Alliances and splits in the psychoanalytic movement in post-war France (1945-1953)

Abstract

The article takes its starting point from the hypothesis that, shortly before the Second World War, a fault-line began to emerge in the French psychoanalytic movement between the supporters of a >French< school of psychoanalysis, which was heavily dependent on psychiatry, and the advocates of a liberal, international, Freudian understanding of psychoanalysis. The war brought this process to a standstill. During the climate of radical change and renewal that accompanied the liberation of France, Daniel Lagache made efforts to restore the unity of the French group, using his university position and drawing on the discipline of psychology. However, this attempt was weighed down by the growing influence of Jacques Lacan's work and on-going tensions within the movement, both long-standing and of more recent origin (the war had created new problems, such as those stemming from the >collaboration< by Rene Laforgue). The author seeks to analyze this crucial moment between the liberation and the first decisive split in 1953, and emphasizes what was at stake for psychoanalysis as well as psychology.