Treatment of Tourette syndrome
Habit reversal training (HRT), massed negative practice, biofeedback, relaxation, hypnosis and other behavioral approaches are proposed as alternative treatments of tics, but few have been well assessed. Relaxation techniques, such as exercise, yoga or meditation, may be useful in relieving stress that may aggravate tics, but the majority of behavioral interventions (such as relaxation training and biofeedback, with the exception of habit reversal) have not been systematically evaluated and are not proven therapies for Tourette's.
History of Tourette syndrome
Jean-Martin Charcot, an influential French physician, assigned his resident Georges Albert Édouard Brutus Gilles de la Tourette, a French physician and neurologist, to study patients at the Salpêtrière Hospital, with the goal of defining an illness distinct from hysteria and from chorea. Charcot and Gilles de la Tourette believed that the "tic illness" they had observed was an untreatable, chronic, and progressive hereditary condition. History is unclear on whether Charcot had examined the Marquise de Dampierre, but his publications mention having met her socially and overhearing her most common utterances of ""merde" and "foutu cochon" (which translates literally as filthy pig but the truer colloquial meaning is 'fucking pig')".