Elisabeth Roudinesco

Jacques Lacan continues to be subject to the most extravagant interpretations-some of them idolizing, some demonizing. To recall Lacan's career, now that the heroic age of psychoanalysis is over, is to remember an intellectual and literary adventure that occupies a founding place in our modernity. For, if Lacan went against the current of many of the hopes aroused by 1968, he embraced their paradoxes, so that his language games and wordplay resonate today as so many injunctions to reinstate society in the face of a degraded individualism. Widely recognized as one of the leading authorities on Lacan, Elisabeth Roudinesco here undertakes to revisit Lacan's life and work- what it was-and what it remains.

In Spite of Everything

Lacan

Where does perversion begin? Who is perverse? Ever since the word first appeared in the Middle Ages, anyone who delights in evil and in the destruction of the self or others has been described as 'perverse'. But while the experience of perversion is universal, every era has seen it and dealt with it in its own way. The history of perversion in the West is told here through a study of great emblematic figures of the perverse - Gilles de Rais, the mystical saints and the flagellants in the middle ages, the Marquis de Sade in the eighteenth century, the masturbating child, the male homosexual and the hysterical woman nineteenth century, Nazism in the twentieth century, and the complementary figures of the paedophile and the terrorist in the twenty-first. The perverse are rarely talked about and when they are it is usually only to be condemned. They are commonly viewed as monstrous and cruel, as something alien to the very nature of being human. And yet, perversion can also attest to creativity and self-transcendence, to the refusal of individuals to submit to the rules and prohibitions that govern human life. Perversion fascinates us precisely because it can be both abject and sublime. Whether they are sublime because they turn to art or mysticism, or abject because they surrender to their murderous impulses, the perverse are part of us because they exhibit something that we always conceal: our own negativity and our dark side.

A History of Perversion

Our Dark Side

istoria psihanalizei în Franţa

De la Sigmund Freud la Jacques Lacan

Barbara Bray

Recounts the conflicts surrounding Lacan's break with the institutional framework of Freudian orthodoxy, the popularity of Lacanianism in the 1960s and 1970s, and its encounters with the women's movement

An Outline of a Life and a History of a System of Thought

Jacques Lacan

Em 2010, o filósofo francês Michel Onfray lançou na França o polêmico "Le crépuscule d'une idole". Nas páginas Freud é tratado como impostor, homofóbico, incestuoso e fascista. Pouco tempo depois a psicanalista Elisabeth Roudinesco lançou sua resposta, apontando erros de apuração, fatos forjados e acusações maliciosas como a de que o mestre da psicanálise teria mantido um caso com a cunhada por quarenta anos. A autora ainda mostra como as acusações apresentadas não são novas, são boatos antigos criados por quem buscava apenas atrair as atenções da mídia. Para Roudinesco, tanto ódio, porém, tem justificativa: ninguém derruba uma série de mitos, como os relacionados ao sexo, sem pagar um alto preço por isso. Completando a edição estão ainda cinco artigos assinados por profissionais da área de história, filosofia e psiquiatria e uma entrevista publicada na revista "Le Nouvel Observateur", em que ela esclarece os constantes ataques à psicanálise.

Freud - mas por que tanto ódio?

Why do some people still choose psychoanalysis-Freud's so-called talking cure-when numerous medications are available that treat the symptoms of psychic distress so much faster? Elisabeth Roudinesco tackles this difficult question, exploring what she sees as a "depressive society": an epidemic of distress addressed only by an increasing reliance on prescription drugs. Far from contesting the efficacy of new medications like Prozac, Zoloft, and Viagra in alleviating the symptoms of any number of mental or nervous conditions, Roudinesco argues that the use of such drugs fails to solve patients' real problems. In the man who takes Viagra without ever wondering why he is suffering from impotence and the woman who is given antidepressants to deal with the loss of a loved one, Roudinesco sees a society obsessed with efficiency and desperate for the quick fix. She argues that "the talking cure" and pharmacology represent not just different approaches to psychiatry, but different worldviews. The rush to treat symptoms is itself symptomatic of an antiseptic and depressive culture in which thought is reduced to the firing of neurons and desire is just a chemical secretion. In contrast, psychoanalysis testifies to human freedom and the power of language.

Why Psychoanalysis?

The author offers the story of a young man from the provinces determined to leave his family fortune and its old-fashioned values behind; the young doctor in Paris who set out to reinvent clinical psychotherapy and ended up transforming fundamental notions that shapes it all.

An Outline of a Life and History of a System of Thought

The toppling of statues in the name of anti-racism is disconcerting, as is the violence sometimes displayed towards others in the name of gender equality. The emancipation movements of the past seem to have undergone a subtle transformation: the struggle now is not so much to bring about progress but rather to denounce offenses, express indignation, and assert identities, sometimes in order to demand recognition. The individual’s commitment to self-definition and self-appreciation, understood as the exercise of a sovereign right, has become a distinctive sign of our time. Elisabeth Roudinesco takes us into the darker corners of identity thinking, where conspiracy theories, rejection of the other, and incitement to violence are often part of the mix. But she also points to several paths that could lead us away from despair and toward a possible world in which everyone can adhere to the principle according to which “I am myself, that’s all there is to it” without denying the diversity of human communities or essentializing either universality or difference. This bold and courageous interrogation of identity politics will be of great interest to anyone concerned with the state of our world today.

Pitfalls of Identity Politics

The Sovereign Self

For Elisabeth Roudinesco, a historian of psychoanalysis and one of France's leading intellectuals, Canguilhem, Sartre, Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze, and Derrida represent a "great generation" of French philosophers who accomplished remarkable work and lived incredible lives. These troubled and innovative thinkers endured World War II and the cultural and political revolution of the 1960s, and their cultural horizon was dominated by Marxism and psychoanalysis, though they were by no means strict adherents to the doctrines of Marx and Freud. Roudinesco knew many of these intellectuals personally, and she weaves an account of their thought through lived experience and reminiscences. Canguilhem, for example, was a distinguished philosopher of science who had a great influence on Foucault's exploration of sanity and madness-themes Althusser lived in a notorious personal drama. And in dramatizing the life of Freud for the screen, Sartre fundamentally altered his own philosophical approach to psychoanalysis. Roudinesco launches a passionate defense of Canguilhem, Sartre, Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze, and Derrida against the "new philosophers" of the late 1970s and 1980s, who denounced the work-and sometimes the private lives-of this great generation. Roudinesco refutes attempts to tar them, as well as the Marxist and left-wing tradition in general, with the brush of Soviet-style communism. In Freudian theory and the philosophy of radical commitment, she sees a bulwark against the kind of manipulative, pill-prescribing, and normalizing psychology that aims to turn individuals into mindless consumers. Intense, clever, and persuasive, Philosophy in Turbulent Times captivates with the dynamism of French thought in the twentieth century.

Canguilhem, Sartre, Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze, Derrida

Philosophy in Turbulent Times

Historia del Psicoanálisis en Francia, 1885-1939

La batalla de cien años. Vol. I

Michel Plon

Das Wörterbuch der Psychoanalyse informiert über die wichtigsten Elemente des psychoanalytischen Denkens: die wesentlichen Begriffe, die wichtigsten Länder, in denen die Psychoanalyse Fuß fassen konnte, die Biographien ihrer Autoren, psychopathologische Theorien und andere Wissensbereiche oder intellektuelle, politische und religiöse Bewegungen, die von der Psychoanalyse beeinflusst wurden, die wichtigen ersten Fallbeschreibungen, die Behandlungstechniken sowie die Ansichten der Psychoanalyse zu Geburt, Familie, Geschlecht und Wahn. Es behandelt auch den Freudianismus selbst, seine Geschichte und seine unterschiedlichen Schulen, und gibt einen Überblick über die wichtigsten Werke Freuds. Es schließt die Familie Freuds mit ein, außerdem seine Lehrer sowie Schriftsteller und Künstler, mit denen er Briefwechsel unterhielt. Jeder Artikel enthält eine Bibliographie mit den wichtigsten Quellen. Eine Zeittafel mit den bedeutendsten Ereignissen der Geschichte der Psychoanalyse rundet dieses Wörterbuch ab.

Namen, Länder, Werke, Begriffe

Wörterbuch der Psychoanalyse

Uma obra fascinante, que nos apresenta um Freud mais humano e vigoroso do que nunca A partir de novos arquivos abertos pela Biblioteca do Congresso em Washington - e de uma erudição ímpar sobre a história da psicanálise, Elisabeth Roudinesco reconstitui a vida de Freud através das intensas relações que ele manteve com seus mestres e discípulos, familiares e amigos, além dos pacientes. E fornece novos insights sobre a vida do homem que modificou para sempre nossa visão da humanidade e da cultura: retifica crenças arraigadas, corrige erros históricos, ressalta precisões biográficas, propõe interpretações. Freud surge ao longo das páginas como um verdadeiro turbilhão: construindo sua época e sendo construído por ela; amando e odiando intensamente; tocando a todos com sua palavra salutar e sua desconstrução das ilusões. "O exame escrupuloso das fontes não é a única virtude... Roudinesco esclarece o homem em vez de julgá-lo, transformando-o numa criatura paradoxal, judeu sem Deus, homem das Luzes atraído pelas forças obscuras, liberando o sexo e praticando a abstinência, dividido entre um ideal de cientificidade e um fascínio pelos poderes da imaginação criadora." Le Monde "Monumental volume, com ares de biografia definitiva. ... Roudinesco narra a vida de Freud como se fosse um palpitante romance." El País "Sem desprezar nenhuma fonte, o que poderia ser uma 'estátua' de Freud ganha rosto humano." Libération

Sigmund Freud na sua época e em nosso tempo

"Roudinesco provides a finely drawn map of the intellectual debates within French psychoanalysis, especially under the influence of the German emigrés during the 1930s and 1940s. She is a good historian, in that she provides not only a narrative history but also extensive passages from Lacan's own oral-history interviews with the various figures, so that we have not only her commentary but some flavor of the original documentation. Many of the quotes are gems."—Sander I. Gilman, Bulletin of the History of Medicine

A History of Psychoanalysis in France, 1925-1985

Jacques Lacan & Co

'An impure Joan of Arc' or 'a radiant Penthesilea'--Theroigne de Mericourt remains one of the most misrepresented figures of the French revolution. Theroigne loved the Revolution; she refused the roles prescribed by her sex; and, at the age of thirty-one, she lost her reason. From these three facts, historians have woven tenacious myths about women, madness and revolution which reveal more about their own phantasms and allegiances than about Theroigne herself. Elisabeth Roudinesco's exploration of Theroigne's life and afterlife restores a much-wronged woman to her rightful place in history. After vividly tracing Theroigne's life, Roudinesco applies psychoanalysis to history, and history to psychiatry. She analyses the founding fathers of the asylum and the historians of the French Revolution, using their own assessments of Theroigne as revealing evidence. Her book adds a new dimension to our understanding of the French Revolution, early feminism and the birth of the modern asylum.

The Lives and Legends of Théroigne de Méricourt

Madness and Revolution

What does it mean to be Jewish? What is an anti-Semite? Why does the enigmatic identity of the men who founded the first monotheistic religion arouse such passions? We need to return to the Jewish question. We need, first, to distinguish between the anti-Judaism of medieval times, which persecuted the Jews, and the anti-Judaism of the Enlightenment, which emancipated them while being critical of their religion. It is a mistake to confuse the two and see everyone from Voltaire to Hitler as anti-Semitic in the same way. Then we need to focus on the development of anti-Semitism in Europe, especially Vienna and Paris, where the Zionist idea was born. Finally, we need to investigate the reception of Zionism both in the Arab countries and within the Diaspora. Re-examining the Jewish question in the light of these distinctions and investigations, Roudinesco shows that there is a permanent tension between the figures of the ‘universal Jew’ and the ‘territorial Jew’. Freud and Jung split partly over this issue, which gained added intensity after the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 and the Eichmann trial in 1961. Finally, Roudinesco turns to the Holocaust deniers, who started to suggest that the Jews had invented the genocide that befell their people, and to the increasing number of intellectual and literary figures who have been accused of anti-Semitism. This thorough re-examination of the Jewish question will be of interest to students and scholars of modern history and contemporary thought and to a wide readership interested in anti-Semitism and the history of the Jews.

Revisiting the Jewish Question

For Elisabeth Roudinesco, a historian of psychoanalysis and one of France's leading intellectuals, Canguilhem, Sartre, Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze, and Derrida belong to a "great generation" of French philosophers. Innovative and troubled, these thinkers accomplished remarkable work and lived incredible lives, and though their cultural horizon was dominated by Marxism and psychoanalysis, they were by no means strict adherents to Marxist and Freudian doctrines. Having known many of these intellectuals personally, Roudinesco merges an account of their thought and experiences with her own reminiscences, launching a passionate defense of their work against late-twentieth-century detractors. Intense, clever, and persuasive, Philosophy in Turbulent Times captures the dynamism of French thought while also reclaiming the value of Freudian theory and the philosophy of radical commitment.

Elisabeth Roudinesco

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