The Patient ax Text

How has the psychiatric patient been seen and has come to words in the hospitals through the 19th and 20th century? These questions are approached through an investigation of about 150 case-notes of psychiatric patients, with the diagnosis schizophrenia (dementia preacox). I analyze the corpus not as stories ("histoire"; referring to the actual events) but as texts (récit; the written discourse), in order to expose their structures. A better understanding of case-note writing as a genre makes it possible for the writers to avoid being unconsciously spokesmen of the momentarily dominating ideology.