Pourquoi faire l’histoire de la psychiatrie ? Le cas de l’Évolution psychiatrique (1925–1985)

Abstract

AimsThe history and epistemology of psychiatry are today one of the main themes of the journal Évolution Psychiatrique, alongside its psychoanalytical and psychopathological orientations. This has not however always been the case. The aim of this article is to study the space devoted to the history of psychiatry in the journal and the Society. This could cast light on the motivations of psychiatrists who are also historians, on the interest shown in the history of the discipline, and on the underlying cultural, political and ideological issues. MethodThis research was based on a systematic perusal of articles published in the journal and a study of the different conferences organised by the Society, from the first issue in 1925 up to 1985. To obtain a better picture of the singularity of the orientations of Évolution Psychiatrique, a comparative study was conducted exploring the journal's editorial context as a whole and the content of other journals of psychiatry in the same period, mainly the Annales Médico-Psychologiques and L’information Psychiatrique. ResultsUnder the auspices of Henri Ey, for 26 years the journal was inclined to welcome all the innovating trends in psychiatry (phenomenology, psychoanalysis, structuralism), which were confronted without excluding any of them. During this period the historical studies were restricted to monographs on authors or concepts. Michel Foucault's Histoire de la folie (1961) was initially viewed as an attack on psychiatric knowledge and an antipsychiatry crusade. It is only some ten years later that this work aroused epistemological interest among psychiatrists. In France the history of psychiatry is a discipline that developed mainly in the 1970s, becoming institutionalised in the 1980s. In the journal L’Évolution Psychiatrique, this interest in the history of psychiatry appears rather later, and corresponds to the arrival of a new generation of psychiatrists (E. Trillat, J. Postel, C. Quétel, M. Gourevitch, G. Lantéri-Laura) who applied historical methods borrowed from professional historians (the school of the Annales). DiscussionWhy does a discipline need a history? When did the need appear in psychiatry, and for what purpose? Can any logic be detected in this “historical moment” appearing within the construction of clinical and psychiatric knowledge? ConclusionThe end of the 1970s is a turning-point for psychiatry. It coincides with the death of major intellectual figures of psychiatry (J. Ey, J. Lacan, G. Daumézon), with the end of the great political combats around antipsychiatry, with the emergency of a “psy” society, and also of interest in the historical approach. This approach was then applied to a reappraisal of the moment when psychiatric science appeared at the start of the 19th century. The accumulation of historical knowledge was also a way to reinstate the unity of a discipline and its field at a time when its heterogeneity was becoming problematic.