TITLE:
“Move with Your Muscles, Arrive with Your Brain”: Philippe Tissié and the Psychophysiology of Athletes
AUTHORS:
Luigi Traetta
KEYWORDS:
Philippe Tissié, History of Physical Education, Physiology of Movement, History of Training
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Historical Studies,
Vol.9 No.3,
September
27,
2020
ABSTRACT: In light of recent historiographic approaches that
identify a fundamental step in the development of the worldwide concept of
“physical education” in the work of Philippe Tissié (1852-1935), this essay
examines the French doctor’s scientific
journey by specifically analyzing his passage from an interest in movement
pathology to a true psychophysiology of training. At that time, French
public opinion was showing widespread enthusiasm for school reform and for the
inclusion of physical education among the subjects taught. On the basis of this
enthusiasm, Tissié intended to develop a discipline based not just on
strength-building as an end in itself, but one in which a broader educational
plan would also include using gymnastics for the psychological education of
young people. The origin of this process becomes clear only in light of a historical and critical analysis of Tissié’s
early writings. Although often overlooked by secondary literature, they
are fundamental for putting into context both his complete commitment to the
late 19th-century theories of nervism and
his connection to French psychopathology at that time, represented primarily by the Salpêtrière and
Nancy schools. Dream analysis, an insistence on a difference between functional
impotence and nervous fatigue, and the characterological classification of an
athlete indicated not only his efforts to get French youth into shape but also
his desire to place an individual’s psychological and physical life within a
unitary model.