Note 300 — LECTURE XX (THE SAME CONTINUED)—THE A PERSONALITY

This came about in the following way: One day while A was in hypnosis she suddenly and spontaneously changed to a different hypnotic state characterized by change of facial expression, manner, speech, etc. It was afterwards recognized that this was the B personality in hypnosis. I had not before seen or heard of the B personality as such. I had only known that the subject from her own account had been in a neurasthenic condition and had been through periods of improvement and relapses. I did not suspect that these phases of improvement and relapses represented phases of personality such as was soon discovered to be the case. A few days after the B personality had appeared in hypnosis this phase spontaneously waked and alternated as it had previously done, with the A complex. But now, as the writer says, there was amnesia on the part of A for B. The explanation for this is undoubtedly to be found in the fact that a new synthesis and more complete dissociation of the B complex had taken place through the experience of hypnosis. Analogous phenomena I have observed in making experimental observations but it would take us too far away to enter into this question here.