2016年9月20日火曜日

Toward the theory of “Dissociation with capital D” ④

Historical review

The controversy around the notion of dissociation dates back to Freud. The more we explore his views on dissociation, the deeper we are impressed how much Freud attempted to distance himself from the idea. It was already obvious in the “Studies of Hysteria”that he co-authored with Joseph Breuer, far before his well known conflict with Pierre Janet on the topic. What is remarkable is that Freud’s attitude toward dissociation as well as dissociative patients replicates itself in current psychoanalysis.
 When Freud realized that many hysterical patients suffered from childhood abuse and trauma, he nudged Breuer into writing the book with him. Freud proposed that there are different types of hysteria, such as hypnoid hysteria as well as retention hysteria and defense hysterial. However, his dissatisfaction with Breuer's idea of hypnoid (dissociative) state was obvious in the same book. He later made it clearer in “Dora’s case” as follows.

I should like to take this opportunity of stating that the hypothesis of ‘hypnoid states’—which many reviewers were inclined to regard as the central portion of our work—sprang entirely from the initiative of Breuer. I regard the use of such a term as superfluous and misleading, because it interrupts the continuity of the problem as to the nature of the psychological process accompanying the formation of hysterical symptoms. Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (1905) P27