Les premiers moments de l’introduction de la psychanalyse en pédopsychiatrie dans l’entre-deux-guerres en France

Abstract

In this paper, the author describes the first moments of the introduction of psychoanalysis in child psychiatry and the context of their emergence in the 1920s and 1930s in France. They are contemporaneous with the difficult introduction of psychoanalysis into the medical world. Child psychoanalysis then appeared as a prophylaxis of neurotic disorders, and aroused the interest of educational psychologists and educators. It traces the pioneering work of psychoanalyst Sophie Morgenstern in Georges Heuyer's child psychiatry consultation, and that of Pierre Mâle in Henri Rousselle's child psychiatry consultation. After the Liberation, he became the recognized specialist in adolescent psychotherapy. On the other hand, Morgenstern's legacy will be forgotten or disowned by those who will succeed her, and the author wonders about the reasons for this phenomenon. This pioneering work, which drew a new face of normal and abnormal childhood, was to be greatly expanded after the Second World War.