François Perrier (; 25 July 1922 – 2 August 1990) was a French doctor, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst. Perrier played a prominent role in Lacanianism and in post-Lacanian psychoanalysis.

Career

Perrier studied medicine and psychiatry in Paris; and became a psychoanalyst after a first analysis with Maurice Bouvet, a second with Sasha Nacht, and a third with Jacques Lacan. As a Lacanian, he became one of the so-called 'three musketeers' of leading disciples, to be known as the 'troika': Serge Leclaire, Wladimir Granoff and François Perrier. Perrier was called by Élisabeth Roudinesco "the wandering

troubadour A troubadour (, ; oc, trobador ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word ''troubadour'' is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a ''trobairit ...

of Lacanianism, naive and passionate, as whimsical as his master (whose genius he lacked), but a prodigious theorist of female sexuality, hysteria, and love". In a more critical judgement, linking his obsessive

father complex Father complex in psychology is a complex—a group of unconscious associations, or strong unconscious impulses—which specifically pertains to the image or archetype of the father. These impulses may be either positive (admiring and seeking out ...

to his ambivalent search for a psychoanalytic master, she also considered him to have frittered away his career "between presumptiousness and aimlessness".

Psychoanalytic politics

After belonging to the

Société psychanalytique de Paris The Paris Psychoanalytical Society (SPP) is the oldest psychoanalytical organisation in France. Founded with Freud’s endorsement in 1926, the S.P.P. is a component member of the International Psychoanalytical Association (I.P.A.) as well as of t ...

, Perrier took part in the creation of the

Société Française de Psychanalyse The Société Française de Psychanalyse (SFP) was a French psychoanalytic professional body formed in 1953, in a split from the main body of French psychoanalysts, the ''Société Parisienne de Psychanalyse'' (SPP). The SFP was eventually dissolv ...

(S.F.P.) in 1953. Together with Granoff, and Leclaire, in the early 1960s Perrier attempted to have the SFP acknowledged formally by the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). After the failure of their efforts, it was at Perrier's house, in the presence of Jacques Lacan and Nathalie Zaltzman, his ex-wife, that the founding of the Ecole Freudienne de Paris took place in 1964. Perrier was the first to resign from the board of the new institution, in 1966, over the question of training; and in 1969, in what has been called the third schism in French psychoanalytic history, he, along with

Piera Aulagnier Piera Aulagnier (; née Spairani; November 19, 1923 – March 31, 1990), was a French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. Her contributions to psychoanalysis include the concepts of interpretative violence, pictogram and originary process. Life and ...

, Jean-Paul Valabrega, and (a minority of) others broke away from the EFP to set up a fourth group: the

Organisation psychanalytique de langue francaise An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from ...

(OPFL). The first president of the Quatrième Groupe, Perrier would eventually resign from it in 1981. Perrier came to conclude that Jacques Lacan was "a troublemaker of genius"; and that his followers were "travellers in the realm of 'Translacania'", as he would call it.

Letter to Lacan

Roudinesco highlighted for critical attention a letter he wrote to Lacan in 1965, shortly after the EFP was formed:Roudinesco, (1997) p. 318 Unfortunately, for all the acuteness of Perrier's diagnosis of the organisational impasse Lacan's personality would create, he had no solution, other than his eventual departure for the Fourth Group.

Work

Perrier produced a large body of work, ranging from

phobia A phobia is an anxiety disorder defined by a persistent and excessive fear of an object or situation. Phobias typically result in a rapid onset of fear and are usually present for more than six months. Those affected go to great lengths to avo ...

(1956),

psychosis Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior ...

(1956 and after), and erotomania (1966), to alcoholism and female sexuality, while also contributing to the question of the training analysis (1969). On erotomania, Perrier made a link between the early observations of Clérambault and Lacan's later work. He saw motherhood as a way for female sexuality to live out its disturbances, but also as an opportunity to work through them. In a witty formulation on love and childhood, Perrier argued that "what kills childhood is knowledge; what kills love is knowledge. Yet...there is no true love except in the aptitude of a subject, or two subjects, to return to childhood".A Dufourmantelle/C. Porter, ''Blind Date'' (2007) p. 31

Writings

# L'Amour, Ed.: Hachette Pluriel, 1998, # La Chaussée d'Antin : Oeuvre psychanalytique I, Ed.: Albin Michel, 2008, # La Chaussée d'Antin : Oeuvre psychanalytique II, Ed.: Albin Michel, 2008, # Les corps malades du signifiant: séminaires 1971-1972. Paris: InterÉditions (1984) # Double lecture: le transubjectal: séminaires 1973-1974. Paris: InterÉditions (1985) Perrier, François; and Granoff, Vladimir. (1960). Le désir et le féminin. Paris: Aubier.

References