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Neuropsychiatrie de l’enfance et de l’adolescence 64 (2016) 481–483
Pioneers in child and adolescent psychiatry
Jean Piaget (1896–1980)
Jean Piaget (1896–1980)
C. Chiland
Université Paris Descartes, 31, rue Censier, 75005 Paris, France
1. Biography
Jean Piaget is a renowned figure in the field of psychology
(Figs. 1 and 2). He was, however, never a psychology student
himself, because his chosen subject was zoology. He was only
11 years of age when he wrote a one-page article on an albino
sparrow; that paper was published in a natural history review
in Neuchâtel (Switzerland). Then, he embarked on the study of
molluscs. Nobody realized that he was at that time still at high
school; his articles were published and he was even nominated
for appointment as a curator. In 1918, he sat his science thesis
viva on the subject of molluscs in the Valais region.
The conjunction between his scientific thinking and philosophical interests led him to psychology, a subject that he studied
in Zürich and later in Paris, where Théodore Simon made it possible for him to work in the school in the rue de la Grange
aux Belles where Simon himself and Alfred Binet had carried
out their research. During the following 2 years, Piaget developed his art of questioning children; he called this the “clinical
method”. At the same time, he began to study symbolic logic.
In 1921, Édouard Claparède invited him to Geneva, to work at
the Jean-Jacques Rousseau institute.
He married in 1923, and fathered three children, in 1925,
1927 and 1931; as babies, they were his subjects of observation.
In 1925, he was appointed professor at Neuchâtel university,
then in Geneva; the chairs to which he was appointed came
under various names – psychology, sociology, philosophy of
science, history of scientific thought, experimental psychology,
etc. Although he was not a French national, he was appointed
professor in the Sorbonne – quite an exception in those days –
where he taught child psychology from 1952 until 1960. In 1955,
he founded the International centre for genetic epistemology in
Geneva.
E-mail address: [email protected]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neurenf.2016.09.001
0222-9617/© 2016 Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.
Fig. 1. Piaget at his 80th birthday.
2. Work
There are mainly three phases in Piaget’s work. In the first,
he studied not only the development of thinking in children,
but also psychopathology [1–5]. He had himself undertaken a
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role of action, without the intermediary of language (language
becomes important only at the “formal operations” stage). It was
at the end of this second phase that Piaget broke all links with
psychoanalysis – but without making a fuss over it: he quite simply no longer paid his annual fee to the Swiss Psychoanalytical
Society, so that his membership lapsed.
The third phase is that of the magnificent construction known
as the operative theory [9–11]. According to Piaget, Wallon was
mistaken in his attempts to link together psychological syndromes and neurological structures. Piaget’s aim was to describe
cognitive structures, with reference not to their neurological
base but to formal logic, to “groups of operations” (internalized coordinated acts), theorized in accordance with the model
of mathematical groups. In his explanation of how individual
development takes place, Piaget introduced the concept of equilibration: it is as though structures generate one another and are
drawn towards their ultimate and best form, where equilibrium is
at its most stable. From that point on, Piaget focused on genetic
epistemology. As a psychologist, his interest lay in the epistemic
subject – “a cognitive nucleus which is common to all subjects
who are at the same level” – rather than on the separate paths
that different individuals may follow.
Piaget’s writings do have clinical applications, although these
were not developed by Piaget himself, but by Inhelder (among
others). In the field of education, it would have been possible to
make much more use than has in fact been the case of what he
said of children’s logical ability.
Fig. 2. Piaget arrives at the university of Geneva by bicycle.
brief though intensive psychoanalysis with Sabina Spielrein; this
lasted 6 months, with one session each working day, as was the
custom at the time. He said of his analysis that it awoke in him
the capacity to have visual images. He became a member of the
Swiss Psychoanalytical Society, carried out the psychotherapy
of an autistic child, and published several papers in psychoanalytic reviews. He continued to practice his clinical method, and
explored how children conceived of the world. Although he was
later to consider his writings of this first period as of little scientific value, they did bring his name to the attention of colleagues,
in particular in English-speaking countries.
The main feature of the second phase was his observation of
his own children. He studied the development of intelligence and
his observations remain to this day of considerable value [6–8].
However, as is often the case with great thinkers who construct
theories, his theoretical standpoint meant that he missed out on
certain observations: when, in the 1950s, René Zazzo told him
that he had observed his own son, very shortly after birth, imitating movements (such as opening and shutting his mouth, or
sticking out his tongue), Piaget advised Zazzo not to publish
what he had discovered. He said that Zazzo would make himself look ridiculous, because imitating movements of parts of
the body that a baby cannot control through his visual apparatus
can take place only at a much later developmental stage. For
Piaget, what he wrote during this second phase was of more
significance than his earlier work, because he was studying the
Good bye, dear Professor1
Piaget was a very smiling and affable person – his Parisian students appreciated that very
much – Piaget was nonetheless a very anxious
man. During his last 3 years of teaching at the Sorbonne, I was his assistant; amongst other tasks
that I had to do was that of reassuring him before
he set foot in the lecture hall. We got on very well
together, but in spite of himself, he gave me the
impetus to become a psychoanalyst.
That was also the case with James Anthony,
who spent a year with Piaget in Geneva: “The
air in Geneva is saturated with Piagetian thought,
and for the student, no other air seems available,
so he must breath it or perish. For me, it was
always imbued with the freshness of mountain air.
There was no stale clinic smell about it. But the
higher you went, the more tenuous it appeared to
become, and less fitted to sustain psychological
life as I knew it. I felt that one could die psychologically of such ‘affect hunger’.”
1
Personal communication
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Disclosure of interest
The author has not supplied her declaration of competing
interest.
References
[1] Piaget J. The language and thought of the child. London: Routledge; 1923.
[2] Piaget J. Judgment and reasoning in the child. London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul; 1924.
[3] Piaget J. The child’s conception of the world. London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul; 1926.
[4] Piaget J. The child’s conception of physical causality. London: Routledge;
1927.
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[5] Piaget J. The moral judgement of the child. London: Routledge;
1932.
[6] Piaget J. The origins of intelligence in the child. Routledge & Kegan Paul:
London; 1936.
[7] Piaget J. Construction of reality in the child. London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul; 1957.
[8] Piaget J. Play, dreams and imitation in childhood. London: Heinemann;
1945.
[9] Piaget J, Szeminska A. The child’s conception of number. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; 1941.
[10] Piaget J, Inhelder B. Traité de logique [Treatise on Logic]. Paris: Colin;
1949.
[11] Piaget J, Inhelder B. Introduction à l’épistémologie [An introduction to
epistemology]. Paris: Presse Universitaire de France; 1950.