Philippe Ariès (1914-1984)

Between 1880 and 1911, the French psychologist Alfred Binet massively experimented on so-called "hysterical" women, children and lunatics who became an inexhaustible reservoir of trial subjects. For 30 years, he did not hesitate to write down his directives, his arbitrations, his doubts and the verbal reactions of his experimental subjects.

What was the modus operandi of the hypnosis techniques used at the Salpêtrière? What were the experimental protocols that led to the intelligence test in the elementary school of Paris? How did Binet negotiate his psychiatric interrogations in the asylums, from Sainte-Anne to Perray-Vaucluse? His work as an experimenter asks us today about the scholarly prejudices of the time and the ethical ambivalences of the doctor-patient, teacher-student and psychologist-patient relationship.