By the contract of 7 July 1651, between the governors of the Hôtel-Dieu and the founders of power of the Queen Regent Anne of Austria, the Hôtel-Dieu gave up the buildings and the grounds of the House of Health, the queen giving in exchange the 21 arpents (about 26.5 acres) of land chosen to establish the new hospital, which was to take the name of the patron saint of the mother of Louis XIV, Saint Anne.

This little-used establishment was transformed into a farm where the insane patients from the relatively nearby Bicêtre Hospice [fr] came to work.

For many years Sainte-Anne fulfilled its role of protection of mental patients, using the weakly therapeutic treatment means of the time.

In 1922, Édouard Toulouse created the centre of mental prophylaxis, the first voluntary service, that is to say, in which the patients were not interned under the law of June 30, 1838.

The department of pediatric bio-psychopathology, the function of which was to put at the disposal of maladjusted children and their families an original clinical and therapeutic approach that would bring together dual emotional and cognitive aspects, was created in 1947.

In 1952, Sainte-Anne was the site of the discovery by Jean Delay and his assistant Pierre Deniker of the properties of the first neuroleptic, 4560 RP (Largactil).

Sainte-Anne welcomes patients from the 5th, 6th, 14th, 15th, and 16th arrondissements of Paris in various pavilions named after famous doctors (Benjamin Ball, Pierre Janet, Raymond Garcin [fr], and Piera Aulagnier.

The methods of care in psychiatry have evolved considerably over the last twenty years: The neurology department was set up in 1974, and neuroradiology became, at Sainte-Anne Hospital, a state-of-the-art discipline, with innovative equipment, such as a CT scanner and magnetic resonance imaging, which enabled therapeutic radiology.

[4][5] This infirmary, which is administered by the Paris Police Prefecture, admits persons who are subject to provisional measures pending an order of involuntary commitment.