The Fear of Action: A Classic Article in the History of Psychology

by Pierre Janet, David Webb (Editor)

A Classic Psychology Article

A fascinating account of phobias, sentiments and obsessions occurring in the course of neuroses, The Fear of Action was originally presented as a paper by Pierre Janet at the Atlantic City meeting of the American Psychopathological Society in June, 1921.

This classic article has been re-edited and produced in kindle format as part of an initiative by the website www.all-about-psychology.com to make important, insightful and engaging psychology publications widely available.

Genres: Psychology

20 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 12, 2014

About the author

Pierre Marie Félix Janet was a pioneering French psychologist, philosopher, and psychotherapist in the field of dissociation and traumatic memory. He is ranked alongside William James and Wilhelm Wundt as one of the founding fathers of psychology.

Janet was one of the first people to allege a connection between events in a subject's past life and his or her present-day trauma, and coined the words "dissociation" and "subconscious". His study of the "magnetic passion" or "rapport" between the patient and the hypnotist anticipated later accounts of the transference phenomenon.

The 20th century saw Janet developing a grand model of the mind in terms of levels of energy, efficiency and social competence, which he set out in publications including Obsessions and Psychasthenia (1903) and From Anguish to Ecstasy (1926), among others. In its concern for the construction of the personality in social terms, this model has been compared to the social behaviorism of George Herbert Mead something which explains Lacan's early praise of "Janet, who demonstrated so admirably the signification of feelings of persecution as phenomenological moments in social behavior".