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Article dans une revue History of Psychiatry Année : 2015

Félix Voisin and the genesis of abnormals

Claude-Olivier Doron
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Résumé

This article traces the genealogy of the category of 'abnormals' in psychiatry. It focuses on the French alienist Felix Voisin (1794-1872) who played a decisive role in the creation of alienist knowledge and institutions for problem children, criminals, idiots and lunatics. After a presentation of the category of 'abnormals' as understood at the end of the nineteenth century, I identify in the works of Voisin a key moment in the concept's evolution. I show how, based on concepts borrowed from phrenology and applied first to idiocy, Voisin allows alienism to establish links between the medico-legal (including penitentiary) and medical-educational fields (including difficult childhood). I stress the extent to which this enterprise is related to Voisin's humanism, which claimed to remodel pedagogy and the right to punish on the anthropological particularities of individuals, in order to improve them.
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Dates et versions

halshs-01508912, version 1 (14-04-2017)

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Claude-Olivier Doron. Félix Voisin and the genesis of abnormals. History of Psychiatry, 2015, 26, pp. 387-403. ⟨10.1177/0957154X15604789⟩. ⟨halshs-01508912⟩
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Dernière date de mise à jour le 28/04/2024
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