Pierre Janet, Sigmund Freud and Charcot’s Psychological and Psychiatric Legacy

Abstract

A key moment in the history of psychiatry occurred during Charcot's time at La Salpêtriere. Though his studies on hysteria and hypnotism, the founder of neurology inspired the work of two of his alumni: a Viennese Nervenartz and a French philosopher interested in the dissociation of personality. Even though neither of them was originally an alienist, their respective work allowed the field of neurosis--then belonging to internal medicine--to pass to psychiatry. The parallel lives of these frères enemis, both of whom were treated differently by fame, developed inside a very complex cultural and scientific milieu. Therefore, it is necessary to consider them together with other physicians, some of whom are much less well-known nowadays, who one way or another carried Charcot's influence into psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy. The fates of the Dioscuri have been reversed--the fame and success of Freudian psychoanalysis ran parallel to Janet's oblivion and his long 'purgatory', but now the 'renaissance' of his work coincides with the decline of psychoanalysis as a theoretical explanation for mental pathology.