Named after the Parisian lycée where it was first installed, the Centre psychopédagogique Claude-Bernard was founded in 1946 on the initiative of Juliette Favez-Boutonier (quickly succeeded by André Berge) and Georges Mauco.

The project came into being during the German Occupation, when these three analysts held informal meetings with Françoise Dolto and Marc Schlumberger. The idea was to create an institution that would enable children, adolescents, and their families to benefit from the discoveries of psychoanalysis in a framework other than hospital consultation. They envisaged a different approach to character disorders, language problems, and intellectual inhibitions. The revolutionary aspects of this project made it quite compatible with the vast plan of social and educational reforms that came into being at the end of the war.

Like other centers later created in other cities, this structure had a dual vocation:...