Hypnoid state
The hypnoid state is a theory of the origins of hysteria published jointly by Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud in their Preliminary communication [1] of 1893, subsequently reprinted as the first chapter of Studies on Hysteria (1895).[2]
For Breuer and Freud, who characterised the hypnoid state as a state of absence of mind/consciousness produced by intense daydreams of a mournful or sexual nature, "the existence of hypnoid states forms the foundation and condition of hysteria".[3]
Characteristics
The hypnoid state was seen as one resembling but not identical with hypnosis.[4] In the hypnoid state, one may have dream-like experiences.[4] One enters the hypnoid state by either hypnosis or by voluntary amnesia.[4]
Breuer credited Paul Julius Möbius as a forerunner in the development of the idea.[5]
Repudiation
Freud was shortly to repudiate the causative notion of hypnoid states, in favour of his theory of psychological repression.[6] As he would put it later, "Breuer's theory of 'hypnoid states' turned out to be impeding and unnecessary, and it has been dropped by psycho-analysis today...the screen of hypnoid states erected by Breuer".[7]
Nevertheless he continued to recognise the importance of such states of absent consciousness in the symptomatology of the hysterical subject.[8]
References
- Selected Papers on Hysteria and Other Psychoneuroses
- Peter Gay, Freud (1989) p. 63
- Quoted in Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (1964) p. 240
- Freud, Sigmund; Breuer, Josef; Luckhurst, Nicola (2004). Studies in Hysteria. London; New York City: Penguin Modern Classics (via Google Books). p. 217. ISBN 978-0-14-243749-0. Retrieved December 7, 2011.
- J. Laplanche/J.-B. Pontalis, The Language of Psychoanalysis (2012) p. 193
- Jones, p. 240
- S. Freud, Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1995) p. 22-3
- S. Freud, On Psychopathology (PFL 10) p. 101