Charcot and Les névroses traumatiques: scientific and historical reflections

Journal of the History of the Neurosciences
M S Micale

Abstract

Between 1878 and 1893, Jean-Martin Charcot published over twenty detailed case histories dealing with what he termed 'traumatic hysteria' and what today would be labelled the psychoneurology of trauma. Charcot's cases record a highly diverse clinique tableau of symptoms. Etiologically, Charcot posited a dual model of a hereditary diathèse, or constitutional predilection to nervous degeneration, and an environmental agent provocateur. Increasingly during the 1880s, he emphasized the role of 'psychical shock'. These writings of Charcot also exhibit many of the same, superb clinical qualities that distinguish his work on other medical topics. Charcot isolated several hystero-traumatic formations and provided outstanding clinical depictions of subgenres of the disorder, most notably brachial monoplegias. His clinical demonstrations of the differential diagnosis of organic and functional post-traumatic pathologies represent Charcot the virtuoso neurologist at his finest. Taken together, these writings offer a penetrating exploration of the complex and elaborate functional sequelae of minor bodily injury and the phenomenon of traumatic psychogenic somatic symptom-formation. The revival today of medical interest in psycho-traumatic pa...Continue Reading

References

Dec 1, 1992·The British Journal of Psychiatry : the Journal of Mental Science·B P Gersons, I V Carlier
Dec 22, 1984·British Medical Journal·E M Critchley, H E Cantor
Sep 1, 1993·Isis; an International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences·M S Micale
Apr 1, 1961·British Medical Journal·H MILLER

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Citations

Mar 25, 2011·Brain : a Journal of Neurology·Holger Steinberg
Apr 22, 2009·Journal of Psychosomatic Research·Jon StoneMichael Sharpe
Aug 31, 2016·Annual Review of Psychology·Andrea Danese, Jessie R Baldwin
Jan 1, 1997·Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association·A N Schore
Jan 28, 2020·Journal of the History of the Neurosciences·Philip Gerard Gasquoine

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