It wasn’t until 1920, with the arrival in Paris of one of Freud’s students, Eugénie Sokolnicka, that psychoanalysis began to influence Parisian literary circles, and then, gradually, doctors and psychiatrists.
One of its founders, René Laforgue, had corresponded with Freud and had referred the Princess Marie Bonaparte to him for analysis and ultimately training.
The arrival in Paris of Rudolph Loewenstein, trained at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, would permit the incorporation of the fledgling group, initially of nine then twelve, members (René Allendy, Marie Bonaparte, Adrien Borel, Angelo Hesnard, René Laforgue, Rudolph Loewenstein, Édouard Pichon, Eugénie Sokolnicka).
The first Institute of Psychoanalysis opened in 1934, with Ernest Jones giving the inaugural address, and congratulatory telegrams from Freud and Max Eitingon.
Following the Nazi invasion of Austria, Marie Bonaparte was instrumental in facilitating the emigration of Sigmund Freud and his family.
Profound disagreements about training subsisted however, particularly between Daniel Lagache and Sacha Nacht each of whom held diverging views regarding the place of University teaching within psychoanalysis.
In addition, Jacques Lacan had begun a technical shift consisting of varying the length of session times, most frequently making them very short, provoking the mistrust of other members of the Society.
These tensions resulted in the departure of a small group, gathered around Daniel Lagache and subsequently joined by Jacques Lacan.
During this troubled period, the Paris Psychoanalytical Society pursued its development, training numerous analysts who have profoundly influenced the course of psychoanalysis in France.
analysts have constituted groups for local members and students as well as proposing scientific activities open to the public.
Many French theoreticians have made contributions which complement Freud’s theory and delve into what were hitherto unexplored regions of the mind and body.
Until about 1970, psychoanalytic questions and reflections were primarily focussed on dreams and desire; issues which were rooted in Freud’s topographical theory.
For some time now, Freud’s second, structural theory has been at the heart of clinical research and questions regarding destructivity (Jean Bergeret, Paul Denis, André Green), masochism (Benno Rosenberg), negative therapeutic reaction, narcissism (André Green, Bela Grunberger), object relations (Maurice Bouvet), perversion (Michel De M’Uzan, Joyce McDougall, Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel), psychosomatic problems (Pierre Marty, Michel Fain, Christian David, and Michel de M’Uzan), the third (A.
When an individual believes that his or her personal analysis has advanced enough, (he may or may not have terminated) he or she may submit his candidature for the training proper, at one of the Institutes.
This Commission, after deliberating on the subject’s capacities of auto-analysis, of listening and of perceiving the unconscious of an other, accepts, differs or refuses the candidate.
At the same time, the analyst in training must integrate, based on his accruing experience, the corpus of psychoanalysis’ theoretical knowledge.
They are members of the teaching committee, whose specific task and responsibility is to supervise and transmit clinical psychoanalysis and its corollary, psychoanalytical research.
Working with a diverse population, offering a diversity of psychoanalytically based treatments, the CCTP exemplifies a public clinic which fulfils Freud’s 1922 description of psychoanalysis: carrying out psychoanalytic treatment, investigating “mental processes”, and on the basis of the latter, the psychoanalysts at the CCTP have developed a research method.
The birth of the SPP’s Sigmund Freud library (BSF) is closely entwined with the founding of the Institute of Psychoanalysis, both of which were in large part made possible thanks to the generosity of Marie Bonaparte.
From the mid nineteen fifties on, developing a library and a catalogue and above all, translating Freud into French were major preoccupations.
In 1962 Marie Bonaparte donated several thousand books to the library, including several which were personally dedicated and annotated by Freud as well as a collection of rare German journals.
Psychiatrists, psychologists and researchers the world over visit on-line resources of the BSF[permanent dead link] (as well as its premises) profiting from its unusually large catalogue.