The Concept of Dissociation

For the past 80 years dissociation and hypnosis have been looked on as closely related phenomena. Toward the end of the 19th century Charcot, Janet, Breuer, Freud, and others were using hypnosis to treat patients with conversion symptoms. Janet (1889, 1903), in an attempt to explain his clinical observations, formulated the concept of dissociation. As a result interest in hypnosis and dissociation continued for some years after Janet's initial formulation.

Freud, working with Breuer, originally utilized hypnosis therapeutically and also employed the term dissociation. However, as he began to develop his ideas about psychoanalysis as a method of treatment he stopped using hypnosis, and, after formulating his theory of repression, dropped the term dissociation. Between 1920 and 1940, with the gradual acceptance of Freud's ideas, there was a loss of interest in both hypnosis as a treatment tool and dissociation as a concept.

In the past 15 to 20 years, partly as a consequence of the work of Milton Erickson, there has been renewed interest both in hypnosis and in the concept of dissociation. Erickson also linked hypnosis and dissociation, “We may hypothesize that in general a hypnotic phenomenon takes place simply by dissociating any behavior from its usual associational context” (Erickson et al., 1976). My primary focus in this article will be on dissociation with some consideration of hypnosis.

Between 1889 and 1935 there was continuing interest in the concept of dissociation; however, between 1935 and 1965 few articles appeared on this subject. Since 1965, the publication of many articles and a number of books demonstrates renewed interest. While hypnosis has often been the primary focus of this recent