Why was Freud so
much opposed to the idea of “hypnoid state”? Because the latter presupposes the
splitting of the mind, which, according to him was dynamic explanation. Below I quote Freud
the last chapter of the “Studies of Hysteria” (Freud, 1895, p.286)
Now both of us,
Breuer and I, have repeatedly spoken of two other kinds of hysteria,
for which we have introduced the terms ‘hypnoid hysteria’
and ‘retention hysteria’. It was hypnoid hysteria which was the first of all to enter
our field of study. I could not, indeed, find a better example of it than
Breuer's first case, which stands at the head of our case histories. Breuer
has put forward for such cases of hypnoid hysteria a
psychical mechanism which is substantially different from that ofdefence by conversion.
In his view what happens in hypnoid hysteria is
that an idea becomes pathogenic because it has been received during a special
psychical state and has from the first remained outside the ego. No psychical
force has therefore been required in order to keep it apart from the ego and no resistance need be aroused if we introduce it
into the ego with the help of mental activity during somnambulism. And Anna O.'s case history in fact shows no sign of any such resistance.
I regard this distinction as so
important that, on the strength of it, I willingly adhere to this hypothesis of
there being a hypnoid hysteria. Strangely enough, I have never in my
own experience met with a genuine hypnoid hysteria. Any that I took in hand has turned into
a defence hysteria.
It is not, indeed, that I have never had to do with symptoms which demonstrably arose during
dissociated states of consciousness and
were obliged for that reason to remain excluded from the ego. This was
sometimes so in my cases as well; but I was able to show afterwards that the
so-called hypnoid
state owed its separation to the fact that in it a psychical group had come into effect which had
previously been split off by defence. In short, I am unable to suppress a suspicion
that somewhere or other the roots of hypnoid and defencehysteria come together, and that there the
primary factor is defence. But I can say nothing about this. ( Studies of Hysteria,1895, p285., stress
added by Okano)
Freud’s stance is
clearer in his statements found in the “Psychoneuroses of Defense" (1894).
Let me begin with the change which
seems to me to be called for in the theory of the hysterical neurosis.
Since the fine work done by Pierre
Janet, Josef
Breuer and others, it may
be taken as generally recognized that the syndrome of hysteria,
so far as it is as yet intelligible, justifies the
assumption of there being a splitting of consciousness, accompanied by the formation of separate
psychical groups.1 Opinions are less settled, however, about the origin of
this splitting of consciousness and
about the part played by this characteristic in the structure of the hysterical neurosis.
According to the theory of Janet (1892-4 and 1893),
the splitting of consciousness is
a primary feature of the mental change in hysteria. It is based on an innate weakness of the
capacity for psychical synthesis, on the narrowness of the ‘field of consciousness (champ de la
conscience)’ which, in the form of a psychical stigma, is evidence
of the degeneracy of hysterical individuals.
In contradistinction to Janet's
view, which seems to me to admit of a great variety of objections, there is the
view put forward by Breuer in our joint communication(Breuer and Freud,
1893). According to him, ‘the basis and sine quâ non of hysteria’ is the occurrence of peculiar dream-like
states of consciousness with a restricted capacity for association,
for which he proposes the name ‘hypnoid states’. In that case, the splitting of consciousness is secondary and acquired; it comes about because
the ideas which emerge in hypnoid states are cut off from associative communication with the rest of the content of consciousness.2
I am now in a position to bring forward evidence of two other
extreme forms of hysteria in
which it is impossible to regard the splitting of consciousness as primary in Janet's sense. In the
first of these [two further] forms I was repeatedly able to show that the
splitting of the content of consciousness is the result of an act of will on
the part of the patient; that is to say, it is initiated
by an effort of will whose motive can be specified. By this I do not, of
course, mean that the patient intends to bring about a splitting of his consciousness.
His intention is a different one; （Freud, “Psychoneuroses of Defense" 1894, p.46, stress
added by Okano）.
