“Move with Your Muscles, Arrive with Your Brain”: Philippe Tissié and the Psychophysiology of Athletes

Abstract

In light of recent historiographic approaches that identify a fundamental step in the development of the worldwide concept of “physical education” in the work of Philippe Tissie (1852-1935), this essay examines the French doctor’s scientific journey by specifically analyzing his passage from an interest in movement pathology to a true psychophysiology of training. At that time, French public opinion was showing widespread enthusiasm for school reform and for the inclusion of physical education among the subjects taught. On the basis of this enthusiasm, Tissie intended to develop a discipline based not just on strength-building as an end in itself, but one in which a broader educational plan would also include using gymnastics for the psychological education of young people. The origin of this process becomes clear only in light of a historical and critical analysis of Tissie’s early writings. Although often overlooked by secondary literature, they are fundamental for putting into context both his complete commitment to the late 19th-century theories of nervism and his connection to French psychopathology at that time, represented primarily by the Salpetriere and Nancy schools. Dream analysis, an insistence on a difference between functional impotence and nervous fatigue, and the characterological classification of an athlete indicated not only his efforts to get French youth into shape but also his desire to place an individual’s psychological and physical life within a unitary model.