[Philosophy, psychiatry and psychoanalysis: the case of Nietzsche]

In this work dedicated to Frederic Nietzsche, we were first interested by the philosopher's personal psychopathology. Biographic and personality factors, the physical and moral pain, the mood variations, hypersensitivity, solitude and finally megalomanic traits have probably contributed to the development of his thought. Nietzsche gave personal interpretations of his own suffering. Freud himself recognized the organic component of the philosopher's illness. We reviewed the different symptoms in favor of a progressive general paresis. Philologist and moralist, Nietzsche was also a "psychologist". His intuitions in this area often preceded and prepared those of Freud. The relationship is surprising on certain points such as love and sexuality, the unconscious, the interpretation of dreams. We wish to remind readers that a prepsychoanalytic stream of thought, at the end of the 19th century, preceded the teaching now ascribed to Freud and his followers.