Jean-Baptiste Pussin (1746–1811) was a French hospital superintendent who, along with his wife and colleague Marguerite, established more humane treatment of patients with mental disorders in 19th-century France.
Pinel states that Jean-Baptiste Pussin often defined the psychological approach to be used, because "he lived amongst the insane night and day, studied their ways, their character, and their tastes, the course of their derangements, knows when to be benevolent, when to be an imposing figure...", allowing him to know the individuals more than a physician could by making his rounds.
[1] Pinel describes a case where Jean-Baptiste Pussin "perceived the beginning of a favorable change; wishing to hasten the recovery, he began a series of conversations with the patient in his room, coming gradually to the subject of his delusion.
“If you are king,” he said to him, “how come you cannot bring your detention to an end, and why are you mixed up with all these lunatics?” Returning on subsequent days, he continued to talk with him, in benevolent and friendly fashion; he made him see, little by little, the ridiculousness of his pretensions, showed him another patient who had been long convinced of his supreme power and thereby became an object of derision.
[1] Pinel admires the skill of Marguerite Pussin, who was able to alter "the convictions of a man whose life was endangered by his delusional and infuriated insistence on abstaining from any food.