Sabourin & Cooper 2014 the First International Congress of Physiological Psychology

International Journal of Psychology, 2014Vol. 49, No. 3, 222232, DOI: 10.1002/ijop.12071

INTERNATIONAL PLATFORM FOR PSYCHOLOGISTS

The first International Congress of PhysiologicalPsychology (Paris, August 1889): The birth of theInternational Union of Psychological Science

Michel Sabourin1 and Saths Cooper2

1University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada2University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

Although the International Union of PsychologicalScience (IUPsyS1) was formalised in 1951 during the13th International Congress of Psychology (ICP) heldin Stockholm, Sweden, and was later incorporated inCanada in 1992 as a non-profit scientific organisation, thegenesis of IUPsySwas the first ICP that was held from 6 to10 August 1889. At that time, the permanent InternationalCongress of Psychology Committee (ICPC) was created.Over time, this structure evolved, merging into the presentIUPsyS Executive Committee. So 2014 indeed marks the125th anniversary of the creation of IUPsyS. Let us lookat exactly how this development took place.

In 1881, Julian Ochorowicz, a young privatdozent2 inpsychology at the University of Lemburg,3 submitted toFrench physiologist Thodule Ribot, then Editor of theRevue Philosophique, a manuscript entitled Projet duncongrs international de psychologie (Project for anInternational Congress of Psychology) which although

Correspondence should be addressed to Michel Sabourin, University of Montreal, P.O. Box 6128, Downtown Station, Montreal, Quebec, CanadaH3C 3J7. (E-mail: [email protected]).

1 The authors are respectively Treasurer and President of the International Union of Psychological Science. IUPsyS is the present acronym ofthe International Union of Psychological Science. It was originally IUPS, but this was changed in 1982. In the drive to become a full member of theInternational Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), which has since become the International Council for Science, the acronym IUPS became a problemas it was also used by the International Union of Physiological Science since the latters membership of ICSU in 1955. It was then decided to changethe acronym to IUPsyS to avoid conflict once the Union had been recognised as a full member of ICSU (Rosenzweig et al., 2000).

2 In the German tradition, privatdozent is the title given to a lecturer who received fees from his students rather than a university salary. This was,however, a first and necessary step before being awarded a Chair. Ochorowicz had obtained his doctorate from the University of Leipzig in 1874. Hewas privatdozent till 1881 and then became professor at the Jan Kazimierz Polish University of Lemburg (Nuttin, 1992).

3 Lemburg is a city (now called Lviv) in West-Central Ukraine near the Polish border. Founded in 1256, it was captured by Poland in 1340, passedto Austria in 1772, and was retaken by Poland in 1918. The city was ceded to the USSR in 1945. After the demise of the USSR in 1991, Lviv becamepart of an independent Ukraine and is a bastion of Ukrainian nationalism.

4 Although Ribot, professor of psychology at the Collge de France, was one of the three vice-presidents of the Organizing Committee, he gavethe presidential address because both the President, Professor Jean-Martin Charcot, a distinguished neurologist and medical director of La SalptrireHospital, and the two other vice-presidents, Valentin Magnan, a psychiatrist, and Hippolyte Taine, a philosopher, were absent. In IUPsyS publications(Rosenzweig et al., 2000), Ribot is usually listed as being the Acting President, whereas Charcot is deemed to be Honorary President. In fact, it isreported that Charcot did not attend any sessions of the congress (Claparde, 1930; James, 1889).

appearing fanciful and unrealistic to the Editor was nev-ertheless published. Eight years later, on 6 August, thesame Ribot, in his welcoming presidential4 address at thefirst ICP (Ribot, 1890), confessed that he had receivedfrom Ochorowicz in 1881 a complete programme for anICP and that although he had found this project attractive,while being somewhat fanciful, he had published it onlyin the hope that this open call to psychologists would bearfruit in the distant future, never thinking that the eventwould take place so rapidly. He humbly admits havinghad very little faith in this project and that he was nowhappy to have been proven wrong.

In his visionary article, Ochorowicz, from the outset,proposes to find a way to clearly distinguish psychologyfrom philosophy and other disciplines. He asserts the needto find a proper place for this new, emerging science,which, in spite of all those who obstinately consider it abranch of metaphysics, or even a part of logic, is really

2014 International Union of Psychological Science

THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY 223

more of a natural science, an exact science based onempirical observations and on experimentation with thegoal of accumulating facts and formulating laws. Philo-sophical psychology, says Ochorowicz, has not helpedpsychology to unify. On the contrary, it brought confu-sion, especially in terminology, illustrating this point bygiving numerous examples. And to satisfy this need forunity, he stresses the fact that we must go beyond individ-ual, personal efforts, which can only lead to an artificialpseudo-unity of the discipline:

There can be no doubt for anyone that no individual mind,however vigorous it may be, will never succeed in creatingwith a flash of genius the complete corpus of a great sci-ence. We must rely on collective effort. This is already wellknown and it is even done. However, one thing is lacking inthe best efforts actually being pursued and that is: a workorganization. We must therefore find a way to achieve this.I see only one possibility and I would like to submit it tothe good judgment of my fellow psychologists: to organizean international congress.5 (Ochorowicz, 1881, p. 10)

Ochorowicz goes on by explaining that to achieve thisgoal while dealing with practical issues, an OrganizingCommittee must be set up. Then, certain general rulesmust be followed. To define these general rules, he usesthe International Congress of Prehistoric Anthropologyand Archaeology held in 1867 as a model. These generalrules, which are certainly edifying by todays standardsand which resonate with the organisational basis of mostICPs as we have come to know them, are as follows: (a)A congress cannot be held twice in a row in the samecountry, (b) those who have paid an annual subscriptioncan participate in the congress and have the right, uponrequest, to be given its publications, (c) the papers pre-sented, the invited addresses and the proceedings of thedifferent sessions will be published under the control ofa committee elected by the assembly, (d) French is theonly permissible language for verbal presentations duringthe sessions and for the proceedings, except for specialcases and (e) all metaphysical issues are excluded fromthe debates.

Ochorowicz also suggests that only the following areasof the then contemporary psychology can be the objectof debates during the congress: (a) General Psychology,which comprises methodological issues as well as intro-spective studies; (b) Physiological Psychology, basedon laboratory experiments; (c) Pathological Psychology,essentially based on the observations of alienists (clin-icians); (d) Psychophysics, comprising experiments in

5 Il ne saurait y avoir de doute pour personne quaucun esprit individuel, quelque vigoureux quon le suppose, ne parviendra jamais crer duncoup de gnie le corps entier dune grande science. Cest aux travaux collectifs quil faut avoir recours. On le comprend dj, et on le pratique mme.Une chose cependant manque aux meilleures tendances actuelles: lorganisation du travail. Il nous faut donc chercher le moyen dy arriver. Je nenvois quun seul, et je le soumets au jugement des psychologues: celui dun congrs international (Ochorowicz, 1881, p. 10).

sensation and perception and, for example, the exper-iments conducted by, inter alia, Fechner, Hering, Del-boeuf, Wundt, von Helmholtz, du Bois-Reymond, Don-ders, Exner and others; (e) Criminal Psychology; (f) Zoo-logical Psychology, as one of the bases of general psy-chology; (g) Pedagogical Psychology and Ethology, com-prising research on the mental development of the childas well as studies on character and constitution (tem-perament); (h) Pathognomonythe study of the externalsigns accompanying feelings or emotions; (i) Psychologyof Art, as well as studies on aesthetics; (j) Psychology ofHistory, including the study of the mental evolution ofhumanity; (k) Mathematical Psychology and (l) The His-tory of Psychology.

The preceding list of areas must not be conceived,warns Ochorowicz, as being mandatory in all congresses.It is only illustrative of the areas that could be covered. Acongress could decide to cover a single area or very fewof them, depending on the number of participants antici-pated and their known area of interest and/or expertise. InOchorowiczs mind, in view of the fact that psychologywas becoming a science based on observation and exper-imentation, it was deemed essential that researchers meetand communicate with each other, both at a professionaland personal level, and share their data so as to accu-mulate a large empirical database and thus avoid unduerepetitions. The idea to meet could also contribute to thenecessary networking and personal relationships with col-leagues having similar interests.

Ochorowicz then proceeds to list the numerous advan-tages that an international congress can produce, whichare obvious to him, and which fulfil the need to inte-grate this young new science, or at least, start sharingits knowledge. First, he suggests that it can certainlyfavour the mutual education of psychologists in all areasof the discipline. Second, it can help psychology becomebetter known to experts in other allied disciplines. Andfinally, it could serve as an instrument that an educatedpublic interested in psychology can use to perform dailyself-observations of their behaviours in accordance withquestionnaires and methods proposed through discus-sions held during the congress. This congress would bethe first step in forming an international organisation ofpsychological societies. And he ends his paper by statingthe following:

Let us follow the realization of the congress, and, if itshould return no other services than to bring up to datethe weak sides of the present state of psychology, itwould nevertheless be a step forward, a first step towards


224 SABOURIN AND COOPER

improvement; it would always be the best service that couldbe rendered to our young science, rightly called the nicestand the most worthy of man.6 (Ochorowicz, 1881, p. 17)

Eight years later, in 1889, in Paris, during a verypopular Universal Exposition, which historically markedthe completion and the official opening of the Eiffel Tower(on 31 March), the first ever congress of psychology wasto take place and Ochorowicz became a member of itsOrganizing Committee. This was the genesis, 125 yearsago, of a series of congresses and events that wouldprecipitate the formal creation of the IUPsyS.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The first International Congress of Physiological Psychol-ogy therefore took place in Paris on 610 August 1889. Itwas so named because it was organised by the Socit depsychologie physiologique de Paris and the idea was todistinguish scientifically oriented psychology from phi-losophy. It is interesting to note that the second congress(held in London, in 1892) had another name, the Inter-national Congress of Experimental Psychology. However,starting with the third congress, held in Munich in 1896,and ever since, the official name of the congress was to besimply the International Congress of Psychology. Nuttin(1992) notes that all congresses of that time until recently(2000, in Stockholm) were usually conducted in two offi-cial languagesEnglish and Frenchadding when nec-essary a third, the language of the host country.

As psychology was progressing from the nineteenthto the twentieth century, the opposition between a youngempirical psychology set in the laboratory with the newand very popular medical psychopathology produced acouple of clashes which probably impeded the normal,uneventful development of psychology during all thatperiod (Nuttin, 19927; Richelle & Carpintero, 1992).Starting in 1875 and throughout the last quarter of thenineteenth century, the first of these conflicting interac-tions was to take place between French psychopathology,which encouraged hypnotic practices and even telepa-thy, with the German laboratory psychology. However,at the beginning of the twentieth century, a second clashemerged: a psychoanalytically oriented psychology of

6 Poursuivons la ralisation du congrs, et, ne dt-il rendre dautres services que de mettre jour les cts faibles de ltat actuel de la psychologie,ce serait toujours un pas en avant, un premier pas vers lamendement ; ce serait toujours le meilleur service que lon puisse rendre cette sciencerajeunie, justement nomme la plus belle et la plus digne de lhomme (Ochorowicz, 1881, p. 17).

7 In 1992, on the occasion of the 25th ICP held in Brussels, Belgium, a posthumous homage to Joseph R. Nuttin, the IUPsyS President from 1972to 1976, took the form of a joint publication by Revista de Historia de la Psicologia (Valencia, Spain) and Studia Psychologica (Leuven UniversityPress) edited by Marc Richelle and Helio Carpintero. In this homage, amongst many contributions, we find a most interesting unpublished manuscriptby Nuttin that deals with the first 5 international congresses of psychology. The manuscript was left unfinished since he had intended to also include allthe other congresses. Nuttin unfortunately died before completing his work. This published homage is the ancestor of a book on the history of IUPsySunder the co-authorship of Mark Rosenzweig, Wayne Holtzman, Michel Sabourin and David Blanger. In his text, written in French and entitled Lespremiers congrs internationaux de psychologie (The first International Congresses of Psychology), Nuttin presents the most comprehensive analysisknown of the critical circumstances and the historical context that precipitated the organization of the first ICP. It is for this reason that this paper reliessignificantly on the ideas developed by Nuttin.

German origin and a more universal academic, empiri-cally based psychology. This was probably a reflection ofthe fact that human behaviour is a complex phenomenonwhich needs both approachesor sometimes moretobroaden its perspectives. This opposition was never toproduce major conflicts during congresses, just lively dis-cussions. However, the very first congresses at the end ofthe nineteenth century were quite inundated by a strongwave of hypnotic psychotherapy mixed with occultismand spiritism, which, according to Nuttin (1992), pro-duced a serious risk of somewhat jeopardising the scien-tific nature of the congresses.

Fortunately, thanks to the confrontations that did arisein the discussions between the proponents of both groups,a certain divergence was created between, on the onehand, hypnotism, spiritualism and occultism, and sci-entific psychology on the other, with the latter gainingclearly over the former. As Nuttin (1992) mentions, thishad the virtue of potentially cleansing psychology fromnon-scientific contaminants. It is surprising to note that acertain number of laboratory scientists who were deeplyinvolved in very serious research efforts dealing with psy-chophysics or physiology could at the same time show anaive and almost suspect attraction to occult and spiritualphenomena. This may have been related to the Zeitgeistof the nineteenth century which many see as a periodof romanticism, where scientific curiosity mingled withan attraction to the mysterious and the non-rational. It isimportant to note that in Great Britain at that time, a spir-itual movement which gave rise to the so-called psychi-cal researchbetter known today as parapsychology orESPwas most important and very active. Many of thecontemporary leaders or great names in psychology werevery much involved in this type of research. For instance,Charles Richet, who was the Secretary General of thefirst ICP (Richet, 1890) and a renowned physiologist whoeventually was to obtain the Nobel Prize in medicine in1913 for his pioneering work on the mechanism of theanaphylactic reaction, was also very much attracted bypsychic research and in 1922 published a book on thesubject Trait de mtapsychique. This interest was sharedwith others, like the Cambridge Professor Henry Sidg-wick, who was to preside in 1892 over the second Interna-tional Congress of Experimental Psychology, in London.



It must also be noted that the Honorary President of thefirst ICP, Professor Jean-Martin Charcot, was consideredto be the pioneer of medical hypnotism.

During the latter part of the nineteenth century, theidea of holding scientificmeetings, whether at the nationalor international levels, had become something quite cur-rent. A good number of disciplines were thus holdingregular congresses. The reason why it took more timefor psychologists to get on their way is probably related,according to Nuttin (1992), to the fact that the new psy-chological science was not yet clearly defined and thatthose who were involved in this new research area hadother identities, such as medical doctor, physiologist,psychiatrist, philosopher, or were mainly interested inpsychic research, occult phenomena, telepathy or clair-voyance. In this context, where many different psycho-logical movements or currents had been coexisting for anumber of years, bringing together in one single meetingor congress, researchers with such varied identities andinterests from different countries could be considered afeat. Nuttin (1992) concludes the analysis of the first ICPscontribution by stating that it has largely contributed topreserve scientific psychology from the contamination ofspiritism and other marginal phenomena, at least in manyEuropean countries (p. 37).

So, in view of this situation, why did it take only8 years to realise Ochorowiczs vision? The first reasonis probably because that same period also saw the rapidemergence of societies in different areas related to psy-chology. Ochorowicz had mentioned in his proposal thatthis was a necessary condition, in fact a prerequisite, forputting together the organisation of a congress. In 1885,a British psychologist, Joseph Jacobs, had published in apopular scientific journal, Mind, a paper quite similar tothe one written by Ochorowicz, but advocating, instead ofcongresses, the urgent need for the creation of an exper-imental psychology society. This tendency was clearly apart of the Zeitgeist of that period, which many (Nuttin,1992, p. 12) considered to be the Age of Societies! It iswithin this context that the Society for Physiological Psy-chology of Paris was created under the influence of themost famous French neurologist of the time, Jean-MartinCharcot, regrouping not only other neurologists but alsophysiologists, psychiatrists and a few others who iden-tified themselves with philosophy (Hippolyte Taine) orwith psychology (Pierre Janet and Alfred Binet). It wascalled Physiological Psychology to distinguish this newpsychology, based in large part on psychopathology andthe medical hypnotism that was developing in France,from the usual philosophical current that had been in placeduring the previous decades.

From this perspective, it is easier to understand whythe Society for Physiological Psychology had a vestedinterest in the therapeutic use of hypnotism, in its psy-chic and physiological functioning, and in its link withpsychopathology; all are subjects that will constitute the

core of the scientific programme of the first ICP, aswe will see later. We must remember that in the lastdecades of the nineteenth century, one of the central sub-jects of debate and dissension among those involved inmedical hypnotism was the struggle of the School ofLa Salptrire (lead by Jean-Martin Charcot) against theSchool of Nancy (lead by Auguste Libault and HippolyteBernheim). Whereas the former considered hypnosis tobe a pathological state related to hysterical symptoms,the latter, on the contrary, considered hypnosis to be anormal sleep state brought on by suggestions and sus-ceptible to having therapeutic applications. Although itseemed that the School of Nancys proposal was domi-nant over that of La Salptrire (explaining perhaps whyCharcot never showed up during the first ICP), the debatecontinued to flourish during the nineteenth century as evi-dent in the writings of Clark Hull and Theodore Bar-ber. In 1893, Wundt (as reported by Nuttin, 1992), whowas known to be strongly opposed to the inclusion ofdiscussions on psychic and telepathic phenomena duringthe initial congresses, had written the following: In theSociety of Physiological Psychology of Paris, the cen-tral role is played by hypnotism, but experiments anddiscussions on clairvoyance and the transfer of ideasalso play an important part, while all that we consider,here in Germany, to be physiological psychology is quitesecondary.

A second reason why the first ICP happened so rapidlyis perhaps just accidental and related to the ironic histor-ical fact that 1889 was the Centennial of the French Rev-olution (1789) and that a great Universal Exposition waspresented to mark the celebration in Paris of that impor-tant event. Had it not been for this special occasion and thefact that many other scientific congresses were also organ-ised during the year of the Centennial, there is a goodchance that the advent of the first ICP would have beena few years later.

THE FIRST CONGRESS OF PHYSIOLOGICALPSYCHOLOGY

Its organisation

The main figure behind not only the organisation of thefirst ICP but also the initiative of holding it is undoubtedlyProfessor Charles Richet, who was appointed officiallyas the Secretary General of the Organizing Committee.Being one of the vice-presidents of the newly formedSociety for Physiological Psychology of Paris, Richetmanaged to convince his colleagues, not without somedifficulty (Nuttin, 1992), of the merit and the advantagesof holding a first Congress of Psychology during theUniversal Exposition. It seems that the programme of thefirst ICP (Nuttin, 1992), as we shall see later, essentiallyreflects his strong personality and his personal interests.



At the time, Richet was a young professor of physiology atthe Medical Faculty of the University of Paris. Accordingto Piron (1954), Richet was a devoted disciple of ClaudeBernard (the proponent of the experimental method) aswell as a one-person combination of poet, dramatist,fictionwriter, inventor, future air pilot and the first psychic(mtapsychique) researcher. Although interested in theareas of spiritism and paranormal or occult phenomena,there is no reason to doubt that his patent desire was togive them a scientific status, just as Charcot had givenscientific credibility to hypnosis.

A second major figure of the first ICP was ProfessorThodule Ribot, the Acting President (although officiallyone of the three vice-presidents). Piron (1954) notesthat Ribot, although not an experimenter himself, can beconsidered to be the actual father of French experimentalpsychology. This was also raised in 1939, during theJubilee of French scientific psychology, which celebratedthe centennial birth anniversary of Ribot.

Within the Organizing Committee, most of theappointed members held almost purely honorary func-tions. Table 1 presents the complete list of the members ofthe Organizing Committee and of the International Advi-sory Committee (referred to as the Comit de patronage),comprising members in 11 European countries as wellas William James from the USA. It is noteworthy thatthe tradition of an International Advisory Committeehas become normative for International Congresses ofPsychology and the next ICP 2016 in Yokohama, Japan,continues this time-honoured tradition.

First congress participants

Since the Society for Physiological Psychology wasorganising this first ICP, it was not only normal that thename of the congress itself would reflect this (Piron,1954), but that this would exert a definite influence onthe participants themselves. For many, physiologicalpsychology, which studied the physiological aspects ofpsychological phenomenon with the appropriate equip-ment, was the equivalent of experimental psychology.So an important group of physiologists, physicians,physicists, etc. were attracted by this congress. This,however, did not act as a deterrent for those with otherinterests more in line with psychopathology and psychi-atry and many participants, who were more interested inoccult phenomena and spiritism, hypnotism and so forth,also constituted a good part of the audience. In fact, therewere also those, like Richet, who were interested in bothaspects. The programme of the first ICP, that we willsummarise later, will reflect this diversity.

All participants were individually listed in the Pro-ceedings of the first ICP published in 1890. A total of203 registered participants were thus listed and camefrom 20 different countries, most of them European,

with a few from the Americas, i.e. USA, Mexico, Sal-vador, Chile and Brazil (Montoro, 1982; Montoro,Carpintero, & Tortosa, 1982). Some of the great namesrelated to the history of psychology who were presentare Hermann von Helmholtz, Wilhelm Wundt, WilliamJames, Sigmund Freud, Francis Galton, Alexander Bain,Joseph Delboeuf, Hugo Munsterberg, Joseph Jastrowand Theodore Flournoy. Also present were some emi-nent neurologists and physiologists of that period (JohnHughlings Jackson, Joseph Babinski, Theodor Meynertand Alexander Herzen), well-known criminal anthro-pologists (Cesare Lombroso and Lonce Manouvrier)and sociologists (Emile Durkeim and Alfred Espinas), aswell as many adepts of occult phenomena, spiritism andhypnotism (Frederic Myers, Henry Sidgwick and Alfredvon Schrenk-Notzing). A large number of physicians andpsychiatrists (such as Gilles de la Tourette and SergeiKorsakoff) were also present.

Being a pioneering event in international psychology,the geographic and disciplinary spread of the participantsis quite evident and sets the tone for future InternationalCongresses of Psychology. In the twenty-first century, allICPs have registered participants in excess of 6000, withthe Berlin ICP 2008 registering some 9000 and ICP 2012in Cape Town having participants from 103 differentcountries.

The first congress programme

The congress opened officially on Tuesday, 6 August,with welcoming addresses given by the Acting President,Thodule Ribot, and by Charles Richet, the SecretaryGeneral. It concluded 5 days later, on 10 August. Thisweek-long meeting has become the norm for ICPs.

In his opening remarks (Ribot, 1890), Ribot pointedout that the substitution of the objective method for thepure introspection that had prevailed for so long couldbe considered the raison dtre of the congress; he addsthat collective work and cooperation have become vitalconditions for the development of psychology. Individualresearchers in psychology in many countries found thatthe time had come to reunite and work together; it wasalso most important to be aware of the work done byothers, which was one of the goals of the inauguralmeeting. He ended by formulating the wish that this firstcongress be followed by many others and that the dateand the venue of the second congress be decided beforethe end of the first one.

The substantive programme of the first ICP wasarranged around the topics covered in Richets remarks.He not only mentioned the choice of areas or issues to becovered but also the reasons for covering them, the firstone being that they were all contemporary preoccupationsof psychologists and physiologists. Some of the issueswere very specific and limited, while others were broadand contributed to a more general discussion.



TABLE 1The members of the Organizing Committee and the International Advisory Committee of the First ICP

Organizing CommitteePresidentProfessor Jean-Martin Charcot, Professor of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Paris

Vice-presidentsDr Valentin Magnan, Psychiatrist, Medical Director, St-Anne AsylumProfessor Thodule Ribot, Physiologist, Professor, College de France, Editor of the Revue PhilosophiqueDr Hippolyte Taine, Philosopher and Historian, Member of the Acadmie Franaise

Secretary GeneralProfessor Charles Richet, Professor of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Paris

SecretariesProfessor Eugne Gley, Associate Professor of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, ParisMr Lon Marillier, Associate in Philosophy, Ecole des Hautes-Etudes

TreasurerMr H. Ferrari, Treasurer of the Society of Physiological Psychology

Members of the CommitteeDr Edouard Brissaud, Associate at the Faculty of Medicine, ParisProfessor Julien Ochorowicz, Member of the Society of Physiological PsychologyDr A. Ruault, Secretary of the Society of Physiological PsychologyMr Sully Prudhomme, Member of the Acadmie Franaise

International Advisory CommitteeFranceProfessor Henry-Etienne Beaunis, Physiologist, Professor, Faculty of Medicine, NancyProfessor Alfred Espinas, Professor, Faculty of Literature, BordeauxProfessor Pierre Janet, Psychologist, Member of the Institute, Professor, Faculty of Literature, Paris

GermanyProfessor Hermann von Helmholtz, Professor of Physics, University of BerlinProfessor Wilhelm Wundt, Professor of Physiology and Experimental Psychology, University of LeipzigProfessor William Preyer, Professor of Physiology, University of Jena

Great BritainProfessor Alexander Bain, Professor Emeritus, University of AberdeenProfessor Francis Galton, Member of the Royal Society, LondonProfessor John Hughlings Jackson, Member of the Royal Society, LondonProfessor Armand de Watteville, Member of the Neurological Society, London

Austria-HungaryProfessor Franz Exner, Professor of Physics, University of ViennaProfessor Ewald Hering, Professor of Physiology at Charles University, PragueProfessor Theodor Meynert, Professor of Neuropathology, University of Vienna

BelgiumProfessor Joseph Delboeuf, Professor of Philology, University of Lige

DenmarkProfessor Carl Lange, Professor of Physics, University of Copenhagen

USAProfessor William James, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University

ItalyProfessor Cesare Lombroso, Professor of Criminology, University of TorinoProfessor Henry Morselli, Professor, University of TorinoProfessor Angelo Mosso, Professor of Physiology, University of Torino

The NetherlandsProfessor William Engelmann, Professor of Physiology, University of Leiden

RussiaProfessor Nikolay Grote, Professor, University of OdessaProfessor A. Setschenoff, Professor of Physiology, University of Saint-PetersburgProfessor Matvei Troitsky, Professor of Philosophy and Psychology, University of Moscow

SwedenProfessor Robert Tigerstedt, Professor of Physiology, University of Stockholm

SwitzerlandProfessor Alexander Herzen, Professor of Physiology, Academy of LausanneProfessor Carl Vogt, Professor, University of Geneva



TABLE 2Programme summary of the First ICP

1. Muscular sensation (sens musculaire)2. The role of movements in the formation of mental images (rle des mouvements dans la formation des images)3. The role of affective states in attention (lattention est-elle toujours dtermine par des tats affectifs?)4. Statistical study of hallucinations (tude statistique des hallucinations)5. The appetites in idiots and imbeciles (les apptits chez les idiots et chez les imbciles)6. Motor impulses independent of images and ideas in insane persons (existe-t-il chez les alins des impulsions motrices indpendantes desimages et des ides?)

7. Psychic poisons (les poisons psychiques)8. Heredity(i) Emotional phenomena and their expression (hrdit des phnomnes expressifs et de leur expression)(ii) The specifics of colour perception (hrdit des particularits dans la perception des couleurs)(iii) Special memories (hrdit des mmoires spciales)(iv) Special aptitudes (technical, artistic, scientific) (hrdit des aptitudes spciales [techniques, artistiques, scientifiques])(v) Psychological analysis of a few genealogical tables (analyse psychologique de quelques tableaux gnalogiques)

9. Hypnotism(i) Cause of errors in the observation of hypnotic suggestion phenomena (des causes derreurs dans lobservation des phnomnes desuggestion hypnotique)(ii) Normal sleep and hypnotic sleep (le sommeil normal et le sommeil hypnotique)(iii) Heredity of hypnotic susceptibility (hrdit de la sensibilit hypnotique)(iv) The motor power of images in the hypnotised subjects and the unconscious movements (automatic writing, etc.) (le pouvoir moteur desimages chez les sujets hypnotiss et les mouvements inconscients [criture automatique, etc.])(v) Dual personality in hypnotism and mental alienation (le ddoublement de la personnalit et lalination mentale)(vi) Transfer phenomena (les phnomnes du transfert)(vii) Essay for a precise terminology in hypnotic issues (essai dune terminologie prcise dans les questions dhypnotisme)

In total, the 5-day programme (see Table 2) comprisednine areas, with most being quite specific and limited interms of interest, whereas items 3, 8 and 9 were more gen-eral and required a collective discussion effort from theparticipants. The six specific and limited areas (items 1, 2,3 and 5, 6, 7) are those that could be conceived as generalor experimental psychology issues; they were presentedduring the afternoon sessions, whereas the three issuesthat required a collective effort and a general discussionwere considered during the morning sessions. The wholeprogrammewas constructed quite arbitrarily with the goalof reflecting the heuristic preoccupations of psychologistsand physiologists.

In his opening remarks, Richet ended his descriptionof the programme by the nomination of an OrganizingCommission. It is this Commission that was charged withpreparing the conclusions and the decisions to be takenat the closing session and would thus help perpetuatethe impact of the first Congress of Psychology. ThisCommission was also tasked with making the proposalfor the selection of the venue of the second congress. ThisCommission is not to be confused with the first permanentICPC whose task was to prepare the programme of thenext congress.

The following 13 persons were chosen by the CongressAssembly to be part of the Organizing Commission: Del-boeuf, Ferrari, Grote, James, Henzen, Lombroso, Myers,Sidgwick, Marillier, Ochorowicz, Ribot, Richet and vonSchrenck-Notzing.

It was also decided that there would be four morningsections, instead of the three originally planned. In fact,to please those more attracted by experimental psychol-ogy and who wanted the congress to devote a largershare of work to these questions, a section on muscularsensation (to be chaired by William James) was addedon the spot to the three others, which were the sectionson hallucinations (chaired by Henry Sidgwick), heredity(chaired by Francis Galton) and hypnotism (chaired byJoseph Delboeuf).

Although it had been decided to devote all morningsessions to the three more general sections consid-ered to be the three pillars of the congress as well asthe additional specific section on muscular sensation,the Proceedings of the Congress reveal that, becauseof the high degree of interest raised, four of the fivemorning sessions were devoted to hypnotism. Never-theless, a first International Congress on Hypnotism(Premier Congrs International dhypnotisme, 1890)was organised during the same period by a large groupof French medical practitioners who were unhappyafter being refused participation in the first Interna-tional Congress of Physiological Psychology. Freud,Bernheim and Libault, amongst others, were registeredand attended both congresses. The first ICP also heldspecific sections on heredity, hallucinations, muscularsensations and afternoon sessions on general psychologywhich comprised a very heterogeneous set of individualpresentations. This important diversity of presentations



is not much different from presentations made in recentcongresses.

The closing session

Chaired by Belgian professor Joseph Delboeuf, the clos-ing session of the first ICP was held on Saturday, 10August. During this session, the conclusions formu-lated by the Organizing Commission appointed at thebeginning of the congress were discussed and adopted(Marillier, 1889).

The first proposal, adopted, unanimously and withoutdiscussion, was There is a need to subsequently orga-nize a congress of psychology (Il y a lieu dorganiserultrieurement un congrs de psychologie). The secondproposal, The Congress shall be named the congress ofexperimental psychology (Le Congrs portera le nomde congrs de psychologie exprimentale), gave rise to along and animated debate, with almost every possibilitybeing considered, such as scientific psychology, pure psy-chology, empirical psychology, physiological psychol-ogy, experimental and comparative psychology, with eachbeing given some degree of support. Finally, after a longand discursive discussion, the choice came down to twopossibilities: physiological psychology, the present name,and experimental psychology, the initial proposal. Theinitial proposal was adopted. It was also decided thatthe Proceedings of the Congress would be publishedunder the responsibility of the Secretary General and thetwo Secretaries. The third proposal referred to the dateand the venue of the second congress. After examiningthe merits and difficulties associated with the months ofJuly, August and September, and the need that the nextcongress not be too close to the present one, August 1892was chosen. Three potential venues, Belgium, Switzer-land and Great Britain, had been submitted to the Orga-nizing Commission who unanimously chose to supportGreat Britain.WithinGreat Britain, Londonwas preferredover Cambridge. TheAssembly then adopted the proposalthat the second congress be held in London, in August1892. Myers who was the spokesperson of the Societyof Psychical Research (Nuttin, 1992), based in London,promised that his Society would do the utmost to ensurethe success of the second congress, but that it would per-haps be better not tomention the fact that the congress wasentrusted to the Society in order not to hurt the feelingsof psychologists or physiologists who were not membersof this society. This diplomatic advice cannot completelyeliminate the potential conflict between those favouring orfirmly opposed (like Wundt) to psychical research. Thisconflict would continue to be active during the next twocongresses and then largely disappear when the scientificunderpinnings which have become the hallmark of Inter-national Congresses of Psychology became the intellec-tual framework of these meetings.

A fourth proposal made by the Commission was cru-cial for ensuring the future of the next internationalcongresses and for setting the basis of an internationalorganisation in psychology. It was proposed to immedi-ately create a permanent committee whose task would beto elaborate the programme of the next congress. Thiscommittee was to be called many different names in thedecades that followed, but all designations would bearin mind the idea of permanency and the internationalcomposition of the committee, a feature that has charac-terised the leadership of IUPsyS over time. This commit-tee came to be known as the International Congress ofPsychology Committee (ICPC). Rosenzweig, Holtzman,Sabourin, and Blanger (2000), in their book on the his-tory of IUPsyS, identified (in their Appendix A) thechanging composition of the ICPC since its first memberswere appointed in 1889 and up to the formal creation ofIUPsyS in 1951.

It is interesting to note that most of the ExecutiveCommittee members of the last ICPC, serving from1948 to 1951, with the exception of two members (Ler-sch and Rasmussen), were also part of the very firstExecutive Committee of IUPsyS in 1951 (see Table 3),clearly demonstrating the continuity and permanency ofthe institution called ICPC created in 1889. Table 3 showsthat, at the time of the formalisation of IUPS, there was anessential continuity of the leadership of ICPC which wasat the forefront of international psychology and, as hasbeen pointed out, the genesis of what is today known asIUPsyS was birthed in the first International Congress ofPhysiological Psychology and cumulatively firmly rooted

TABLE 3Composition of the first Executive Committee of the IUPS

(officers and ordinary members) elected in 1951 in relation to thecomposition of the last ICPC, which served from 1948 till 1951

IUPS, 1951 ICPC, 1948

Henri Piron (France), President Executive Committee memberFrederic C. Bartlett (UK),Vice-president

Executive Committee member

David Katz (Sweden), Treasurer Executive Committee memberH.S. Langfeld (USA),Secretary-General

Permanent Secretary

Jean Piaget, Deputy SecretaryGeneral

Assistant Permanent Secretary

Ordinary members of the Executive CommitteeStefan Baley (Poland) Executive Committee memberJos Germain (Spain) Member (newly appointed)Otto Klineberg (USA) Member (newly appointed)Phillip Lersch (FRG)Albert Michotte (Belgium) Executive Committee memberT.H. Pear (UK) Executive Committee memberMario Ponzo (Italy) Executive Committee memberT. Rasmussen (Denmark)Geza Rvsz (Netherlands) Executive Committee memberHenri Wallon (France) Executive Committee member



TABLE 4Members (N=27) of the very first ICPC appointed in 1889, from

those present, to serve till 1892

Beaunis, Henry (France) Hitzig, Edouard (Germany)Benedikt, Moritz (Austria) James, William (USA)Bernheim, Hippolyte (France) Lombroso, Cesare (Italy)Bertrand, Alexis (France) Marillier, Lon (France)Danilewski, B. (Russia) Mnsterberg, Hugo (Germany)Delboeuf, Joseph (Belgium) Myers, Frederick (UK)Espinas, Alfred (France) Neiglick, Hjalmar (Finland)Ferrari, H. (France) Ochorowicz, Julian (Russia)Forel, Auguste (Switzerland) Ribot, Thodule (France)Galton, Francis (UK) Richet, Charles (France)Gley, Eugne (France) von Schrenck-Notzing, AlbertGrote, Nikolay (Russia) (Germany)Gruber, Edouard (Romania) Sidgwick, Henry (UK)Herzen, Pierre (Switzerland) Sperling, Arthur (Germany)

in each subsequent congress.8 Also interesting to notein Appendix A (Rosenzweig et al., 2000) is the fact thatmany of the initially appointed members of the ICPC inthe early years were continuously reappointed till theydied. For example, Charles Richet, appointed in 1889served till his death in 1935, a total of 46 years (he hadbeen reappointed 10 times). Pierre Janet who was initiallyappointed for the first time in 1896 was reappointed for aninth term in 1937, to serve till 1948, but he died in 1947.So Janet served on the ICPC for 51 years. Other leadingfigures of twentieth-century psychology such as JamesMcKeen Cattell (USA) and Edouard Claparede (France)served for 39 and 35 years, respectively. At present, thereare term limits for the IUPsyS Executive Committee.Claparede, who was on the ICPC from 1905 till 1940, iscredited as being the founder of the International Asso-ciation of Applied Psychology (IAAP) in 1919 under thename of International Association of Psychotechnics; thepresent name of IAAP was only adopted in 1955.

This permanent international committee was to inter-act with the ad hoc local organisation committee cre-ated for each specific congress. Whereas its first members(N = 27) were appointed by the Congress Assembly itself,among those present, most of its future members were tobe co-opted. Ten countries were represented in the firstICPC (see Table 4). It was also decided that the first ICPCwould meet in December 1891 to receive proposals and tostart drafting the programme of the next congress, in orderto be able to publicise it at least 6months in advance.

Finally, the last proposal of the Commission regard-ing financial aspects was adopted: it was decided thatall remaining money, once the Proceedings had beenpublished, would be transferred to the Organizing

8 The First World War caused a long break between Geneva (1909) and Oxford (1923) ICPs, and the next break between Paris (1937) and Edinburgh(1948) ICPs was occasioned by the Second World War. Also interesting to note is that from 1889 to 1926 the country of residence of each member ofthe ICPC is indicated, whereas from 1926 to 1951, it was the city of residence. IUPsyS is a country member organisation.

9 Delegates at ICP 2012 were from 103 countries, representing the widest geographic spread of any ICP; the invited component alone comprised 7of the 30 parallel sessions.

Committee of the next congress. The basis for IUPsySwas thus solidly laid. ICP has consistently been the mostimportant activity of IUPsyS, a fact confirmed by nationalmembership surveys as recently as 2013.

The closing banquet

In his report of the first ICP, James (1889) talks enthusias-tically about the closing banquet on Saturday, 10 August,that was held on the first floor of the newly opened EiffelTower. He becomes lyrical when he speaks of the spiritand the soul that hardly could (find) finer subjects of con-templation than the wonderfully illuminated landscapeof exhibition grounds, palaces, and fountains spread outbelow, with all the lights and shadows of nocturnal Parisframing it in. During this banquet, as described by Nuttin(1992), multiple toasts were made to Professor Richetby Cesare Lombroso, amongst others, mentioning that hewas the representative of anti-chauvinism in science!On these joyful notes, the first ICP ended, setting the tonefor future ICPs, especially of the basic form, while thecontent has developed according to the constantly evolv-ing state of the science of psychology.

On 15 August, a few days after the close of thecongress, James wrote from Liverpool to his friend, KarlStumpf, as follows:

The Congress in Paris was delightful. I have written avery short account of it for Mind which you will see, soI say nothing of it now, except this, that the courtesy ofthe Frenchmen was beyond all praise and that the sight of120 men all actively interested in psychology has made mefeel much less lonely and ready to finish my book (Essaysin Psychology) this year with a great deal more entrain.A book hanging on so long in ones hands at last getsoutgrown, and even disgusting to me. The Congress hasremedied that. (Burkhardt, 1984, p. 410)

CONCLUSION

The first Congress of Physiological Psychology held in1889 was to be the crucial starting point of the sustainedand remarkable developmental history that organisedpsychology has known from that moment on. Since then,29 international congresses of psychology have been heldin most regions of the world. The last ICP held in CapeTown in July 2012, the first on the African continent, wasarguably the most successful ICP,9 a claim nonethelessmade at the conclusion of almost every ICP. Paris has



been themost popular ICP host city for some nine decadessince the first ICP (1889, 1900, 1937, 1976), with London(1892, 1969), Stockholm (1951, 2000), Montral (1954,1996) and Brussels (1957, 1992) each hosting two.

From the initial group of 27members of the ICPC, rep-resenting 10 countries, a strong and representative organ-isation, the IUPsyS, has emerged with a membership ofnational associations of psychology or science academiesin 82 countries (and continuing to expand), representingmore than a million psychologists worldwide. IUPsyS hastruly become the Global Voice of Psychology; it is nowpresent within all major international governmental insti-tutions, such as the United Nations Economic and SocialCouncil, the World Health Organization (WHO) and theUnited Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Orga-nization (UNESCO). It is also a very active member of thetwomajor umbrella organisations for science, the Interna-tional Council for Science (ICSU) and the InternationalSocial Science Council (ISSC), where its representativesregularly hold positions of leadership.

In 1889, psychology was barely starting to come of ageand the subject itself had a different meaning to differentpeople. Most of its early proponents, or those who iden-tified themselves as psychologists, actually came fromother allied disciplines, such as medicine and its differ-ent specialities (psychiatry, neurology, physiology), phi-losophy, literature, anthropology, physics, biology, andsociology, among others. During those days, there wasalso much interest in paranormal or occult phenomena, aswell as in hypnosis and suggestibility. This created someconflicts with those more interested in concrete empiri-cal matters to be studied through the use of experimen-tal and other objective methods for gathering data andbuilding theories. Whereas hypnosis has gained scien-tific respectability, especially with the work done by someeminent experimental psychologists (in particular, ClarkHull and Ernest Hilgard), this has not been the case forthe different areas of psychical research. Today, there isno existing association of psychology with parapsychol-ogy and allied fields. But, during the initial congresses ofpsychology, there was considerable discussion and muchinterest was raised by these questions. At the turn of thetwentieth century, with the remarkable development thatempirically oriented experimental psychology was pursu-ing, the two orientations gradually became separate andeach has maintained its own identity.

As is the case with enduring global institutions such asthe Olympic Games, a discernible outcome of holding anICP has been the very positive and stimulating effects thatan International Congress of Psychology has had on thedevelopment of the discipline in the host countries. Therehas also been significant growth in the scientific under-pinnings of psychology and a greater public appreciationof psychologys value in society.

Piron (1954), who was the first president of IUPsySafter its formal creation, notes that a large number of

international congresses have significantly marked thedevelopment of psychology by initial presentationsmade or thematics discussed at an ICP. For instance,the 6th ICP in Geneva (1909) marked the appearance ofPavolvian theory; the 8th ICP in Groningen (1926), theappearance of Gestalt theory; the 12th ICP in Edinburgh(1948), the emergence of social psychology; the 13thICP in Stockholm (1951), the importance of psychoanal-ysis; the 14th ICP in Montreal (1954), the emergenceof neuropsychology; the 15th ICP in Brussels (1957),cybernetics. International Congresses of Psychology doattract eminent scientists from wide-ranging areas ofexpertise that truly reflects the geographic spread of psy-chology in the spirit of the very first ICP 125 years ago.International Congresses of Psychology also attract otherdisciplines as well as accomplished persons from scienceand other human endeavours, as evidenced in Nobellaureates Daniel Kahneman and Desmond Tutu speech,respectively, at the opening sessions of the Beijing andCape Town ICPs.

REFERENCES

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