Walloon Henri (1879-1962)

Biography

One can say that Henri Wallon carried out two parallel careers. Marxien convinced, it takes up political duties while carrying out a remarkable scientific work in the field of the psychology of childhood. These two careers meet when it is named in 1944 secretary of the State education and chairs a commission of reform of the teaching which durably marks State education under the name of the project Langevin-Walloon .

The politician

In 1931, it adheres to SFIO then becomes member of the PCF in 1942.
In 1944, it is named secretary of the State education.
It is elected communist Député (1945-1946) and chairs the commission of reform of teaching known under the name of project Langevin-Walloon (1945).

The psychologist

It is especially by its scientific work, primarily devoted to childhood, that Henri Wallon is known. After a solid intellectual formation, it occupies the high positions in the French university world while undertaking a great leading activity. Admitted with the National university in 1899, it prepares the aggregation philosophy (1902), then becomes doctor in medicine (1908). Besides it publishes its thesis of medicine in 1909, whose topic is the Délire of persecution. Moreover, it deals with the children reached of mental backwardness (1908-1931).

During the First World War, it is mobilized as an army medical officer and is interested in the Neurologie. In 1920, it is part-time lecturer to the Sorbonne, then becomes arts doctor with a thesis on the turbulent child (1925). It is named director of studies to the practical École of the high studies (1927) and creates the laboratory of psychobiology of the child. From 1937 to 1949, he is professor with the Collège de France, where he occupies the pulpit of psychology and education of childhood. Director of the Institute of psychology of the University of Paris, it creates in 1948 the review Enfance . He is president of the French Groupe of new education of 1946 with his death in 1962.

Theoretical positions

Henri Wallon organized his observations by presenting the development Personnalité of the Enfant like a succession of stages. Some of these stages are marked by the prevalence of the Affect ivity on the Intelligence, whereas others appear rather characterized by the primacy of the intelligence on affectivity. It is in this discontinuous and competing succession between the prevalence of the intelligence and affectivity that the personality of the child is worked out. Thus, Wallon articulates in the middle of a dialectical model of the concepts such as the emotion, the Attitude S, the bonds with the other. Its design of the stages reveals the idea that the Régression is possible there, contrary to the model of Piaget.

Here are the principal stages:

# the impulsive stage (from 0 to three months). What dominates in the infantile life, they are the Sensation S interns (Introceptive S) and the factors Affect yews maintained with the entourage. On the driving level, this period is characterized by the weak driving control and thus a gestural disorder. It is the quality of the answers of the entourage of the Nourrisson which will enable him to pass from the gestural disorder to differentiated emotions .

# the emotional stage (3 months with 1 year). Emergence of a beginning of recognition of oneself through the glance of the others. Appearance of four emotion S: the Joy, the Sorrow, the Anger and the Pain.

# the sensorimotor and projective stage (from 1 to 3 years). What prevails then for the child, it is the influence of the outside world. The integration of this external influence will support the awakening of two types of intelligence: one practical , by the handling of the objects and the clean body, other the “discursive one”, by the Imitation and the appropriation of the language.

# the stage of personalism (3 to 6 years) is characterized by a prevalence, again, functions Affect ives on the Intelligence. Around 3 years the child tends to be opposed to the Adulte in a kind of crisis negativist , but this attitude is followed soon from one period of Imitation driving and social. The child thus expresses the ambivalence which binds it to the prestigious model that for him the adult represents.

# the catégoriel stage (6 to 11 years). Here, in fact intellectual faculties seem to take the step on the emotional one. During his schooling, the child acquires capacities of voluntary Mémoire and Attention. Its intelligence reaches the formation of the mental categories which lead to the capacities of Abstraction.

# the stage of adolescence starts after 11 years and is characterized by a primacy of the concerns Affect ives.

Emile Jalley (1981) showed how Henri Wallon was an attentive reader of the scientific and philosophical literature German and how it contributed to introduce and diffuse in the French psychological theory certain concepts of Hegel and Freud, even if Walloon were opposed to the concept adultocentré of infantile Sexualité. While insisting on the discontinuity and the concept of crisis which underlies this discontinuity, Henri Wallon was faithful to the theses hégeliennes Dialectique. He is distinguished in that from Jean Piaget, which rather develops in its own description of the stages of the infantile development the interactions with the detriment of the ruptures. But Henri Wallon also had a real influence on the psychoanalysis in France and abroad. Emile Jalley showed that it had taken again certain observations or concepts of Freud in his theoretical developments. In return, certain psychoanalysts adapted its observations, in particular Rene Spitz, Donald Winnicott and Jacques Lacan, this last owe him at least the origin of sound Mirror stage .

Works

Mania persecution. Is delirious chronic containing interpretation , Baillière, Paris, 1909
“the Conscience and the subconscious life” in G. Dumas, Nouveau treaty of psychology , PUF, Paris (1920-1921)
the turbulent Child , Alcan, Paris, 1925, rééd. PUF-quadriga, Paris, 1984
Origins of the character in the child. Preludes of the feeling of pesonnality , Boisvin, Paris, 1934, rééd. PUF-quadriga, Paris, 2002
mental Life , social Editions, Paris, 1938, rééd. 1982
psychological Evolution of the child , A. Colin, Paris, 1941, rééd. 2002, ED.: Armand Colin, 1941, rééd. 2002
Of the act to the thought , Flammarion, Paris, 1942
Origins of the thought in the child , PUF, Paris, 1945, rééd. 1963
Principles of psychology applied , Armand Colin, Paris, 1938

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