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Pierre Janet expounded repeatedly, in his writings, the three main differences between his theory, that he had called psychological analysis, and Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory. First, the concept of narrowing of consciousness as the direct effect of vehement emotions is quite different from the idea of an active defensive process displacing unacceptable mental contents outside consciousness. Second, Janet's concept of the sub-conscious (le subconscient) diverges significantly from Freud's view of the Unconscious. Third, Janet's rejected what he labeled Freud's pan-sexualism. This paper is a cursory examination of contemporary psychological and neuroscience contributions to psychotraumatology that may be matched with Janet's three contentions about the main differences between his ideas and Freud's. The aim of the paper is to foster in the reader a reflection on how contemporary psychotraumatology may provide a common background for examining what seems more vital nowadays of the two divergent roots, French and Austrian, of dynamic psychiatry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews theoretical, clinical and research studies on the apperance, in a subgroup of obsessive compulsive disorders (OCD), of symptoms related to the disruption of the usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity and perception (pathological dissociation). The coexistence of dissociative and obsessive-compulsive symptoms is a relatively frequent clinical occurrence, that seems to be responsible for unsatisfactory response to the cognitive-behavorial therapy (CBT) of OCD. The aim of the review is to clarify the different types of dissociative symptoms and processes that may appear in OCD, their relation to absorption in compulsive responses, and the role played by traumatic expreriences in the association between dissociative and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Such a clarification is a necessary premise to the implementation of modified types of CBT interventions able to yield satisfactory outcomes in cases of OCD complicated by dissociative symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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