http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/11058976

Alterations of personality ; On double consciousness

"Fifteen years ago researches in pathological psychology, based upon the study of hysteria and suggestion, were begun in France, England, and other countries. Physiologists and philosophers gave themselves up enthusiastically to this new line of work, and in a short time a very considerable number of observations and experiments of different sorts were collected. The principal questions taken up with more or less fruitfulness were hallucinations, paralysis by suggestion, alterations of personality, diseases of memory, muscular sense, suggestion both in the waking state and in hypnosis, unconscious suggestion, etc. As these researches were multiplied and extended, many discussions arose. My intention in writing this book is not to keep up the discussions of the schools. Instead of opposing my experiments to those of other authors, I wish to gather together all the results that have been reached in the study of one question in order to find out which of these results naturally go together and allow themselves to be grouped under general principles. I shall cite only those experiments which have been confirmed by all and which give a constant result, no matter from what point of view they may be conducted. And I shall suggest merely, without any attempt at estimation, those phenomena which have been observed so far only by one person, and which can not therefore as yet be brought into the class of known and accepted facts, and I shall subject my own works to this rule just as I do those of others. I propose to give a detailed account of the result of these recent researches on the alterations of personality"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).

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