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Jean Laplanche (; 21 June 1924 – 6 May 2012) was a French author,
psychoanalyst PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might ...
and
winemaker A winemaker or vintner is a person engaged in winemaking. They are generally employed by wineries or wine companies, where their work includes: *Cooperating with viticulturists *Monitoring the maturity of grapes to ensure their quality and to de ...
. Laplanche is best known for his work on
psychosexual development In Freudian psychology, psychosexual development is a central element of the psychoanalytic sexual drive theory. Freud believed that personality developed through a series of childhood stages in which pleasure seeking energies from the child ...
and
Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...
's seduction theory, and wrote more than a dozen books on
psychoanalytic theory Psychoanalytic theory is the theory of personality organization and the dynamics of personality development that guides psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology. First laid out by Sigmund Freud in the late 19th century, psyc ...
. The journal '' Radical Philosophy'' described him as "the most original and philosophically informed psychoanalytic theorist of his day."Fletcher and Osborne From 1988 to his death, Laplanche was the scientific director of the German to French translation of Freud's complete works ('' Oeuvres Complètes de Freud / Psychanalyse – OCF.P'') in the
Presses Universitaires de France Presses universitaires de France (PUF, English: ''University Press of France''), founded in 1921 by Paul Angoulvent (1899–1976), is the largest French university publishing house. Recent company history The financial and legal structure ...
, in association with André Bourguignon, Pierre Cotet and François Robert.


Life


Early

Laplanche grew up in the Côte d'Or region of France. In his adolescence he was active in
Catholic Action Catholic Action is the name of groups of lay Catholics who advocate for increased Catholic influence on society. They were especially active in the nineteenth century in historically Catholic countries under anti-clerical regimes such as Spain, Ita ...
, a left-wing
social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals f ...
organization."Jean Laplanche" Laplanche attended the
École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...
in the 1940s, studying philosophy. He was a student of Jean Hyppolite,
Gaston Bachelard Gaston Bachelard (; ; 27 June 1884 – 16 October 1962) was a French philosopher. He made contributions in the fields of poetics and the philosophy of science. To the latter, he introduced the concepts of ''epistemological obstacle'' and '' e ...
and
Maurice Merleau-Ponty Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty. (; 14 March 1908 – 3 May 1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interest an ...
. In 1943, during the
Vichy regime Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its te ...
, Laplanche joined the
French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the Nazi occupation of France and the collaborationist Vichy régime during the Second World War. Resistance cells were small groups of armed men ...
, and was active in Paris and Bourgogne. In 1946–47, he visited
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
for a year. Instead of joining that university's philosophy department, he instead studied at the Department of Social Relations, and became interested in psychoanalytic theory. After returning to France, Laplanche began attending lectures and undergoing psychoanalytic treatment under
Jacques Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and pu ...
. Laplanche, advised by Lacan, began studying medicine, and eventually earned his doctorate and became an analyst himself, joining the
International Psychoanalytical Association The International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) is an association including 12,000 psychoanalysts as members and works with 70 constituent organizations. It was founded in 1910 by Sigmund Freud, from an idea proposed by Sándor Ferenczi. Hi ...
, of which he remained a member until his death. Laplanche continued his political activity. In 1948, Laplanche was one of the founding members of the organization ''
Socialisme ou Barbarie Socialisme ou Barbarie () was a French-based radical libertarian socialist group of the post-World War II period whose name comes from a phrase which was misattributed to Friedrich Engels by Rosa Luxemburg in the '' Junius Pamphlet'', but which pr ...
'' (''Socialism or Barbarism'') after breaking with
Trotskyism Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a r ...
, but notes that the group's "atmosphere soon became impossible", due to the influence of
Cornelius Castoriadis Cornelius Castoriadis ( el, Κορνήλιος Καστοριάδης; 11 March 1922 – 26 December 1997) was a Greek-FrenchMemos 2014, p. 18: "he was ... granted full French citizenship in 1970." philosopher, social critic, economist, p ...
, who "exerted hegemony over the journal." Nevertheless, Laplanche remained "in favour of the thesis of ''Socialisme ou Barbarie''" until 1968.


Later


Winemaking in Pommard

Laplanche for many years ran ''Chateau de Pommard'', a French vineyard, together with his wife Nadine. ''Chateau de Pommard'' is a winery in Burgundy, and has the longest continuous vineyard in the
Côte-d'Or Côte-d'Or (; literally, "Golden Slope") is a département in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of Northeastern France. In 2019, it had a population of 534,124."Burgundy's Château de Pommard to Be Sold to Couple" Their wine has been advertised as "the only wine in the world grown and bottled by an old disciple of Lacan's.""Saturday 29 September 2001" Laplanche and his wife were interviewed, about both wine and psychoanalysis, in
Agnès Varda Agnès Varda (; born Arlette Varda; 30 May 1928 – 29 March 2019) was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter, photographer, and artist. Her pioneering work was central to the development of the widely influential French New Wave film ...
's documentary '' The Gleaners and I''. Nadine Laplanche died in spring 2010. Jean Laplanche seemed to live exclusively in Pommard until his death two years later.


The psychoanalyst, the scientific man and the academic

Jean Laplanche was one of the founders of the '' Association Psychanalytique de France'' (1964) and served also as its president in 1969–1971. He was later an honorary member of this Association with
Jean-Bertrand Pontalis Jean-Bertrand Pontalis ibé(15 January 1924 – 15 January 2013) was a French philosopher, writer, editor and psychoanalyst. Career A student of Jean-Paul Sartre, Pontalis became a professor of philosophy in the forties, before undergoing an an ...
and Guy Rosolato. Laplanche was granted honorary doctorates from the
University of Lausanne The University of Lausanne (UNIL; french: links=no, Université de Lausanne) in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second oldest in Switz ...
(1986), the
University of Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires ( es, Universidad de Buenos Aires, UBA) is a public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Established in 1821, it is the premier institution of higher learning in the country and one of the most prestigi ...
, and the
University of Athens The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA; el, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών, ''Ethnikó ke Kapodistriakó Panepistímio Athinón''), usually referred to simply as the Univers ...
. He was the winner of the Mary S. Sigourney Award (1995). Laplanche was also made a Knight of Arts and Letters in 1990. Jean Laplanche was an Emeritus Professor of the University of Paris, where he taught from 1970 until 1993: he introduced the teaching of psychoanalysis in the "U.F.R. des Sciences Humaines Cliniques" in Paris VII and brought it to the level of research. He supervised theses of students, who are now teaching "psychoanalysis in the university" (title of the research-review founded by Jean Laplanche: 1975–1994) in France and elsewhere in the world (especially in Latin America).


Work

Laplanche published his first book in 1961. The following year, he was invited to a position at the Sorbonne by Daniel Lagache. Since then, Laplanche maintained a regular publication schedule. Together with colleague
Jean-Bertrand Pontalis Jean-Bertrand Pontalis ibé(15 January 1924 – 15 January 2013) was a French philosopher, writer, editor and psychoanalyst. Career A student of Jean-Paul Sartre, Pontalis became a professor of philosophy in the forties, before undergoing an an ...
, Laplanche in 1967 published ''The Language of Psycho-Analysis'', which has become a standard encyclopedic reference on psychoanalysis. It was translated into English in 1973, and its thirteenth French edition was published in 1997. Laplanche was president of the ''Association Psychoanalytique de France'' from 1969 to 1971, being succeeded by Pontalis. His seminars have been published in the seven volume ''Problématiques'' series while many of his most important essays are found in ''La révolution copernicienne inachevée'' (1992).


Seduction theory

One of his major contributions to psychoanalysis consists of the théorie de la séduction généralisée (''theory of the general seduction'', 1987). Of his work on Freud's seduction theory, he said,
job has been to show why Freud missed some very important points in this theory. But before saying that we must revise the theory, we must know it. And I think that ignorance concerning the seduction theory causes people to go back to something pre-analytic. By discussing the seduction theory we are doing justice to Freud, perhaps doing Freud better justice than he did himself. He forgot the importance of his theory, and its very meaning, which was not just the importance of external events."An Interview with Jean Laplanche"
Laplanche proposed 'a reformulation of Freud's seduction theory as a truly ''general'' theory of the origins of the repressed unconscious, rather than a mere etiological hypothesis about neurotic symptoms'. The goal of the theory was to account 'for the "normal" development of the unconscious in human beings, while ... it carries in its wake a theory of transference and of the psychoanalytic process in general'. Laplanche highlights '"enigmatic signifiers" ... transmitted via parental messages to the other' as a key element in the creation of the unconscious: in Laplanche's words, 'The ''enigma is'' in itself a ''seduction'' and its mechanisms are unconscious'. Thus 'Laplanche makes the link in Freud between the intrusive impact of the adult Other on the one hand, and the traumatic registration, representation or inscription of the Other's presence' on the other.


The Unfinished Copernican Revolution

Following the introduction of the theory of generalized seduction, Laplanche published a collection of essays under the title "The Unfinished Copernican Revolution" which referred specifically to the "object" of psychoanalysis, the unconscious — the generalised seduction theory emphasising that such a revolution is "incomplete." Freud, who repeatedly compared the psychoanalytic discovery to a Copernican revolution, was for Laplanche both "his own Copernicus but also his own Ptolemy." On the Copernican side, there is the conjoint discovery of the unconscious and the seduction theory, which maintains the sense of "otherness"; on the Ptolemaic side, there is (to Laplanche) the misdirection of the Freudian "return to a theory of self-centering". Thus 'what Laplanche calls Freud's "going astray", a disastrous shift from a Copernican to a Ptolemaic conception of the psyche ... occurred when Freud replaced his early seduction theory ... of sexuality as an "alien-ness" decentring the psyche' with one centred upon the individual — 'the illusion of a universe that Laplanche would characterize as Ptolemaic, where the ego feels it occupies the central position'.


Gender

The category of gender, says Jean Laplanche, is often "absent or unnoticed" in Freud. It is the child in the presence of adults, which raises the question of this difference which exists in adults. Gender assignment "''is a complex process of acts which extends into the language and behavior of the child's significant others, its entourage". The child is "bombarded" by "prescriptive" messages which it has to translate and make sense of — 'messages of gender assignment, all those provided by the adults close to the child: parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters. Their fantasies, their unconscious or preconscious expectations'''. Thus for Jean Laplanche "''Yes, gender precedes sex. But instead of organizing it, it is organized by the latter.''" It is primarily the "sexual" element in the parents which "creates a fuss in gender-assignation," because the infantile sexuality of the adults is reactivated in the presence of the child.


Drive or object?

One key distinction between Laplanche's approach to psychoanalysis and most of those in the English-speaking world —
Object relations theory Object relations theory is a school of thought in psychoanalytic theory centered around theories of stages of ego development. Its concerns include the relation of the psyche to others in childhood and the exploration of relationships between ...
, Ego psychology and Kleinian thought—is Laplanche's insistence on a distinction between ''drive'' (Trieb) and ''instinct'' (Instinkt). In contrast to the English-speaking schools, Laplanche—in some ways following Lacan—removes a biologically reductive basis from human sexuality.


Bibliography


Jean Laplanche's works

*'' Hölderlin et la question du père'', Paris, PUF, 1961.; ''Hölderlin and the question of the father'', Victoria, ELS Editions n° 97, 2007, *''Vocabulaire de la psychanalyse'' (''The Language of Psycho-Analysis''), with
Jean-Bertrand Pontalis Jean-Bertrand Pontalis ibé(15 January 1924 – 15 January 2013) was a French philosopher, writer, editor and psychoanalyst. Career A student of Jean-Paul Sartre, Pontalis became a professor of philosophy in the forties, before undergoing an an ...
, Paris, PUF, 1967. *''Vie et mort en psychanalyse'' (''Life and Death in Psychoanalysis''), Paris, Flammarion, 1970. *''Problématiques I: L'angoisse'', Paris, PUF, 1980. *''Problématiques II: Castration-Symbolisations'', Paris, PUF, 1980. *''Problématiques III: La Sublimation'', Paris, PUF, 1980. *''Problématiques IV: L'inconscient et le ça'', Paris, PUF, 1981. *''Fantasme originaire. fantasmes des origines, origines du fantasme'' (''Fantasy and the Origins of Sexuality''), Paris, Hachette 1985. *''Problématiques V: Le baquet-transcendence du transfert'', Paris, PUF, 1987. *''Nouveaux fondements pour la psychanalyse'' (''New Foundations for Psychoanalysis''), Paris, PUF, 1987. *''Traduire Freud'', Paris, PUF, 1989. *''La révolution copernicienne inachevée (Travaux 1967–1992)'', Paris, Aubier 1992 . Réédition : ''Le Primat de l'autre en psychanalyse'', Paris, Flammarion, 1997, ; rééd. sous le titre ''La Révolution copernicienne inachevée'': PUF / Quadrige, 2008. (''La pulsion pour quoi faire'' (Paris, APF, 1984) and "Le mur et l'arcade" are now in the book: ''La révolution copernicienne inachevée''.) *''Le fourvoiement biologisant de la sexualité chez Freud'', Paris, Les empêcheurs de penser en rond, 1993. *''Entre séduction et inspiration: l'homme'', Paris, PUF, 1999. * "Masochism and Sexuality", An Interview with Jacques André, Journal of European Psychoanalysis, 16, 2003, http://www.psychomedia.it/jep/number16/laplanche.htm *''Problématiques VI: L' après-coup – La " Nachträglichkeit" dans l'après-coup (1990–1991)'', Paris, PUF, 2006. (A better English translation of "Nachträglichkeit" is afterwardsness; the old translation was ''deferred action''). *''Problématiques VII: Le fourvoiement biologisant de la sexualité chez Freud suivi de Biologisme et biologie'', Paris, PUF, 2006. * '' Sexual. La sexualité élargie au sens freudien. 2000–2006'', Paris, PUF, 2007. English Transl.: ''Freud and the Sexual,'' Edited by John Fletcher, Translated by John Fletcher, Jonathan House and Nicholas Ray, New York, The Unconscious in Translation, 2011. Since 2010, the translation in English of Jean Laplanche's complete works has begun.1. Repères biographiques : "Au seuil de l'année 2010, la "Fondation Jean Laplanche – Nouveaux fondements pour la psychanalyse",a entre autres pour but de traduire en anglais les oeuvres de Jean Laplanche. Référence sur le site de l'Institut de France : la "Fondation Jean Laplanche – Nouveaux fondements pour la psychanalyse" a pour but général de contribuer, dans l'esprit qui a inspiré la vie scientifique du Fondateur, au développement de la psychanalyse en France et à l'étranger.
www.institut-de-france.fr/rubrique_-fondation_jean_laplanche.html


On Jean Laplanche's work

* ''International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis'', éd. Alain de Mijolla, 3 vol., Detroit, Thomson/Gale, 2005 (MacMillan Reference Books) ** théorie de la séduction généralisée (Jean Laplanche's article). * Yvon Brès, « Jean Laplanche (21 juin 1924 – 6 mai 2012) », in ''
Revue philosophique de la France et de l'étranger The ''Revue philosophique de la France et de l'étranger'' is an academic journal founded by Théodule-Armand Ribot in 1876. It was continued by Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, Emile Bréhier, Paul Masson-Oursel, and Pierre-Maxime Schuhl. Originally publ ...
'', n° 137, 2012/3, . * Journées internationales Jean Laplanche, ''Travail de rêve, travail du rêve'' (dir. Jean-Louis Brenot),
Institut de France The (; ) is a French learned society, grouping five , including the Académie Française. It was established in 1795 at the direction of the National Convention. Located on the Quai de Conti in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the institut ...
– Fondation Jean Laplanche, 2012. ** Papers of C. Dejours, J C. Calich, J-M Dupeu, M. Rezende Cardoso, J-P Marnier, M T. De Melo Carvalho et P C. De Carvalho Ribeiro, U. Hock, L. Maia, A. Luchetti, H. Arcoverde Melo, F. Andrade et H. Arcoverde, H. Magalhães. * ''La séduction à l'origine. L'œuvre de Jean Laplanche'', Actes Colloque de Cerisy (juillet 2014), ouvrage coordonné par Christophe Dejours et Felipe Votadoro, publié avec le concours de la Fondation Jean Laplanche – Institut de France et de l' Association Psychanalytique de France, Paris, P.U.F. 2016, * ''Laplanche et la traduction: Le mytho-symbolique: aide ou obstacle à la traduction?'' (dir. Christophe Dejours et Hélène Tessier), Actes des Journées internationales Jean Laplanche à
Tutzing Tutzing is a municipality in the district of Starnberg in Bavaria, Germany, on the west bank of the Starnberger See. Just 40 km south-west of Munich and with good views of the Alps, the town was traditionally a favorite vacation spot for th ...
(Germany) juin 2016, publiés avec le concours de la Fondation Jean Laplanche – Institut de France, Paris, P.U.F./Humensis, janvier 2018, ** Papers of M.-T. de Melo Carvalho (Brazil), G. Zárate Guerrero (Mexico), D. Golergant (Peru), F. Bézerra de Andrade, H. Arcoverde de Melo (Brazil), A. Cinello (Spain), I. Gernet (France), F. Martens (Belgium), M. Rezende Cardoso, G. de Araujo Abrantes (Brazil), G. Diebold (France), C. Dejours (France), R. Bonnellier (France). * S. Benvenuto, "The Après-Coup, Après Coup: Concerning Jean Laplanche Problématiques VI. L’Après-Coup”, Language and Psychoanalysis, volume 7, issue 2, 2018, pp. 72–87. ISSN 2049-324X.


See also

* Afterwardsness * Seduction theory


Notes


References

* *Terry Harpold, an assistant professor in the Department of English at the University of Florida, refers to it as the "best reference in English of its kind". * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Laplanche, Jean 1924 births 2012 deaths 20th-century French non-fiction writers 20th-century French philosophers 20th-century French writers 20th-century translators 21st-century French non-fiction writers 21st-century French philosophers 21st-century translators Analysands of Jacques Lacan Continental philosophers Continental philosophy École Normale Supérieure alumni University of Paris faculty French male non-fiction writers French male writers French psychiatrists French psychoanalysts French Trotskyists Freudians French translation scholars Translators of Sigmund Freud Wine merchants Writers from Paris