Janet’s acumen is remarkable, that he understood the essence of
dissociation so early on, as he wrote his thesis in 1887 (Dell, 2009). Janet
proposed an idea that he calls second law of dissociation” and asserts that
when dissociation occurs,” the unity of the primary personality remains
unchanged; nothing breaks away, nothing is split off. Instead, dissociated
experiences … were always, from the instant of their occurrence, assigned to,
and associated with the second system within.”(Dell, 2009. p.716) His statement
is quite amazing as he is not really talking about the splitting of
consciousness. The second system (and off course he acknowledges that there can
be more than two, (Dell, p. 717.) that we call PP is created de nouveau as “nothing
breaks away.” Dells points out a very important point, that due to this
conviction, Janet was totally opposed to Freud’s notion of unconscious, as he
believes that all psychological acts require consciousness (p.716). Instead, I
believe that Janet’s belief gives us some insight into why Freud could not even
accept the idea of splitting of consciousness. He never came to believe that a
part of the mind is broken away and form another conscious. It should still stay
within his/her mind somewhere, that he named unconscious. Paradoxically enough,
Freud and Janet might have been agreeing with each other on a point; a mind
does not usually split into pieces, like tearing off a block of clay into
pieces. This might lead to an essential question. For this reason, perhaps, Janet used
the term “doubling of consciousness” (dédoublement de conscience) in the sense of
multiplicity while “double” has two meaning. Obviously,Janet use the term “double”
in the sense of multiplication.
It is to note that Janet’s view
of the “second law” invites some criticism, especially by those who give some
credit to Freud’s view of splitting of consciousness. Freud thought that it is “an
active struggling on the part of the two psychical groupings against each other”
(Freud, 1910, pp.25-26). In contrast, in Janet's view the
real and active splitting never really occurs as in his belief, the material that
falls into the subconscious never entered the primary consciousness in the first
place (Dell, D book, p.733). Dell (733) states that clinical data
occasionally confronts Jane’s view as in some cases, parts of the personal
conscious are actually split off. He gives an example of a traumatic event in
which some closely related events that had unquestionably been experienced by
the person happens to be taken away into the second trauma-based conscious (or
PP). The modern study of trauma indicates some insight into this type of
phenomena. When a trauma occurs, our brain would recruit a more primitive
neural circuit where death-feigning dissociative process dominates (Porges,
2011). Where new system that Janet calls “subconscious” gets activated and
process the information whereas the “primary conscious” shuts off.
Porges, W. S (2011) The
Polyvagal Theory. W.W. Norton & Company, New York USA
In these circumstances, the memories which have not be consolidated into
a long term memory could get registered to either the first or the second (or
both) system. Janet’s “second law” appears to be still tenable of memories of
an experience which might be settled in the first system would end up being in
the second system during these chaotic and confused state of mind.
でも結局意識のスプリッティングってどういうことなんだ? 考えれば考えるほどわからなくなる。
