a phenomenon. The reference to work of Janet within the framework of current research opens new prospects of research around a definition of the trauma, place of peri-traumatic dissociation and post-traumatic dissociation, emotions and repetition.