Sollier was born in
Bléré,
Indre-et-Loire, France. Paul Sollier (1861–1933) at the time was considered the most gifted pupil of French neurologist
Jean-Martin Charcot, together with
Joseph Babinski. Because of his interest in psychology, unique at the time for a
neurologist, but also his opposition to the leading figure in psychiatry
Pierre Janet, Sollier was never accepted by his contemporary neurologists and psychiatrists. He could not follow an academic career and was never elected to the
Académie de Médecine, despite several applications. His scientific and clinical interests encompassed classical neurological syndromes but also hysteria, memory, emotions and intellectual disability, where he was the precursor of the development of the intellectual ratio. Already in the 1890s, he developed
cognitive behavioral therapies, which he applied to his most famous patient, French novelist
Marcel Proust. Proust largely inspired himself from Sollier's
The Problem of Memory (1900) for his emphasis on
involuntary memory in his 1913–1927 novel
In Search of Lost Time. Sollier can be considered one of the first
neuropsychologists. == Personal life ==