JEAN DELAY - WHERE PSYCHIATRY MET LITERATURE
JEAN DELAY - WHERE PSYCHIATRY MET LITERATURE

Summary/Abstract: Psychiatrist and neurologist Jean Delay (1907–1987) managed to combine a medical career with literature. He was the son of surgeon Maurice Delay who also held a political position - mayor of Bayonne. His brilliant mind allowed him to obtain a degree in philosophy at an age when others were barely attending high school. Then, Delay studied medicine in Paris and after twenty years he focused on psychiatry and neurology. His doctoral thesis was focused on a rare disease that does not allow patients to recognize objects by touch, Les dissolutions de la mémoire. But this work is also proof of his passion for psychology and writing. His thirst for knowledge led him to attend courses at the Sorbonne University, after which he did a second doctorate on memory. After World War II, in 1946, he became head of the mental health clinic at the Sainte-Anne Hospital, where he remained until 1970, when he retired from medicine. During the Nuremberg Trials, he psychiatrically examined Rudolf Hess. Delay was among the first psychiatrists to analyze the effects of LSD, mescaline, isoniazid, chlorpromazine, and psilocybin.

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