PMID: 6399751Jan 1, 1984Paper

Janet's Obsessions and Psychasthenia: a synopsis

The Psychiatric Quarterly
R K Pitman

Abstract

Pierre Janet's Lés Obsessions et la Psychasthénie, Vol. 1 (1903) still stands as the most authoritative work on obsessional and related disorders yet written, but it remains unavailable to an English readership. This article presents an English synopsis of the French original. Janet considers the central problem to be a special mental state which he terms psychasthenia, entailing low psychological tension and an impotence of adaptation to reality. Especially affected are the reality functions of attention, volition, and present-related emotion. Their failure leads through diversion of mental energy to the forced agitations, i.e., mental manias, ruminations, tics, phobias, and anxiety. Obsessions are a late and variable development, when present they symbolize the underlying mental state of incompleteness. The full significance of Janet's contribution may have yet to be established by developments in the neurosciences.

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Citations

Jun 1, 1989·Biological Psychiatry·R K Pitman
Sep 3, 1999·Behaviour Research and Therapy·P de Silva, M Marks
Aug 2, 2003·Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences·Edward M Brown
Aug 1, 2015·Database : the Journal of Biological Databases and Curation·Anna P PriviteraRosalba Giugno
Aug 15, 2014·História, ciências, saúde--Manguinhos·Rafael Huertas
Mar 31, 2017·Comprehensive Psychiatry·Jack SamuelsGerald Nestadt
Mar 14, 2008·Brain : a Journal of Neurology·Ronald P LesserDiana L Miglioretti
May 8, 2020·International Review of Psychiatry·Poornima Bhola, Santosh K Chaturvedi
Feb 20, 1998·Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. Revue Canadienne De Psychiatrie·C D Bilsbury, D Roach
Nov 13, 2014·Revista brasileira de psiquiatria : orgão oficial da Associação Brasileira de Psiquiatria, Asociación Psiquiátrica de la América Latina·Naomi A FinebergMurad Atmaca
Mar 27, 2020·European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry·Matti CervinMagnus Lindvall
Jan 1, 1989·The Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis·J R Bemporad

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