Pierre Janet

Pierre Marie Félix Janet (May 30 1859 - February 24 1947) was a pioneering French psychologist in the field of dissociation and traumatic memory.

He was one of the first persons to draw a connection between events in the subject's past life and their present day trauma, and coined the words ‘dissociation’ and ‘subconscious’. He studied under Jean-Martin Charcot at the Psychological Laboratory in Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, in Paris. In several ways, he preceded Sigmund Freud. Many consider Janet, rather than Freud, the true 'founder' of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

He first published the results of his research in his philosophy thesis in 1889 and in his medical thesis, L'état mental des hystériques, in 1892.

In 1898 Janet was appointed lecturer in psychology at the Sorbonne, and in 1902 he attained the chair of experimental and comparative psychology at the Collège de France, a position he held until 1936. He was a member of the Institut de France from 1913.

In 1923 he wrote a definitive text, La médecine psychologique, on suggestion and in 1928-32, he published several definitive papers on memory.

Whilst he did not publish much in English, the fifteen lectures he gave to the Harvard Medical School between 15 October and the end of November 1906 were published in 1907 as The Major Symptoms of Hysteria and he received an honorary doctorate from Harvard in 1936.

Works of Pierre Janet

 * La Médecine Psychologique Important book by Pierre Janet. It clarifies what he thought about Suggestion. (PDF download in French)


 * Books by Pierre Janet on line

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