“The Rhetoric of Confession”
Laure Murat, Winner of France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt
The notion of “confession” is a common theme in the 19th century that uncovers many of the century’s anxieties and strategies of power related to its unceasing questioning of the links between morality and science. The birth of psychiatry in the 19th century instituted a system of moral therapy based on intimidation, the main device of which was to make the patient “confess” his or her insanity. This lecture seeks to understand why this system became central to the asylum; to ascertain its nature and the extent to which it was thought to bring about a cure; and how it is connected to principles of penance and religious confession.