Chapter 3. History of Dissociation (2) From Hysteria to Dissociation (14)

Freud and Janet: major difference in their views
In the end of this chapter, I would like to mention the difference of opinion, or conflict rather, between Freud and Janet. They lived almost in the same period of the history. Both were heavily influenced by Charcot at the beginning of their careers. They were aware of each other’s work, and they exchanged their views to some degree. However, their basic concepts were very different, and their steps grew further apart as they went along in their careers. Janet established a theory of dissociation that is still revisited by modern scholars. Freud was conscious of Janet’s works, but could not grasp their clinical importance. In a sense, Freud’s criticism on Janet’s study demonstrated the limitation of psychoanalytic theory.
Freud and Janet both inherited trauma theory from their teacher Charcot. However, Freud’s trauma theory (“seduction theory”) was very different from Janet’s. Freud’s main concern was the patient’s libidinal excitement brought about by chance via the adult’s “sexual seduction”. Freud’s concern was what was happening inside of the patient’s mind while Janet’s concern was any traumatic stress inflicted from exterior.
In 1909, in his “Five Lecture of Psychoanalysis” (1909 Freud clarified the difference of his view from Janet’s.

You will now see in what it is that the difference lies between our view and Janet’s. We do not derive the psychical splitting from an innate incapacity for synthesis on the part of the mental apparatus; we explain it dynamically, from the conflict of opposing mental forces and recognize it as the outcome of an active struggling on the part of the two psychical groupings against each other.(SE 11, p26)