The latest issue of Psychiatrie, sciences humaines, neurosciences is available online. One article is dedicated to Charcot and the discovery of the Unconscious.

Un premier schéma de l’inconscient par Charcot dès 1892 by C. Bouchara, P. Mazet and D. Cohen. The abstract reads.

The recent discovery of a drawing of the mind sheds new light on Charcot’s contribution to the discovery of the unconscious. This particular drawing, given by his son Jean-Baptiste, was found in Charcot’s personal notes related to a lecture he gave in June 1892 and was kept in the Salpêtrière historical collection of the University Pierre and Marie Curie. Is this drawing an anticipation of Freud’s first topology of the Unconscious? This is the main issue raised. In order to understand its full meaning, we will focus on Charcot’s scientific thoughts, the specific position he held on hypnosis, his studies on the force of the idea and experimental paralysis, his relationships with Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud during the years 1885–1992, and finally, his view on Sigmund Freud that is shared in their correspondences.