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

The 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.