Abstract
<jats:p>The article examines the interpretation of the intellectual relationship between Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud presented in the study by Céline Surprenant. The aim of the paper is to identify the theoretical foundations of the divergence between French experimental psychology at the turn of the twentieth century and the emerging psychoanalytic tradition. Particular attention is given to Janet’s attempt to situate psychoanalysis within the broader historical evolution of psychotherapeutic methods and psychological doctrines rather than to treat it as a radically new scientific paradigm. The article analyzes Janet’s main critical arguments concerning the generalization of clinical observations, the interpretation of subconscious processes, and the universalization of the sexual etiology of neuroses in Freudian theory. It is argued that the differences between Janet and Freud reflect not only competing clinical explanatory models but also divergent epistemological conceptions of the development of psychological knowledge. The debate is therefore interpreted as an expression of a broader methodological tension between the model of gradual disciplinary transformation and the concept of theoretical rupture associated with the psychoanalytic project.</jats:p>