Jean-Martin Charcot
Parisian physician under whom Freud studied, and whose work on hysteria and hypnosis stands at the start of the history of psychoanalysis.
Who they are
This library knows Charcot through Peter Watson's The Modern Mind (2001). Watson describes him as running an asylum for women with incurable nervous disorders, and records that Freud won a scholarship to study under him in Paris (p. 13). Watson credits Charcot with showing that hysterical symptoms could be induced under hypnosis, and states it without qualification; this library's audit of the book notes that absence.
The inference his work invited was that if suggestion could produce a symptom, perhaps the mind could produce one unaided. This page records Charcot's place in that history only, and gives no dates because the sources read do not supply them.
Key papers
No paper by Charcot has been read for this library. The account above rests on Watson, P. (2001). The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century. HarperCollins (Perennial edition 2002), p. 13.
Key ideas
See Hysteria.
Sources
- Watson (2001), read in full with a reliability audit, September 2026; p. 13 used for this page, 13 October 2026.