Abaissement du niveau mental

1. Etymology

Abaissement du niveau mental (French: lowering of the mental level) names a lowering of the level of consciousness—a mental and emotional condition experienced as “loss of soul.” Related: depression; consciousness; complex; Pierre Janet; not identical with ordinary tiredness alone.

2. Plain summary

Think of abaissement as the barometer dropping. Consciousness loosens its grip: listlessness, leaden body, little will for the day’s tasks, disposable energy gone. Unity of the personality can fray so that unexpected contents push up from the unconscious.

It can follow fatigue, illness, violent emotion, or shock. Janet used the idea for hysteria and related neuroses; Jung saw the same pattern in word-association slips tied to personal complexes, and later as a border state where unconscious contents are near. It may happen involuntarily—or be fostered carefully before active imagination. The play of opposites loosens; values can reverse. Myths, Jung said, formed in something like this primitive state of consciousness—and the downside includes possession risks when the ego cannot hold.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common abaissement motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
lowering of consciousness; loss of soul; listlessness / moroseness / depression feel; leaden body; paralysis of will; personality falling apart; fatigue / illness / shock; word-association complex breakthroughs; pre-condition for spontaneous psychic phenomena; preparatory to active imagination; release of opposites; relative reversal of values; drug-like threshold lowering; primitive myth-forming state; egocentric narrowing; possession risk.

3. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology abaissement du niveau mental is Janet's term retained—a drop in conscious tonus that both explains complex intrusion and names a workable (if risky) threshold for imaginal work. Descent Press keeps Sharp and Samuels in §4; §5 holds sample CW stamps. Prefer CW 9i rebirth and child-archetype essays. The “primitive state of consciousness” wording is cited from CW 9i ¶264.

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Abaissement du niveau mental. A lowering of the level of consciousness, a mental and emotional condition experienced as “loss of soul.” (See also depression.) It is a slackening of the tensity of consciousness, which might be compared to a low barometric reading, presaging bad weather. … Abaissement du niveau mental can be the result of physical and mental fatigue, bodily illness, violent emotions, and shock…

(Sharp, 1991)

abaissement du niveau mental A relaxation and an uninhibited letting go of psychic restraints; reduced intensity of CONSCIOUSNESS characterised by absence of concentration and attention; a state in which unexpected contents may emerge from the UNCONSCIOUS. The term was first used by Jung’s teacher, the French Professor Pierre Janet… Jung… used the term to describe a border condition… may also be consciously fostered preparatory to ACTIVE IMAGINATION.

(Samuels, Shorter, & Plaut, 1986, pp. 7–8)

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

… occasionally something similar can happen to civilized man, only he does not describe it as “loss of soul” but as an “abaissement du niveau mental,” Janet’s apt term for this phenomenon. It is a slackening of the tensity of consciousness, which might be compared to a low barometric reading, presaging bad weather. The tonus has given way, and this is felt subjectively as listlessness, moroseness, and depression. … One feels like lead, because no part of one’s body seems willing to move, and this is due to the fact that one no longer has any disposable energy. This well-known phenomenon corresponds to the primitive’s loss of soul. The listlessness and paralysis of will can go so far that the whole personality falls apart, so to speak, and consciousness loses its unity…
(Jung, 1940/1968, CW 9i, pp. 119–120, ¶213)

Abaissement du niveau mental can be the result of physical and mental fatigue, bodily illness, violent emotions, and shock, of which the last has a particularly deleterious effect on one’s self-assurance. The abaissement always has a restrictive influence on the personality as a whole. It reduces one’s self-confidence and the spirit of enterprise, and, as a result of increasing egocentricity, narrows the mental horizon.
(Jung, 1940/1968, CW 9i, p. 120, ¶214)

Reduced intensity of consciousness and absence of concentration and attention, Janet’s abaissement du niveau mental, correspond pretty exactly to the primitive state of consciousness…
(Jung, 1940/1968, CW 9i, p. 155, ¶264)

See also: consciousness; unconscious; complex; association; active imagination; opposites; depression; affect.

References

Jung, C. G. (1968). Concerning rebirth. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (Vol. 9i, pp. 119–120, ¶¶213–214). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1940)

Jung, C. G. (1968). The psychology of the child archetype. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (Vol. 9i, p. 155, ¶264). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1940)

Samuels, A., Shorter, B., & Plaut, F. (1986). A critical dictionary of Jungian analysis. Routledge.

Sharp, D. (1991). Jung lexicon: A primer of terms & concepts. Inner City Books.