The Response of the Psychiatric Community to Validating Spirituality

In the previous blog, we discussed the work of Pierre Janet. He was the pioneer in the development of hypnotherapy and the first to document Multiple Personality Disorder. Since his death, he has been largely ignored. Recently, with the increased interest in multiple personalities, his work is beginning to be recognized by some. For most of the history of modern-day psychology, he and his work have been conspicuously absent in the writings of leaders in the field.

Sigmund Freud (1859-1939) was a contemporary of Pierre Janet and was, at first, supportive of Janet’s work. Judith Herman quotes Freud from his work, The Origins of Psychoanalysis, Letters to Wilhelm Fliers, Drafts and Notes, 1887-1902. Freud says: “By the way, what have you got to say to the suggestion that the whole of my brand-new theory of the primary origins of hysteria is already familiar and have been published a hundred times over though several centuries ago? Do you remember my always saying that the medieval theory of passion (demon possession [writer’s interpretation]), that is held by ecclesiastical courts, was identical with our theory of a foreign body and the splitting of consciousness? But why did the devil who took possession of the poor victims invariably commit misconduct with them, and in such horrible ways? Why were the confessions, extracted under torture, so very like what my patients tell me during psychological treatment?”

Freud believed in Janet’s writings and research. However, he abandoned his support of Janet under pressure exerted by his peers and elders in the psychological community. It was made clear to him that the popularity and acceptance of his work would suffer if he continued to embrace the validity and reality of the spiritual as a factor in psychological treatment.

The bias of the psychological community against spiritualism has and continues to be profound. I am defining spiritualism as: a voluntary acceptance of an individual of a bodiless being(s) which is external to the individual. This bodiless being is not part of the individual’s personality but a separate being functioning in and through a person. Their existence within is always dysfunctional and destructive to the person himself and to those around them.

The subjectivity required to incorporate the spiritual world as a factor in psychological problems is extremely disturbing to the present day psychological and medical communities. These communities have incorporated the scientific method as the basis for establishing truth. This requires great objectivity. This works well in the physical, material world and has been a great blessing to us all. However, when one accepts bodiless beings as real and present in human psychological behavior, the scientific method is inadequate. Why? The scientific method only works well in the material world. It does not work in the spiritual world. That requires revealed truth.  Subjective interpretation based on revealed truth does not fit into the scientific method.

I understand the dilemma, but denial of the spiritual world is self-defeating and is not consistent with manifest reality. The material and spiritual world both exist and are an active part of our human condition. To deny the existence of the spirit world negates the experience and belief of the vast majority of humanity. However, that is exactly the past and present-day stance of the majority of the psychological and scientific communities.

The psychological community has gotten by with this to this point in time. That, however, has not worked at all with Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), also called Dissociative Personality Disorder (DID). For over thirty years, the research groups using the scientific method have worked to develop treatment modalities for MPD. To date they have not succeeded. They still state in the official literature that there is no cure or effective therapy for MPD. Conversely, those who are incorporating spiritual therapies in their treatment report that help and even cure of this problem are possible and are taking place. I believe that it’s time, for the sake of many hurting people, that this sad state of affairs be brought to an end. I am in the group that believes that spiritual problems require spiritual answers, and material problems require material answers. It is not a question of either/or but both/and. May it soon be so! 

Pierre Janet (1859-1947)

Pierre Janet was the first researcher into the problems of dissociative people. He introduced this research in the community of modern-day psychology. He was recognized as one of the pioneers in the use of hypnosis as a clinical tool. The techniques that he developed are still broadly used today. He found that hypnosis was an accurate way to open up the hidden issues and the hidden world of gravely wounded and dysfunctional people.

The use of hypnosis as an intervention made it possible for others to use these techniques and methods and to substantiate many of the claims that he made in his writings. Janet’s findings about hypnosis remain true to this day. He found that hypnosis was a great tool to open up that which is hidden deep in the personality. The major limitation of hypnosis was and is that its use as a therapy of change is limited. The therapist can make suggestions to the person who is in a deep hypnotic state, and these suggestions will be acted upon after the individual comes out of hypnosis. However, the deepest and most troubling issues of the individual can only be altered for a few days to a few weeks. No long-lasting change takes place in hypno-therapy. A few addictions do respond to hypnosis such as nicotine addiction.

Pierre Janet is recognized for his work in hypnosis. However, his findings through its use have largely condemned him into oblivion within the psychiatric community. He found that there were co-existing personalities, some of which the person was consciously aware and others that they were not aware of. These additional personalities had parallel memories in complete ignorance of one another. They exist; they function. They are often opposed to each other and to the conscious part of themselves. The conscious personalities are often engaged in socially acceptable behaviors and attempts to live within social standards that are lawful. Whereas the hidden personalities are often antisocial and destructive to self and others and can be morally and behaviorally lawless, often in the extreme.

Janet named the condition of one person with many personalities Multiple Personality Disorder. This name emphasizes the fact that an individual, while existing in one body, has many personalities within. 

He defined several terms that described what he was finding through hypno-therapy. Some of these are: hysteria, hypnosis, multiple personality, and spiritualism. Hysteria is a pathological (dysfunctional and destructive) form of dissociation that functions independently within the personality which disturbs the individual’s everyday life. Hypnosis is induced dissociation or amnesia whereby they are unaware of what is taking place while in the induced hypnotic state.  Multiple Personality is a condition in which two or more dissociated states function with distinct differences of behavior, mood, and intention and are unaware of each other.  Spiritualism was a voluntary acceptance of a supposed bodiless being (Janet’s words) which was external to the individual, that is, not part of the individual’s personality, but a separate entity functioning within the multiple’s personalities. This being that he identifies as a spirit being is real and active within and through the individual’s life. His clients described the activities of this being to him. The fact that he reported the spirit beings as the clients perceived them served notice to the psychiatric community that the malevolent spirit beings were active in psychiatric and social dysfunctions. 

This, I believe, is the reason the psychiatric community ignored Janet’s work for about eighty years. His work with multiple personalities was not reported and, for years, was not mentioned in clinical training. By design, he was treated as if his great body of work did not exist.

Pierre Janet’s attitude in therapy was client centered. He was aware of but did not let the psychiatric community’s biased and determined opposition to anything spiritual interfere with the client’s therapy. Speaking to one of Kroepelen’s students, he declared, “I believe these people (the psychotics) until it is proven to me that what they say is untrue…. You see, these people are persecuted by something, and you must investigate to get to the root.” These client revelations of pathological behaviors he described not in explicit terms but in words such as “obsessions”, “fantasies” and the like. He alluded to the client’s personal trauma but never stated it.

Janet’s work was spot on correct. It should be noted that he found a barrier of amnesia between the conscious part of the multiple and the sub-conscious. That, too, is true. Those of us who do therapy with the individuals who suffer from multiple personality disorder owe a great debt to this honest and clinically correct worker with those who suffer from MPD.

Category: Norman's Place

Tag: Multiple Personality Disorder

by Norman L. Coad D.M.