[Charcot, Freud and the unconscious]

The aim of this work is to assess, on an historical and critical point of view, the new psychological perspective, introduced by Charcot (1825-1893), during the ten last years (1882-1892) of his life to explain hysteria symptomas. From clinical examples (hypnosis and hypnotherapy, "hystero-traumatism", "psychological theory of hysteria", "faith healing"), the paper shows how psychological dimension went back into the Parisian Hospital Medicine. This occurred on the late XIXth century, just one century after Mesmer, when Freud was Charcot's intern, at La Salpêtrière hospital, during years 1885-1886. The return of a non-rational thought into hospital medicine upset the organicist concepts of the Parisian "Ecole anatomo-clinique".