The first English-language publication of a classic French book on the relationship between the development of photography and of the medical category of hysteria. In this classic of French cultural studies, Georges Didi-Huberman traces the intimate and reciprocal relationship between the disciplines of psychiatry and photography in the late nineteenth century. Focusing on the immense photographic output of the Salpetriere hospital, the notorious Parisian asylum for insane and incurable women, Didi-Huberman shows the crucial role played by photography in the invention (...) of the category of hysteria. Under the direction of the medical teacher and clinician Jean-Martin Charcot, the inmates of Salpetriere identified as hysterics were methodically photographed, providing skeptical colleagues with visual proof of hysteria's specific form. These images, many of which appear in this book, provided the materials for the multivolume album Iconographie photographique de la Salpetriere. As Didi-Huberman shows, these photographs were far from simply objective documentation. The subjects were required to portray their hysterical "type"—they performed their own hysteria. Bribed by the special status they enjoyed in the purgatory of experimentation and threatened with transfer back to the inferno of the incurables, the women patiently posed for the photographs and submitted to presentations of hysterical attacks before the crowds that gathered for Charcot's "Tuesday Lectures." Charcot did not stop at voyeuristic observation. Through techniques such as hypnosis, electroshock therapy, and genital manipulation, he instigated the hysterical symptoms in his patients, eventually giving rise to hatred and resistance on their part. Didi-Huberman follows this path from complicity to antipathy in one of Charcot's favorite "cases," that of Augustine, whose image crops up again and again in the Iconographie. Augustine's virtuosic performance of hysteria ultimately became one of self-sacrifice, seen in pictures of ecstasy, crucifixion, and silent cries. (shrink)

Recent evidence indicates that inhibition of protein translation may be a common pathogenic mechanism for peripheral neuropathy associated with mutant tRNA synthetases (aaRSs). aaRSs are enzymes that ligate amino acids to their cognate tRNA, thus catalyzing the first step of translation. Dominant mutations in five distinct aaRSs cause Charcot‐Marie‐Tooth (CMT) peripheral neuropathy, characterized by length‐dependent degeneration of peripheral motor and sensory axons. Surprisingly, loss of aminoacylation activity is not required for mutant aaRSs to cause CMT. Rather, at least for (...) some mutations, a toxic‐gain‐of‐function mechanism underlies CMT‐aaRS. Interestingly, several mutations in two distinct aaRSs were recently shown to inhibit global protein translation in Drosophila models of CMT‐aaRS, by a mechanism independent of aminoacylation, suggesting inhibition of translation as a common pathogenic mechanism. Future research aimed at elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying the translation defect induced by CMT‐mutant aaRSs should provide novel insight into the molecular pathogenesis of these incurable diseases. (shrink)

During the last third of the 19th century, the ‘new’ French psychology developed within ‘the hypnotic context’ opened up by Charcot. In spite of their claims to the scientific nature of their hypnotic experiments, Charcot and his followers were unable to avoid the miracles that had accompanied mesmerism, the forerunner of hypnosis. The hysterics hypnotized in the Salpêtrière Hospital were expected to have supernormal faculties and these experiments opened the door to psychical research. In 1885 the first French (...) psychology society was founded. The research carried out by this society may seem surprising: its members – Charles Richet in particular – were interested in strange phenomena, like magnetic lucidity, ‘mental suggestion’, thought-reading, etc. Very quickly, psychologists applied themselves to finding rational explanations for these supposedly miraculous gifts. Generally, they ascribed them to unconscious or subconscious perceptual mechanisms. Finally, after a few years, studies of psychical phenomena were excluded from the field of psychology. However, during the 4th International Congress of Psychology, which took place in Paris in 1900, the foundation of an institute devoted to the study of psychical phenomena was announced, but Pierre Janet and Georges Dumas founded within it the Société Française de Psychologie, from which psychical research was excluded. As for Charles Richet, disappointed by the psychologists, he devoted himself to the development of a new ‘science’ which he called ‘Métapsychique’. Several hypotheses have been put forward to account for this early research undertaken by the French psychologists, pertaining as much to parapsychology as to scientific psychology. (shrink)

Recent studies of the low abundant signaling lipid, phosphatidylinositol 3,5‐bisphosphate (PI(3,5)P2), reveal an intriguingly diverse list of downstream pathways, the intertwined relationship between PI(3,5)P2 and PI5P, as well as links to neurodegenerative diseases. Derived from the structural lipid phosphatidylinositol, PI(3,5)P2 is dynamically generated on multiple cellular compartments where interactions with an increasing list of effectors regulate many cellular pathways. A complex of proteins that includes Fab1/PIKfyve, Vac14, and Fig4/Sac3 mediates the biosynthesis of PI(3,5)P2, and mutations that disrupt complex function and/or (...) formation cause profound consequences in cells. Surprisingly, mutations in this pathway are linked with neurological diseases, including Charcot‐Marie‐Tooth syndrome and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Future studies of PI(3,5)P2 and PI5P are likely to expand the roles of these lipids in regulation of cellular functions, as well as provide new approaches for treatment of some neurological diseases. (shrink)

So-called identity theories that postulate the identity of mental phenomena with brain states are usually associated with materialistic ontology. However, the historical picture of the actual attempts at spelling out the mind–brain identities is more complex. In the eighteenth century such identities were most enthusiastically proposed by dualists , whereas non-reductionistic materialists such as Diderot tried to get along without them. In the nineteenth century physiologists such as Broca, Charcot and Wernicke, who postulated discrete and localizable neural correlates for (...) ideas and mental images, ended up, despite their professed materialism, defending theories that resembled Cartesian schemes and the theories of their eighteenth-century dualistic predecessors. Some problems resulting from the use of these theoretical models postulating local and discrete traces, images or representations in the brain in the context of materialist ontology are obviously related to their dualistic origins and to the fact that they are necessarily bound up with dualistic presuppositions. In the context of the criticism of the nineteenth-century memory trace paradigm it is, however, important to bear in mind that functional localization as such is not dependent on the notion of localizable representations. Nor are materialist theories of the mind necessarily dependent on postulating specific type–type identities between the mental and the physiological. (shrink)

This article explores illness as an assemblage of bodies, discourses, and practices by tracing a genealogy of the condition hystero-epilepsy in order to show the precarity of dominant bio-psychiatric ideology in the present. I read Siri Hustvedt’s case study of her own nervous condition with and against other histories of nerves, including Charcot’s treatment of hystero-epilepsy in the 1870s, Foucault’s treatment of hysteria, simulation, and the ‘neurological body’ presented in his lectures in 1974, and Elizabeth Wilson’s recent treatment of (...) the Freudian concept of ‘somatic compliance.’ I assemble this eclectic hystero-epileptic archive not in order to present a definitive history of hystero-epilepsy, but rather to think about how illness is made, unmade, and remade in the clinic and narrative. (shrink)

BackgroundGait Analysis of healthy people, imitating pathological conditions while walking, has increased our understanding of biomechanical factors. The influence of the pelvis as a biomechanical constraint during gait is not specifically studied. How could mimicking a pelvic attitude influence the dynamic mechanical interaction of the body segments? We proposed an investigation of the pelvic attitude role on the gait pattern of typically developed people when they mimicked pelvic anteversion and posteroversion.Materials and methodsSeventeen healthy volunteers were enrolled in this study. They (...) simulated a pelvic anteversion and posteroversion during walking, exaggerating these postures as much as possible. 3D gait analysis was conducted using an optoelectronic system with eight cameras and two force plates. The kinematic, kinetic, and spatio-temporal parameters were compared between the three walking conditions.ResultsIn Pelvic Anteversion gait we found: increased hip flexion, increased knee flexion during stance, and reduction of ankle flexion-extension Range of Motion compared with Pelvic Normal gait. In Pelvic Posteroversion gait compared with PN, we found: decreased hip flexion-extension RoM with a tendency to hip extension, decreased knee maximum extension in stance, and increased ankle maximum dorsiflexion in stance.ConclusionThe configuration of PA contains gait similarities and differences when compared with pathologic gait where there is an anteversion as seen in children with Cerebral Palsy or Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Similarly, attitudes of PP have been described in patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth Syndrome or patients who have undergone Pelvic Osteotomy. Understanding the dynamic biomechanical constraints is essential to the assessment of pathological behavior. The central nervous system adapts motor behavior in interaction with body constraints and available resources. (shrink)

The psychopathological analysis of hysteria is a victim of narrow conceptualizations. Among these is the inscription of hysteria in the feminine sphere, about body and sexuality, which incentivized conceptual reductionism. Hysteria has been mainly considered a gendered pathology, almost exclusively female, and it has been associated with cultural and/or religious features over time rather than treated as a psychopathological world. Further, hysteria has been dominated by conceptual inaccuracies and indecision, not only in terms of clinical features but also in terms (...) of its definition. For this reason, it seems necessary to “undress” hysteria from this feminization, sexualization, and corporealization with which it has been abundantly clothed over the years. “Undressing” hysteria will make possible a reconfiguring and deconstructing of the explanatory-causal model of Charcot and Freud. However, if we take out this cultural heritage, the stigma accompanying this diagnosis, and the weight of the enormous historical tradition that hysteria carries, the world of hysteria continues to constitute a domain full of complexity and nosographic challenges. Hysteria has been considered a sum of psychological behaviors and states illustrated by drama, mystery, or falsity. The difficulty in understanding the multiple somatic manifestations which characterize this clinical condition created several controversies and much confusion. In the current nosography, the personological component of hysteria has been separated from its symptomatic manifestation, in the Histrionic Personality Disorder and Conversion Disorder categories, respectively. This segmentation by descriptive nosography does contribute to a unitary understanding of the phenomenon and, consequently, of daily clinical practice. Clinical complexity can be grasped and deciphered only if the symptom is inscribed in the patient’s lifeworld and his/her subjective life history. Clinical practice is thus thought of in terms of a structural aggregation of a homogeneous set of phenomena, together constituting a specific way of being in the world. The starting point of this article is the evident modalities characterizing this life-world, taking care not to confuse the point of origin with the point of expression. (shrink)

Background and ObjectiveAbsolute angle represents the inclination of a body segment relative to a fixed reference in space. This work compares the absolute and relative angles for exploring biomechanical gait constraints.MethodsGait patterns of different neuromotor conditions were analyzed using 3D gait analysis: normal gait, Cerebral Palsy, Charcot Marie Tooth and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, representing central and peripheral nervous system and muscular disorders, respectively. Forty-two children underwent gait analysis: 10 children affected by CP, 10 children by CMT, 10 children by (...) DMD and 12 healthy children. The kinematic and kinetic parameters were collected to describe the biomechanical pattern of participants’ lower limbs. The absolute angles of thigh, leg and foot were calculated using the trigonometric relationship of the tangent. For each absolute series, the mean, range, maximum, minimum and initial contact were calculated. Kinematic and kinetic gait data were studied, and the results were compared with the literature.ResultsStatistical analysis of the absolute angles showed how, at the local level, the single segments behave differently depending on the pathology. However, if the lower limb is studied globally, a biomechanical constraint emerges.ConclusionEach segment compensates separately for the disease deficit so as to maintain a global biomechanical invariance. Using a model of inter-joint co-variation could improve the interpretation of the clinical gait pattern. (shrink)

It has become a truism that we humans are genetically about 99% identical to chimpanzees. The origins of this assertion are clear: among early studies of DNA sequences, nucleotide identity between humans and chimpanzees was found to average around 98.9%.1 However, this figure is correct only with respect to regions of the genome that are shared between humans and chimpanzees. Often ignored are the many parts of their genomes that are not shared. Genomic rearrangements, including insertions, deletions, translocations and duplications, (...) have long been recognized as potentially important sources of novel genomic material2,3 and are known to account for major genomic differences between humans and chimpanzees.4 Further, such changes have been implicated in a number of genetic disorders, such as DiGeorge, Angelman/Prader‐Willi and Charcot‐Marie‐Tooth syndromes5. BioEssays 28: 335–338, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

So-called identity theories that postulate the identity of mental phenomena with brain states are usually associated with materialistic ontology. However, the historical picture of the actual attempts at spelling out the mind–brain identities is more complex. In the eighteenth century such identities were most enthusiastically proposed by dualists, whereas non-reductionistic materialists such as Diderot tried to get along without them. In the nineteenth century physiologists such as Broca, Charcot and Wernicke, who postulated discrete and localizable neural correlates for ideas (...) and mental images, ended up, despite their professed materialism, defending theories that resembled Cartesian schemes and the theories of their eighteenth-century dualistic predecessors. Some problems resulting from the use of these theoretical models postulating local and discrete traces, images or representations in the brain in the context of materialist ontology are obviously related to their dualistic origins and to the fact that they are necessarily bound up with dualistic presuppositions. In the context of the criticism of the nineteenth-century memory trace paradigm it is, however, important to bear in mind that functional localization as such is not dependent on the notion of localizable representations. Nor are materialist theories of the mind necessarily dependent on postulating specific type–type identities between the mental and the physiological. (shrink)

Michel Foucault’s formative years included the study not only of history and philosophy but also of psychology: two years after he took license in philosophy at the Sorbonne in 1948, he took another in psychology, and then obtained, in 1952, a Diplôme de Psycho Pathologie . From his earliest years at the Ecole Normale Superieur he had taken courses on general and social psychology with one of most influential psychologists of the time, Daniel Lagache, who was attempting to integrate psychoanalysis (...) with clinical methods.(Eribon 1991, 42) Foucault’s studies included experimentation and clinical instruction in which patients were presented in an amphitheatre just as in the days of Charcot. For several years after he had received his Diplôme, Foucault continued research in psychopathology, observing practices in mental hospitals, reportedly sometimes volunteering in experiments himself. He purchased the material required to administer Roschach tests, subjecting numerous friends to the inkblots, and became, when it was founded, the honorary president of the French Rorschach organization. Foucault’s first books were on the topic of the psychological characterization of madness and the development of clinical medicine, and his last books addressed the development of psychological norms within the establishment of modern prisons as well as within an increasingly scientific approach to sex. Thus, he worked at the intersections of philosophy and psychology throughout his life. Nonetheless, Foucault reported feeling an intense aversion to psychology no less than to philosophy.(Sheridan 1980, 5) Foucault’s oeuvre is almost exclusively focused on particular knowledges in the human sciences, especially those aspects which pertained to psychological theories of human behavior, capacity, and normative functioning. His historical approach to these, and his emphasis on the role of discourse, is readily reminiscent of Thomas Kuhn’s similarly historical approach to scientific method with its emphasis on the role of paradigms and the untranslatability of paradigm dependent objects.. (shrink)

This article examines the little-known sculptures of pathology created by Doctor Paul Richer (1849–1933) in the 1890s for the so-called Musée Charcot at the Hôpital de la Salpêtrière in Paris. Under the direction of Doctor Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893), one of the founders of modern neurology, Richer was the head of the hospital's museum of pathological anatomy, as well as the Salpêtrière's resident artist. His ‘series of figural representations of the principal types of nervous pathology’ included busts of patients (...) suffering from labio-glosso-laryngeal paralysis and myopathy, as well as sculptures depicting patients with Parkinson's disease and juvenile hypothyroidism. These patient portraits were seen as objective, while also paradoxically providing an alternative to mechanical media, such as the photograph and the cast, by permitting the doctor's intervention in not only controlling and animating the sitter, but also emphasising the patient's symptoms. This was a new kind of medical specimen: the ‘scientific artwork’, as they were called by a contemporary. This phrase, far from being an oxymoron, indicates the purposive collapse of the objective (‘scientific’) and subjective (‘artistic’) binary in Richer's sculptures of pathology. Through a detailed examination of three of Richer's works, this article problematises the categories traditionally used to describe, analyse and understand medical imagery and complicates our understanding of the relationship between science and art at the end of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

Le discours psychiatrique s’établit au XIXe siècle par un corps médical qui reproduit des relations de pouvoir : dans le cas de l’hystérie, le corps médical (majoritairement masculin) impose un discours de vérité sur un corps féminin qui est celui de la patiente. C’est la dimension genrée de ce phénomène que nous chercherons à clarifier en ce qui a trait aux relations de pouvoir, en avançant la thèse que les hystériques se dressent comme figure de résistance devant le pouvoir psychiatrique (...) – cette résistance étant rendue possible par la réappropriation d’une parole dérobée dans la production d’un discours de vérité. Pour ce faire, nous présenterons en premier lieu les démarches de Charcot, puis de Freud et Breuer dans les études sur l’hystérie. Nous emprunterons ensuite le cadre conceptuel foucaldien pour analyser les relations de pouvoir qui se trouvent au cœur de ces deux exemples, et nous tenterons finalement de montrer comment les hystériques peuvent être vues comme « militantes », à partir d’une perspective critique et féministe. (shrink)

Neurofilaments are one of the major components of the neuronal cytoskeleton and are responsible for maintaining the calibre of axons. They are modified by post‐translational changes that are regulated in complex fashions including by the interaction with neighbouring glial cells. Neurofilament accumulations are seen in several neurological diseases and neurofilament mutations have now been associated with Charcot‐Marie‐Tooth disease, Parkinson's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. In this review, we discuss the structure, normal function and molecular pathology of neurofilaments. BioEssays 25:346–355, (...) 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Before Freud : the quarrel of the unconscious in late nineteenth-century France -- Flaubert : hysterical duality, hallucination and writing -- Maupassant, Charcot and the paranormal -- The unconscious female/the female unconscious -- Hypnotism, dual personalities and the popular novel -- Proust, the intellect and the unconscious -- Postscript -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aristotle Rules, OK?José M. Villagrán (bio) and Rogelio Luque (bio)KeywordsAristotle, causes, philosophy, psychiatry, psychopathologyPérez-Alvarez, Sass, and García-Montes (2008) propose a theoretical approach to the nature of mental disorders (MD) that attempts to explain the type of reality they constitute. In line with this approach, they argue that (1) MDs should be considered not from within psychology and psychiatry, but rather from the realm of philosophy, so as to avoid (...) what they call the Charcot effect; (2) the resulting theoretical model is in contrast to naturalist models such as that of internal dysfunction, and involves “strong” constructivist assumptions from which they develop an anthropological perspective based on the clinician–patient situation; 3) this model is applicable, in principle, to all MDs (“at least to some extent”); and (4) it is based on the Aristotelian theory of the four causes.We would argue, however, that (1) it is precisely from within psychology and psychiatry that conceptual models accounting for MDs should be proposed; (2) the naturalist–constructivist dichotomy in these models should be deconstructed, and primacy given not to the ontological approach but to the epistemological one; (3) a theoretical model of this scope should account not only for MDs but also for physical disorders; and (4) only in this way would the Aristotelian theory of causes, understood as types of explanation (and therefore as epistemological approaches) be useful.Approaches from within and from WithoutFor Berrios (2006), the theoretical discourse in relation to the conceptualization of MDs in a particular sociocultural context can be formulated in two ways: on the one hand, in a centripetal fashion, using established philosophical systems (be it phenomenology [Jaspers 1977], logical empiricism [Hempel 1994], or analytic philosophy [Fulford, Thornton, and Graham 2006]). This centripetal approach can be used both by professional philosophers and by psychiatrists/psychologists. When developed by professional philosophers, such proposals, despite their possible brilliance, run the risk of being tangential to the psychiatric issues owing to a lack of first-hand experience of them (Murphy 2006). When developed by psychiatrists and psychologists, the majority of the proposals simply mix fragments of different philosophical systems, in either a kind of syncretism or collage that fails to take into account the contradictions between fragments, or a kind of pluralism that reflects, without entering into analysis, a sort of consensus among the different paradigms (Ghaemi 2003; Kendler 2005).A second way of formulating this theoretical discourse (according to Berrios) would employ a centrifugal approach from the very core of the disciplines, through the reflection of professionals (primarily, although not only, psychiatrists/psychologists with philosophical training) who would conceptualize the problems from within and develop a specific metalanguage for analyzing [End Page 265] them (Lanteri-Laura 1991; Reznek 1991; Sass 1992). Not all problems are of the same type. For those that are extrinsic to psychiatry/psychology (definition of the mental, the mind–body relationship, the distinction between causes and reasons, or interdisciplinary reduction), the methods common to the philosophy of science and of the mind can be used. However, issues intrinsic to the disciplines themselves (the nature of mental symptoms and how they are generated, how to explain their heterogeneity, what a MD is, how to diagnose and classify it, or how to implement a psychopathological project) cannot be dealt with using preestablished formulas, and require new and original proposals that take into account the nature of the disciplines and their object of study (Villagrán 2007).The authors of the target article base their preference for the centripetal approach for responding to one of the intrinsic questions of psychiatry (what MDs are) on the consequences of what they call the Charcot effect, a kind of variant of observer bias applied to psychiatric diagnosis. They offer as an example the classic diagnosis ad iuvantibus in its postmodern version, namely, the efficacy of the pharmaceutical industry in contributing to creating nosological entities for which their drugs are indicated. Consequently, clinicians are not only unable to surmount the substantial epistemological obstacles that hamper attempts to theorize, but also find themselves doomed to assuming an ingenuous essentialism that considers MDs as natural kinds (such as apples, trees, or dogs) determined... (shrink)

Pour la médecine occidentale moderne, l'affaire est entendue : c'est le médicament qui soigne, à savoir une substance chimique aux effets biologiques bien identifiés. Pourtant, une médecine peut en cacher une autre : tous les patients savent intuitivement que l'attitude du thérapeute à leur égard peut être aussi décisive dans la guérison que les médicaments qu'il délivre. Et sans même qu'il soit nécessaire d'évoquer les " médecines parallèles ", le mystère scientifique que représente l'effet placebo témoigne de la persistance des (...) phénomènes de suggestion au cœur de la médecine moderne. Dans ce livre, Philippe Pignarre propose une compréhension nouvelle de cette dualité que la science résiste à reconnaître. Il le fait en se penchant sur l'histoire, et plus précisément sur l'histoire de la psychiatrie, en suivant les deux " fils rouges " : d'une part, celui qui court du "baquet" autour duquel, à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, Mesmer rassemblait ses patients pour les " magnétiser ", jusqu'à la psychanalyse, en passant par les cures hypnotiques de Charcot ; et, d'autre part, celui qui relie l'invention par Pinel du " traitement moral " des aliénés à la psychiatrie biologique d'aujourd'hui. Il montre ainsi comment la médecine de la suggestion et la médecine somatique n'ont jamais réussi à faire bloc. Et que cette séparation pourrait bien être à l'origine des plus graves difficultés auxquelles se heurte la médecine moderne, qu'il s'agisse de l'usage des drogues illégales et de son " traitement ", ou de la surconsommation de psychotropes, dont la France détient le record mondial. L'auteur ouvre ainsi des pistes passionnantes pour retrouver dans notre héritage occidental - mais aussi, grâce à l'éthnopsychiatrie, dans celui d'autres civilisations - les éléments qui permettront de ne plus construire les deux médecines l'une contre l'autre. (shrink)

Between James Parkinson's 'shaking palsy' and the first report of the post-encephalitic manifestation — initially not recognizable as a complication of that incipient 'Spanish flu' epidemic — it took over a hundred years to arrive at a clear appreciation and differentiation of its most disabling feature: rigidity. This paper traces the development, step by hesitant or bold step, of the pertinent ideas and terms regarding muscle tone before and after Parkinson, their basis in neuropathological advances as they were made for (...) related syndromes of basal ganglia disorders, toward the eventual clinical correlation. Chief credits, after Sauvages, must go to Charcot for emphasizing the increase in muscle tone, and to Kinnier Wilson for establishing the extrapyramidal connection. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.1 (2002) 65-72 [Access article in PDF] Multiple Paths to Delusion Philip Gerrans Response to Phillips JAMES PHILLIPS COMMENTS are summarized in four recommendations. Clarify the Relationship of the Cognitive Model to its Neuroscientific Base The cognitive approach postulates a cognitive entity whose information-processing properties explain a symptom or unify a set of symptoms. The key idea is that we can use a model of (...) normal cognitive functioning to explain a disorder in terms of failure of a component of the model. In the case under discussion, the symptom is the loss of affect, which is part of the clinical profile of both the Capgras and Cotard delusions. The body of neuropsychological data concerning links between recognitional and affective processes extends back at least to Charcot's patient M. X. whose affective responses to familiar situations were lost, together with his visual episodic memory. M. X described his phenomenology this way: A remarkable consequence of this loss of mental ability is, as I have said, the change in my personality and impressions. I am much less affected by sorrow or grief. I can tell you that, after losing one of my relatives with whom I was very close, I experienced a much less intense grief than if I had still been able to image the features of that relative, the stages of the illness he went through, or especially if I had been able to picture to myself [voir interieurement] the outward effect of this untimely death on the members of my family. (Young and van de Wal 1996) (It is interesting to note that M. X. retained insight into his condition and explained it in a lucid, rational way rather than forming a delusional belief. Initial evidence for a two-stage theory, one might have thought).Given convergent evidence that the limbic system is the basis of affective states, the hypothesis that the delusions under discussion are rationalizations of unusual affective experiences consequent on abnormal limbic function or loss of connection between limbic and other functions is an inference to the best explanation. The Young-Ellis model is a cognitive model that describes cognitive function at what Dennett calls the design level, intermediate between what Marr called the computational level and level of representation and algorithm. As such it implies only that the boxes and arrows are implemented neurally, but endorses no hypotheses about the nature of that implementation.It is correct of Phillips to observe that the crucial inference about the link between affective and cognitive function is grounded in a background theory of the relationship between cognitive models, clinical symptoms, and neurobiology. If Phillips' complaint is that the model cannot be sheeted home to a neurobiological substrate, [End Page 65] this is true. Implementation theories are thin on the ground in cognitive science because they would require a theory of biological computation that, despite partisan claims, is elusive. Nonetheless, information-processing models and partial implementation theories for specific functions such as perception, language, face recognition, and the affective systems do exist. The allusion to cognitive structure remains sound as long as it accounts for observable clinical and experimental data and makes verifiable predictions.The fact that the Young-Ellis model of face recognition can account for both normal function and a variety of forms of prosopagnosia together (under assumptions about the relation between belief and experience) with delusions of misidentification counts in its favor (Ellis 1998).Phillips objection to cognitive theories is stronger when we turn to models of belief and rationality. In the case of functions such as face recognition or language, there is a variety of convergent evidence, especially from deficit studies, to support a model of normal cognitive function. For example, we know that face recognition activates schemas concerning orientation, features, emotions, and gender because these components can be selectively damaged (Young 1998). However, we lack a model of normal human reasoning other than "folk theory" of belief-desire psychology. Cognitive theories of belief formation are often forced to use models derived from philosophy such as logic, probability theory, or decision theory, which are amenable to... (shrink)

It is often said that the advent of the Freudian talking cure around 1900 revolutionised the psychiatric setting by giving patients a voice. Less known is that for decades prior to the popularisation of this technique, several researchers had been experimenting with another, written practice aimed at probing the mind. This was particularly the case in France. Alongside neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot’s spectacular staging of hypnotised bodies, ‘automatic writing’ became widely used in fin-de-siècle clinics and laboratories, with French psychologists regularly (...) asking entranced patients to scribble down words to validate their nascent theories on the divided self. This article traces the emergence of automatic writing in French psychological discourse at the close of the 19th century. By focusing on the early work of Dr Pierre Janet and some of his contemporaries, it re-examines the role played by this practice in what Henri Ellenberger famously called ‘The Discovery of the Unconscious’. It also considers the various levels of reconstruction at play in recent historical accounts. What does it mean to give subjects a (written) voice? How does automatic writing differ from the Freudian talking cure as respective expressions of the unspeakable? And how might these questions inform future historical practice? (shrink)

A definition of virtual or virtuality is not an easy task. Both words are of recent application in Philosophy, even if the concept of virtual comes from a respectable Latin tradition. Today’s meaning brings together the notions of potentiality, latency, imaginary representations, VR, and the forms of communication in digital media. This contagious, and spontaneous synonymy fails to identify a common vein and erases memory as a central notion. In the present essay, I’ll try to explain essential features of the (...) concept of virtual, taking the investigation of memory troubles in Pierre Janet’s work as an exemplification. Pierre Janet’s work represents a rare combination of medical observation and description of symptoms of mental illnesses, therapeutic guidance in hypnosis and philosophical writing about the main psychological themes of an epoch in transition from a Metaphysics of the Soul to the modern Experimental Psychology. Pierre Janet’s intellectual evolution since the 1880s until the end of his life is dominated by the philosophical project of a theory of the psychic system supported by three basic pillars: a concept of personality, a theory of memory and a sketch of a general theory of conduct. Such complex endeavour cannot be abstracted from the initial connections with Jean-Martin Charcot’s school at La Salpêtrière which meant a turning point in the tradition of the “animal magnetism” concerning the treatment of epileptic-hysterical symptoms along with the contributions of Hyppolite Bernheim’s “Nancy School” of hypnotism. J.-M. Charcot’s or H. Bernheim’s theorising about the organic and psychological aspects of the hypnotic treatment of the hysterical symptoms was already aware of the difficulty in dealing with the extent of the dissimulation of the patients regarding the symptoms of the illness, under hypnotic suggestion, even if Charcot insisted in the identification and cataloguing of the organic expressions, such as contractures or the posture of the body in arc during the attacks. The precise location of the “great hysteria” in the organic-psychic corridor was itself a riddle. If a symptom is a special type of sign, in the case of the “great hysteria” nobody knew for sure what it stood for. The clinical symptom of the attack stood for an organic trouble with cerebral causes, a psychological interruption of the normal sensorial and muscular movements or a disguise of the female desire? Pierre Janet described many hysterical patients, somnambulism and multiple personality since his articles in La Revue Philosophique de la France et l’ Étranger, a Journal founded by the philosopher, experimental psychologist and his intellectual predecessor Théodule-Armand Ribot. The description of the case of the “great hysterical” Lucie, treated by him, is an example of a theoretical hypothesising on multiple personality and discontinuity of memories fragments. There are more cases revealing the same relation between hysteria, somnambulism, personality dissociation and “alternating memory”. Decisively inspired by and corroborating P. Janet’s ideas, S. Freud conceived also the essential of the hysterical sicknesses as disorders of memory. The theme of memory came even more to the foreground in the dissertation L’Automatisme Psychologique. Here, the strange world of somnambulism was scrutinised along with hysterical contractures and convulsions, anaesthesia, the compulsion to repetition, obsessions, “automatic writing” in hysterical patients, multiple personality and “alternating memories”. In the depicted cases memory could not be taken as a homogenous series of remembrances or as a stock of disposable information but as a variable of the depth of the personalities’ inner formation. The so-called “seconde existence” of some somnambulists referred not only unconscious representations and unconscious thoughts but complete or inceptive latent personalities provided with multiple virtual existences and multiple memories. Hypnosis was the privileged technique to access to such multiple memories ignored by the official personality. Later and after the writing of his M.D. Dissertation, Contribution à l’ Étude des Accidents Mentaux chez les Hystériques, P. Janet addressed again the themes of memory and alternating memories in a series of lectures at the Collège de France but now according to the larger framework of a general theory of conduct which included a description of the social actions participating in the narrative construction of personal memories, and the role of social memory. (shrink)

This paper approaches the question of awareness outside of attention through a broader psychological examination of human consciousness. Questions regarding the boundaries of conscious awareness, as well as the possibility of 'subconscious' or 'unconscious' mental processes, were widely discussed 100 years and more ago when they played a central role in the thinking of turn-of-thecentury theorists such as William James, F.W.H. Myers, Jean-Martin Charcot, and Pierre Janet, all of whom were interested in dissociative phenomena suggestive of consciousness, or awareness, (...) beyond the margins of attention. Such phenomena included hypnosis, hysteria, trance states, and motor automatisms, and for many scholars also sleep related conditions such as dreaming and hypnogogic states. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ContingenciesElizabeth RottenbergAnalysis does precious little, but the little it does is precious.—Therese BenedekI’d like to begin with an anecdote of a slightly confessional nature. If I mention this anecdote, it’s because it came to me by chance as an association to what French analyst and philosopher Monique David-Ménard, in her introduction to Éloge des hasards dans la vie sexuelle, calls “positive contingency” or the “positive aspect of chance” (David-Ménard (...) 2011, 19–20), what in colloquial English we call a “happy accident.”So here’s the association. For reasons I cannot fully explain, the therapist I was seeing in graduate school encouraged me to take the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory test (the MMPI, as it’s called), a widely used and researched psychometric test of adult personality and psychopathology. The test involved hundreds of simple, inoffensive questions, questions such as, “Do you read all the editorials in the newspaper every day?”1 and it took me hours to complete. A week or so after taking the test, I met with my therapist and we went over the results together. According to the test (which, interestingly, takes into account the performative aspects of test taking), I had answered all the questions in such a way as to appear neither excessively good nor excessively bad, that is, I had answered all the questions honestly and consistently. And as far as psychopathology was concerned, my answers showed few signs of hypochondriasis, hysteria, psychopathy, schizophrenia, or hypomania. On the other hand, when it came to depression, paranoia, psychasthenia, and social introversion, my scores were a little higher, and a shockingly high percentage of my answers [End Page 128] reflected “stereotypical masculine interests/behaviors.” None of this seemed to worry my therapist in the least. The only thing she pointed to were my “odd answers” (the MMPI also has a special category for odd answers—presumably the answers of academics). She wondered about my answer to this question in particular: “Do you see people or animals or things that other people don’t see?” “You answered ‘true’ to that question,” she said. “I don’t understand. Why would you answer ‘true’? You’re not psychotic.” I explained that I had read the “or”—do you see people OR animals OR things that other people don’t see—as a disjunctive rather than a conjunctive OR. “So, yes, it’s true, when I read texts, sometimes I see things that other people don’t see.” At the time, of course, I wasn’t thinking of Deleuze’s “contingent reason” or of Monique’s discussion of the inventive power of disjunctive synthesis in her Deleuze et la psychanalyse (2005). And I certainly wasn’t thinking that my figurative reading of seeing, my misreading of seeing, was indicative of the essential and indeterminable contingencies of reading. No, I was only giving what I took to be a perfectly accurate description of the déformation professionnelle that is ours and that belongs to anyone who is a stickler for grammar... a positive déformation, I might add.But this association immediately leads me to another (contingent) association, this time one that is intimately related to Monique’s discussion of Torricelli’s law and to Claude Bernard’s discovery of the exocrine function of the pancreas. My association is to Freud and to Freud’s astonishment before the transformative power of Jean-Martin Charcot’s dazzling, clinical insight. In Freud’s description of his teacher, Charcot is someone who sees things that other people don’t see:[Charcot]... had the nature of an artist—he was, as he himself said, a “visuel,” a seer. Here is what he himself told us about his method of working. He used to look again and again at the things he did not understand, to deepen his impression of them day by day, till suddenly [plötzlich] an understanding of them dawned on him.... He might be heard to say that the greatest satisfaction a [person] could have was to see something new—that is, to recognize it as new; and he remarked again and again on the difficulty and value of this kind of... (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta considerações sobre possíveis infl uências teóricas de Theodule A. Ribot sobre S. Freud por ocasião de suas formulações teóricas iniciais sobre o psiquismo. Infl uências a partir de noções como memória e consciência, mas especialmente de cerebração inconsciente. Essas serão investigadas especialmente nas obras Les maladies de la mémoire e Projeto de psicologia, respectivamente. Destacamos que essa influência se deu pela contribuição e mediação de J. M. Charcot, tal como apresentada em Leçons sur les maladies du (...) système nerveux faites a la Salpêtrière – Tome III, 1887), dedicada à abordagem da histeria psíquica/ideativa. Apresentaremos as duas primeiras obras destacando o que entendemos como infl uências, heranças e inclusive divergências entre os autores, mas especialmente destacando uma linha de continuidade entre eles, para a qual Charcot teve papel fundamental. Esperamos que nossa pesquisa proporcione melhor esclarecimento sobre o estatuto inicial do psiquismo concebido por Freud bem como sobre a emergência de uma explicação alternativa que propiciou a introdução de uma instância psíquica inconsciente tal como a conhecemos. (shrink)

The essay analyzes the influence of evolutionary thought in the work of Sigmund Freud. Based on Freud's initial occupation as a neuro-anatomist and physiologist certain aspects stemming from the history of nature and developmental biological reasoning that played a role in his endeavours to find a new basis for medical psychology will be pointed out. These considerations are to be regarded as prolegomena of the task to reread Freud once again, and in doing so avoiding the verdict that holds his (...) neuro-anatomic and comparative-morphological works as simply "pre-analytic." In fact, the time seems ripe to reconsider in a new context particularly those evolutionary, medical, and cultural-scientific elements in Freud's work that appear inconsistent at first sight. The substantial thesis is that Freud, given the fact that he was trained in comparative anatomy and physiology in the tradition of Johannes Müller, had the capability of synthesizing elements of this new point of view with the findings and interrogations concerning developmental history and the theory of evolution. More over, this was perceived not merely metaphoric, as he himself stressed it (Freud 1999, XIII, 99), but in the sense of Übertragung, that inscribed terms and methods deriving from the given field into the realm of psychology. The moving force behind this particular Übertragung came from a dynamically-neurological perception of the soul that emerged in France since 1800, which Freud came to know trough the late work of Charcot. (shrink)

For the diabetic, the wrong shoes can result in serious health consequences culminating in the amputation of the foot. The 2nd, completely revised edition of this work presents new approaches of evidence-based medicine in medical aids. The practice-oriented solutions in this book, within the scope of a disease management program, provide targeted treatment and help to lower the amputation rate in patients with a "diabetic foot." Key features: Correct shoes and treatment for diabetic podopathy and Charcot foot Approx. 100 (...) color illustrations and more than 20 tables. (shrink)

In this paper, my aim is to understand the origin of experimental and scientific models of pathogeny of the diseases of the nervous system in the Salpêtrière (Paris). I will analyse the role of the contexts of cell theory, microscopy and the advances in histological techniques in the creation of various pathogenic models, based on the concept of the cell, the Wallerian degeneration and the neurone concept. I argue that, as medicine and pathology remain autonomous in their methods and goals, (...) because of the evident degree of complexity of diseases, close and reciprocal interactions with sciences, their practices and theories, make it possible to establish convergences between clinical observations, pathological data and those from the experimental models of pathologies. The search for pathogenic models behaves like an engine, which is efficient in assembling facts, in testing pathogeneses and reforming nosologies, combined with the breakthroughs in biology. This paper is a case study showing the emergence of such interactions in the last decades of the nineteenth-century in Paris. (shrink)