Chapter 2. History of Dissociation (1) Psychoanalytical Viewpoint (2)

It is really curious that in the history of psychoanalysis, dissociation is dealt with as something quite apart and different from hysteria. If we consider the fact that Freud initially treated hysteria, dissociation should have been one of the main topics in the history of psychoanalysis, but it was not the case. The situation is the same in current psychoanalysis. Hysteria is often the topic of psychoanalytical discussion, although some analysts would feel that hysteria sounds a little obsolete a notion. However, as far as dissociation is concerned, it is treated as something that people should not talk about.

In the fall of 2008, Japanese psychoanalytic association held the annual congress in Tokyo and had a discussion titled “Hysteria rediscovered” in its plenary symposium. This in an attempt to revisit the way hysteria has been discussed since Freud. However, there was practically no mention of dissociation throughout the symposium!!.
In the early period of psychoanalysis, Anna Freud presented twelve defense mechanism in 1937, but dissociation was not counted as one of them. It was not until 1998 that George Vaillant enumerated defense mechanisms in detail and dissociation appeared on the list among one of eight defense mechanism on the neurotic level (Vaillant, 1998). However, Valliant’s study had a nuance of encompassing all the psychological mechanism seen not only in psychoanalysis but also in general psychology.
What I have been trying to state is that dissociation has been implicated since the beginning of the history of psychoanalysis, but it has been practically ostracized from psychoanalytic community. The relationship between dissociation and psychoanalysis is thus paradoxical.