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The French Approach to Psychiatric Classification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

P. J. Pichot*
Affiliation:
Centre Hospitalier Sainte-Anne, 100 rue de la Santé, 75674 Paris Cedex 14, France

Extract

It is common knowledge that the French school of psychiatry began with Pinel (1745–1826) at the end of the 18th century. Pinel is credited with having delivered the insane from their chains in the two hospitals of Paris where they were detained, Bicêtre and la Salpêtrière: his near contemporaries in the humanization of the treatment of the insane were Tuke in England, Chiarugi in Tuscany and Daquin in Savoy. Pinel's essential achievement was the creation of the 19th-century French tradition in psychiatry, encompassing the medical, clinical, descriptive and nosological fields. Pinel's breadth of outlook was shared by his pupil Esquirol (1772–1840), who dominated the so-called ‘classical’ school of the ‘Alienists of the Salpêtrière’ via his numerous disciples and his treatise, published in 1838, Des Maladies Mentales Considérées sous le Rapports Médical, Hygiénique et Médicol-légal.

Type
Lecture
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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References

Erpelding-Pull, M. C. (1983) Les psychoses schizophréniques: critères diagnostiques des psychiatres français. Comparison avec les critères des psychiatres américains. Thèse pour le Doctorat de 3ème Cycle. Université Paris V-René Descartes.Google Scholar
Pichot, P. (1982) The diagnosis and classification of mental disorders in French-speaking countries: background, current views and comparison with other nomenclatures. Psychological Medicine, 12, 475–92.Google Scholar
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