[From therapy to teaching and from research to therapy]

Man can sometimes be the subject of experiment in medicine; in psychiatry, there are at least two situations when men, more so, a patient occupies legitimate the function of "experimental object". First the problem of clinical psychopharmacology is considered showing its necessity and legitimacy; one emphasizes the advantages and warrentee that the hospital is providing. Ethical regulations are discussed in relation to this practice and a sterilyzind formalism could be damageable as well as the ambiguity of the notion of informed conscript. The first conclusion is that the notion of therapeutic trial should replace clinical experiment meaning that the patient should be the first winner of this enterprise. Then the second situation of a hospitalized patient being the subject of teaching is discussed. The author describes its teaching technique based on the semiology of talking and the pathology of communication. Once again, its main concern is to render the patient first to benefit from this experimental situation, the remaining coming later.