Philippe Pinel

Philippe Pinel was a French doctor who is known as the father of Psychiatry.

Early Life and Career

Pinel was born in Southern France in 1745. He studied at the University of Toulouse before becoming a doctor in in 1778. He then moved to Paris and spent the next fifteen years working as a translator. In 1784, he started editing La Gazette de Santé, a magazine about medicine. Then a friend of his killed himself so Pinel wanted to understand Madness. He got a job at a Mental hospital where he worked for five years. After the French Revolution, he was put in charge of the Bicetre Hospital

Bicetre

Pinel wanted to help the 200 patients who were insane so he talked to his boss Jean-Baptiste Pussin. Together they came up with ways to treat mental illness that didn’t use violence and which was based mostly on therapy. At the time, the mentally ill were chained to the walls but Pinel and Pussin got rid of the chains. Pinel also made sure to talk to every patient to understand their history and what their problems were.

Four Types of Mental Disorder

Pinel said there were four different kinds of madness. The first was called melancholia which Pinel said meant either Narcissism or Depression. The second was called Madness without Delirium. Pinel said that meant that a person who looked and acted like a completely normal person who was sane would still do very violent things without any remorse. (This would later be renamed Psychopathy.) The third was Dementia which Pinel said not being able to get new memories. The fourth was called Idiotism, it meant not being able to think and usually also being bad at speaking and feeling very strong emotions completely randomly.

Influence

Pinel made the idea that Madness was actually Mental illness and people with it needed help and compassion a popular idea. Michel Foucault hated Pinel and thought that Pinel made things worse.