title: French perspectives on psychiatric classification.
abstract: This article reviews the role of the French schools in the development of psychiatric nosology. Boissier de Sauvages published the first French treatise on medical nosology in 1763. Until the 1880s, French schools held a pre-eminent position in the development of psychiatric concepts. From the 1880s until World War I, German-speaking schools exerted the most influence, featuring the work of major figures such as Emil Kraepelin and Eugen Bleuler. French schools were probably hampered by excessive administrative and cultural centralization. Between the 1880s and the 1930s, French schools developed diagnostic categories that set them apart from international classifications. The main examples are Bouffée Délirante, and the complex set of chronic delusional psychoses (CDPs), including chronic hallucinatory psychosis. CDPs were distinguished from schizophrenia by the lack of cognitive deterioration during evolution. Modern French psychiatry is now coming into line with international classification, such as DSM-5 and the upcoming ICD-11.
authors.affiliation: Centre Hospitalier, Rouffach, France.
authors.forename: Marc-Antoine
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Crocq
mesh_terms: D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D005602:France; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D038801:International Classification of Diseases; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000145:classification* / Q000266:history*; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000266:history / Q000379:methods
keywords: DSM-5; France; ICD-11; history of psychiatry; nosology; psychiatric classification