Some reflections on the origins of addiction studies in France and its relationship with psychiatry

On the occasion of the journal’s fortieth anniversary, this text offers a historical perspective on the slow and conflict-ridden development of the French healthcare system. The journal played a significant role in this process by opening its columns to a variety of approaches. It thus provided healthcare professionals with testimonials and perspectives that allowed them to take a step back from their own professional culture. Its beginnings coincided with the gradual involvement of historians, sociologists, epidemiologists, neurobiologists, and philosophers in the field, which the journal reported on extensively. Its international character also provided access to French-language articles from Canada and Belgium, offering another opportunity to shift the focus away from purely French debates. This combination has helped to spread the idea that we are dealing with a biopsychosocial problem, which requires a minimum of epistemological reflection in terms of the concepts used to describe it. More specifically, this text offers some reflections on the relationship between the long-established discipline of psychiatry and the very recent field of addiction studies, at least in France.