At the Asylum for the mentally ill, the place she called “the Penal Colony for Psychiatrists”, Constance Pascal had plans to reform institutional medicine, to create outpatient services and to establish asylum schools for children.
She was the first female psychiatrist in France.
Her huge contribution to psychiatry is largely forgotten: she prohibited corporal punishment and straitjackets for the mentally ill, she ensured clean dormitories, she was interested in educating children with severe learning difficulties, and in creating familial colonies for the less severely affected:
“Tous les fous, tous les maniaques, tous les épileptiques, ne sont pas des ‘sujet d’asile’” (1913)
[Not all mad, not all lunatics, not all epileptics should be in asylums]
Through interviews in the press, Pascal brought attention to the suffering of mentally ill people, aiming at reducing stigma and discrimination.