French Psychiatry Research Articles

Surrealism before Freud: Dynamic Psychiatry's “Simple Recording Instrument”

We generally assume, correctly it turns out, that Surrealism depends on ideas that came from psychiatry. The mistake that is always made is to assume that the psychiatry we know is the psychiatry A...

The Past and the Future of French Psychiatry

Psychiatry has an unusual past. It is very closely linked to the place and time in which it has sought its way. Dependent on the prevailing conception of man and on the conditions imposed on that conception, susceptible as they are to ideological and political factors of the moment, and obliged to take economic and social realities into account, it must nonetheless maintain its identity and guard against all normative temptations. Privileged witness to the malaise of living, the physician must, at the same time, prevent the concealment of suffering and assume responsibility, forthrightly, for what he observes and how he understands it. The evolution of psychiatry has taken it outside the hospital, but this must never mean abandonment of those who suffer or neglect of their essential needs.

Murder under hypnosis.

This article discusses the trial of a woman accused of murder in 1890 whose defence rested on the claim that she acted unconsciously under the hypnotic influence of her older lover. This relatively banal case brought together two rival schools of French psychiatry - that of J.-M. Charcot in Paris and that of Hippolyte Bernheim in Nancy - and provided a wide-ranging examination of views on the nature of unconscious mental activity as well as the social, political and professional implications that their theories on hypnotism and hysteria contained. Discussions on women's sexuality, family relations, crowd behaviour and political radicalism all played a part in the debate and are examined through the case study that the trial of Gabrielle Bompard permits. Moreover, the trial shed incidental light on the campaign by physicians against amateur healers and hypnotists whom they blamed for unleashing a wave of mass hysteria through their theatrical representations. The episode was one important element in the struggle for the passage of the law of 30 November 1892, which outlawed amateur practitioners and established the medical monopoly over healing in France.

Psychiatric Deinstitutionalization in Italy: A Neighbor’s Viewpoint

The extraordinary movement that has shaken Italian psychiatry has given rise on the French side of the Alps to ambivalent reactions, a mixture of admiration and apprehension. We have been carrying on a friendly and critical debate with our Italian colleagues, particularly with those who have participated in the democratic psychiatry movement, for 15 years, more or less. I shall try to indicate here the points of both agreement and disagreement. French psychiatry is no more monolithic than Italian psychiatry. One may find differences according to profession, training (psychoanalytic or not), and political orientation from one region to another, from one facility to another, and even within the same staff. These divisions extend even to within the same individual, and there are very few who take an unequivocal position with regard to the Italian experience. What is taking place at present in Italy has shaken the consciousness of everyone working in psychiatry, and has unleashed a series of movements for or against; in brief, it has created an internal conflict. This conflict has often been masked by the taking of positions that actually conceal profound uncertainty. We should be clear that the French situation is very different from the Italian one from the very outset. French mental hospitals, whatever their faults, have never descended to the level of deterioration that characterized their Italian counterparts. Whereas in Italy the asylum had gradually become a place of rejection and abandonment for masses of people whose major problems had more to do with economic difficulties than with mental pathology, in France the mental hospital has always been, first and foremost, a place for the administering of careto be sure, inadequate and often archaic, but aimed principally at the authentically mentally ill.

Jacques Lacan and French psychiatry.

Jacques Lacan and French psychiatry.

The diagnosis and classification of mental disorders in French-speaking countries: background, current views and comparison with other nomenclatures.

SYNOPSISA detailed account is given of the historical background and current status of the concepts of transitory delusional state (bouffée délirante) and chronic delusional state in French psychiatry. Their relations with other nosological systems are discussed.

Philosophical foundations of French and U.S. nosology

The author examines the philosophical foundations of French and American nosology with a view toward understanding the relatively minor influence of French psychiatry in America. Despite the excellence of its descriptive psychiatry, much of French nosological writing is based on philosophical viewpoints that are antithetical to the empirical and pragmatic traditions of American psychiatry. French nosology, which is closely involved with the metaphysical issues of existentialism, phenomenalism, and structuralism, reveals these interests in language and concepts that do not easily permit its hypotheses to be scientifically tested, a prerequisite for any American classification.

Henri Ey

Henri Ey died on 6 November 1977. For 40 years he had been the dominant figure of French psychiatry. He came from an exceptional generation and trained at the same time as Pierre Male, Jacques Lacan and Sacha Nacht, who together led psychoanalysis in France. Ey himself, though, was not an analyst, but he tried to integrate psychoanalysis with general psychiatry. In this he was much influenced by Hughlings Jackson. The book he wrote in 1938 with Julien Rouart, which was expanded and republished in 1975 as Des Idées de Jackson à un Modèle Organodynamique expressed the views which dominated his life. He thought that psychiatry could not avoid looking at the articulation of diverse levels of psychic life, and their disorganization.

Classification of mental illness: the value of certain French nosological concepts.

The thesis of this paper is that a reintroduction of the concepts of psychosis derived from French psychiatry would be of value in terms of clinical precision, research and treatment. The relatively few diagnostic entities employed in North America in the classification of psychoses other than depressive and organic is contrasted with a more extended French nosological system. The demonstrated usefulness of the precise classification of depressive syndromes suggests that similar discrimination applied to other psychoses would be a promising area for research.

エデュアール・セガンの教育思想に関する一考察

Edouard O. Seguin is called "apostle of idiots" and said to be one of the most prominent educators who tried to educate idiots systematically in 19th century. The object of this study is to place his thought in the history of education for idiots according to the following points, 1) to clarify his view and definition of "idiocy" in relation to the problem of idiots in those days and the works of pioneers in French psychiatry, 2) to research his thought of education for idiots, especially physiological education, in connection with those of modern educators, Rousseau, Saint-Simonists, Pereire and Itard. According to him, idiotic children consist of various kinds of children from the sererely handicapped to the mental retarded. His concept of idiotic children like this related to the problem of idiots which came out socially in 19th century. One of his great contributions to education is that he proposed a program of educating such children neglected by people as the incapable and tried to embody it in order to guarantee the right to education of all human beings. His method of physiological education seems to have two principles. The first is a principle of harmonious and overall development of idiotic children. It rests on the basis of Rousseau' s negative method of education and the trinity theory of Saint-Simonists. The second principle is that training of senses is important means of intellectual culture. Much influence of Pereire and Itard on Seguin can be found here. Seguin's view that work and lador play important rolls in their development also characterizes his educational thought.

Recent developments and trends in French psychiatry

Recent developments and trends in French psychiatry

Recent developments in French psychiatry.

In the development of psychiatry, the paths in our two countries, Great Britain and France, have often run parallel, have frequently come into contact, yet each has retained its individuality and with it a nuance of its own. Pinel, freeing the “aliénés” of Bicêtre from their chains, and William Tuke, establishing the York Retreat, were effecting at almost the same time the same revolution in the treatment of the mentally ill, but the philosophical backgrounds of their actions were different; and though the Royal Medico-Psychological Association and the Société Médico-psychologique are of about the same age, their journals reveal that the preoccupations of their members are not absolutely identical. Certainly the interpenetrations have been fruitful. In establishing in Edinburgh, in 1823, the first formal teaching of psychiatry in this country, Sir Alexander Morison had been influenced by the example of Esquirol, his old master; and Théodule Ribot, the founder of modern French psychopathology, had found his conceptual model and his inspiration in the works of English psychologists, to whom he eventually dedicated a volume which became a classic. But too often, in an age which prides itself on having elevated the study of communications to the rank of a science, the diffusion of information meets obstacles which are more than material or linguistic, and a true medical particularism comes into being. The cultivation of national scientific traditions is a sign of creative originality; but, just as the virtues of hybridization have been demonstrated by the geneticists, the advantages stemming from a knowledge of the efforts and the results of other schools are not negligible for psychiatrists. In this paper I am going to attempt to contribute to this mutual understanding by presenting the recent major trends of French psychiatry.

The Meaning and Measurement of Neuroticism and Anxiety

Contemporary European Psychiatry. Edited by Leopold Bellak, M.D. Price, $3.95. Pp. 372. Grove Press, Inc., 64 University Pl., New York 3, 1961. This is not a reprint but an original edition in paperback form. French psychiatry is portrayed by Pichot, German and Austrian by Hoff and Arnold, Great Britain by Lewis, Italy by Cerletti, Scandinavia by Langfelt, the Soviet Union by Gilyarovsky, and Switzerland by Benedetti and Miller. Each section is indeed complete and furnishes an adequate account of psychiatry in each country represented. In Bellak's introduction he quotes Bohm's facetious comparison between American and European psychiatry and then continues with his own criticism: There is no major factor in American psychiatry, with the possible exception of some of its sociological aspects, which does not have its immediate origin in Europe\p=m-\andI am still talking of recent years. He states: We want a happy combination of adaptive originality and rigid control; of creativity and methodological sophistication. Bellak believes that our team approach and our technical facilities stand in the way of creativity. Then the editor takes several unfair blasts at the foundations and governmental agencies which he contends are controlled by relatively small groups of men who give money only for safe projects. He complains against an inbred group in control of grants who favor its own members, and he decries the influence of academic psychologists whose main concern is for cleanness of design first. It is easy enough to blame the men whose responsibility is the allocation of money for the poor quality of clinical research, but the facts are not at hand to indicate that this is correct. Funds can only be given to the best of applications in any field of science. That very few competent investigators choose the social sciences (including psychiatry) is a by-product of cultural influences and especially current values generally held. What is needed is not carping criticism and off-the-top-of-the-head disparagement of responsible serious professionals who are engaged in educating, inspiring, and ideal-making, but a serious objective investigation into the many causes that delay progress in the battle against mental illness. Roy R. Grinker, Sr., M.D.

Contemporary European Psychiatry.

This is not a reprint but an original edition in paperback form. French psychiatry is portrayed by Pichot, German and Austrian by Hoff and Arnold, Great Britain by Lewis, Italy by Cerletti, Scandinavia by Langfelt, the Soviet Union by Gilyarovsky, and Switzerland by Benedetti and Miller. Each section is indeed complete and furnishes an adequate account of psychiatry in each country represented. In Bellak's introduction he quotes Bohm's facetious comparison between American and European psychiatry and then continues with his own criticism: "There is no major factor in American psychiatry, with the possible exception of some of its sociological aspects, which does not have its immediate origin in Europe—and I am still talking of recent years." He states: "We want a happy combination of adaptive originality and rigid control; of creativity and methodological sophistication." Bellak believes that our team approach and our technical facilities stand in the way

French Psychiatry

French Psychiatry

France

During the last year, scientific activity seemed to be suspended by the war; the societies devoted to the study of mental diseases could not meet for want of members, and the publication of specialist journals was temporarily postponed. It is not yet the proper time for examining the psychiatrical consequences of the present events, and such a study will be more pertinently carried on subsequently to the conclusion of hostilities. So an epitome of French psychiatry only covers a period of seven months, from the beginning of January to the end of July.

French Psychiatry

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