La bipolarité épistémologique de la psychiatrie française

In this paper, we focus on the diversity of scientific approaches in French psychiatry, using several concepts inspired by the philosophy of sciences. The feeling of an internal crisis, regularly expressed on a public stage, alongside with the developments of neurosciences who contested a psychoanalytical supremacy amongst French psychiatrists suggest the beginning of a scientific revolution. However, several points indicate that French psychiatry has been evolving in a continuous paradigm since its emergence at the turn of the 19^th century. Since then, this discipline has been consistently suspended between two different scientific rationales. On the one hand, it relies on an explicative, experimental and generalizing approach. On the other hand, it refers to a comprehensive, inducitivist and singularity-orientated rationale. We coin the expression “epistemological bipolarity” to describe this specific scientific organization.