Constance Pascal (1877-1937): Authority, Femininity and Feminism in French Psychiatry (Igrs Books) - Softcover

Gordon, Felicia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0854572368 ISBN 13: 9780854572366

Publisher: IGRS, University of London, 2013

Synopsis

Constance Pascal's career in French psychiatry from 1908 to 1937 exemplifies the opportunities open to women in the French Third Republic as well as the prejudices they encountered. As the first woman psychiatrist in France, Pascal, of Romanian origin, attained professional success at the cost of suppressing her personal life. Best known for her work on dementia praecox, she founded one of the first schools in France for children with severe learning difficulties, and made remarkable contributions in the reform of asylum practices and, influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis, in psychotherapeutic intervention. Her feminism is demonstrated by her distinguished, often contentious, career in a hitherto all male profession and by her support for other women in their professional roles. Her unjustly neglected life story illuminates many of the conflicts experienced by women entering the professions during the belle époque and the inter-war years. The study's scholarly authority and ambitious theoretical range do not detract from its lively sense of the person and life struggles of the subject making this a fine demonstration of life history research enthralling for the general reader and expert alike. Felicia Gordon is a Senior Member of Wolfson College, Cambridge, and the author of several works on French women's history, among them on Madeleine Pelletier.

About this title

About the Author:

Felicia Gordon was Principal Lecturer in Philosophy and European Literature at Anglia Ruskin University. Now a Senior Research Associate, she has published extensively in women's history and aspects of French Feminism. She is the author of "Marie-Madeleine Jodin 1741-1790: Actress, Philosophe, and Feminist "(Ashgate, 2002).

About this edition

• Publisher: IGRS, University of London
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0854572368
• ISBN 13: 9780854572366
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256