Freud's first article in French in 1893, the year of Charcot's death

This article examines Sigmund Freud's first publication in French, written in 1893, the year of Jean-Martin Charcot's death. Following his stay at the Salpêtrière (1885-1886), Freud published an article on hysterical paralysis in the Archives of Neurology, appearing alongside Charcot's obituary. This publication marked a pivotal epistemological shift in Freud's intellectual trajectory from neurology to psychoanalysis. Influenced by Charcot's clinical demonstrations, Freud began distancing himself from strictly neurological explanations of hysteria in favor of psychological interpretations. His assertion that hysteria "behaves as if anatomy does not exist" represented a significant departure from the organicist tradition of late 19th-century medicine. This transition established a conceptual foundation for exploring psychological phenomena independently of their neurological substrates, while not entirely rejecting biological anchoring. The article situates Freud's 1893 publication within the broader context of emerging psychiatric thought and discusses how contemporary neuroscience offers new perspectives on the psychological-neurobiological relationship that Freud initially explored through different methodological approaches. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).