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André Green (; 12 March 1927 – 22 January 2012) was a French
psychoanalyst PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious processes and their influence on conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on dream interpretation, psychoanalysis is also a talk th ...
.


Life and career

André Green was born in
Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...
,
Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
, to non-observant
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
parents. He studied medicine (specialising in
psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of deleterious mental disorder, mental conditions. These include matters related to cognition, perceptions, Mood (psychology), mood, emotion, and behavior. ...
) at Paris Medical School and worked at several hospitals. In 1965, after having finished his training as a psychoanalyst, he became a member of the Paris Psychoanalytic Society (SPP), of which he was the president from 1986 to 1989. From 1975 to 1977 he was a vice president of the International Psychoanalytical Association and from 1979 to 1980 he was a professor at
University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...
. He died at age 84 in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
. André Green was the author of numerous papers and books on the theory and practice of psychoanalysis, and the psychoanalytic criticism of culture and literature; many of these works have been translated into English.


Intellectual development


Encounter with Lacan

In the early 1960s, Green attended Jacques Lacan's seminars without abandoning his affiliation to the SPP - a bold decision which for some time enabled him to straddle the competing strands of French psychoanalysis from an independent position. As the decade progressed however, he moved further from Lacan, and finally broke with the latter in 1970 by criticising his concept of the signifier for its neglect of affect.R. Horacio Etchegoyen "Preface", Gregorio Kohon, ''The Dead Mother'' (London 1999), p. xii. By doing so, he replaced the SPP's normally defensive approach towards Lacanianism with a direct theoretical confrontation. Green points out that whereas "Lacan is saying that the unconscious is structured like a language ... when you read Freud, it is obvious that this proposition doesn't work for a minute. Freud very clearly opposes the unconscious (which he says is constituted by thing-presentations and nothing else) to the pre-conscious. What is related to language can only belong to the pre-conscious." In his later work Green would become increasingly hostile toward the Lacanian school, disparaging it as being not far from a Stalinist
cult of personality A cult of personality, or a cult of the leader,Cas Mudde, Mudde, Cas and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira (2017) ''Populism: A Very Short Introduction''. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 63. is the result of an effort which is made to create ...
. He also opined that the substance of Lacanian thinking itself was severely limited if one separated it from the "drivel", surrounding it.


The Greenian synthesis

Over the decades since, R. Horacio Etchegoyen concluded that what he called "the complex itinerary of Andre Green's prolific work" has continued to demonstrate the intellectually independent way in which "Green is a Freudian analyst who has managed to integrate in a lucid synthesis the influence of authors as diverse as Lacan, Bion, and, especially, Winnicott". The result was to make André Green the creator of what has been called a Greenian theory of psychoanalysis (Kohon, 1999). Building on Freudian metapsychology, Green elaborated a further theory of the unrepresentable, relating thinking to absence as well as to sexuality. While containing a multiplicity of local contributions - on the central phobic position; subjective disengagement; unconscious recognition; the dead mother; and more - the Greenian psychoanalytic framework has been seen as a totality, producing something greater than the sum of its parts.


Theoretical contributions


On the work of the negative

A significant part of Green's contribution to contemporary psychoanalysis has centred on his exploration of 'the different modalities of the work of the negative'. He has highlighted the way 'accepting the negation of what was there is necessary for relationships to new things to become possible' - the way that 'to accept the reality of lack...opens the door, through a process of working-through, to new experience, new ideals and new object-relationships'.


On the analytic setting

For Green, the analytic setting is in itself a recreation of psychic reality, Michael Parsons proposes, quoting the early Green:
The symbolism of the setting comprises a triangular paradigm, uniting the three polarities of the ''dream'' (
narcissism Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive preoccupation with oneself and one's own needs, often at the expense of others. Narcissism, named after the Greek mythological figure ''Narcissus'', has evolv ...
), of ''maternal caring'' (from the mother, following Winnicott), and of the ''prohibition of incest'' (from the father, following Freud). What the psychoanalytic apparatus gives rise to, then, is ''the symbolisation of the unconscious structure of the
Oedipus Complex In classical psychoanalytic theory, the Oedipus complex is a son's sexual attitude towards his mother and concomitant hostility toward his father, first formed during the phallic stage of psychosexual development. A daughter's attitude of desire ...
''.


On dreams

Mary Jacobus argues that for André Green, dreams are "negative states trying to accede to symbolization." In addition, she invokes Adam Phillips, who writes, "Dreams and affects, and states of emptiness or absence have been the essential perplexities of Green's work because they are the areas of experience...in which the nature of representation itself is put at risk."


Moral narcissism

Green saw moral narcissism as the attempt to elevate oneself above ordinary human needs and attachments - an
ascetic Asceticism is a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from worldly pleasures through self-discipline, self-imposed poverty, and simple living, often for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals. Ascetics may withdraw from the world for their pra ...
attempt at creating an impregnable sense of moral superiority.Salman, Akhtar, ''Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychoanalysis'' (2009) p. 175


Bibliography


Books


In French

* ''Un œil en trop. Le complexe d'Oedipe dans la tragédie'', Les Éditions de Minuit (1969) * ''L'enfant de ça. Pour introduire une psychose blanche'', Les Éditions de Minuit (1973) * ''Le discours vivant: la conception psychoanalytique de l'affect'', PUF, "Quadrilege" (1973) * ''Narcissisme de vie, narcissisme de mort'', Les Éditions de Minuit (1983) * ''Le langage dans la psychanalyse'', 250p, in Langages. Deuxièmes Rencontres psychanalytiques d'Aix-en-Provence, 1983, Les Belles Lettres (1984) * ''La folie privée: psychanalyse de cas-limites'', Gallimard (1990) * ''Le complexe de castration'', PUF, "Que sais-je?" (1990) * ''La déliaison: psychanalyse, anthropologie et littérature'', Les Belles Lettres (1992) * ''Révélations de l'inachèvement. À propos du carton de Londres de Léonard de Vinci'', Flammarion (1992) * ''Le travail du négatif'', Les Éditions de Minuit (1993) * ''Un psychanalyste engagé. Conversations avec Manuel Marcias'', Calman-Lévy (1994) * ''La causalité psychique: entre nature et culture'', Odile Jacob (1995) * ''Propédeutique. La métapsychologie revisitée'', Champ Vallon (1995) * ''Les Chaînes d'Éros: actualité du sexuel'', Odile Jacob (1997) * ''La diachronie en psychanalyse'', Les Éditions de Minuit (2000) * ''Le temps éclaté'', Les Éditions de Minuit (2000) * ''Méconnaissance et reconnaissance de l'inconscient. Idées directrices pour une psychanalyse contemporaine'', PUF (2002) * ''La pensée clinique'', Odile Jacob (2002) * Hamlet ''et hamlet: une interprétation psychanalytique de la représentation'', PUF (2003) * ''La lettre et la mort. Promenade d'un psychanalyste à travers la litterature: Proust, Shakespeare, Conrad, Borges'', Entretiens avec Dominique Eddé'','' Denoel (2004) * ''Jouer avec Winnicott'', PUF, translation by Martine Lussier (2004) * ''Sortilèges de la séduction: lectures critiques du Songe d'une nuit d'été; Antoine et Cléopâtre; La Tempête; Le Phénix et la Colombe de William Shakespeare'', Odile Jacob (2005) * ''Associations (presque) libres d'un psychanalyste'', entretiens avec Maurice Corcos, Albin Michel (2006) * ''Pourquoi les pulsions de destruction ou de mort?'', Éditions du Panama (2007) * ''Joseph Conrad: le premier commandement'', Éditions In Press (2008) * ''L'aventure négative. Lecture psychanalytique d'Henry James,'' Éditions Hermann (2009) * ''Illusions et désillusions du travail psychanalytique'', Odile Jacob (2010) * ''Du signe au discours. Psychanalyse et théories du langage'', Ithaque (2011) * ''La clinique psychanalytique contemporaine'', Ithaque (2012) * ''Penser la psychanalyse avec Bion, Lacan, Winnicott, Laplanche, Aulagnier, Anzieu, Rosolato'', Ithaque (2013) * ''La Clinique du négatif. Narcissisme, destructivité et dépression'', Ithaque (2022)


In English

*''The Work of the Negative'' by Andre Green, Andrew Weller (Translator), Publisher: Free Association Books, 1999, * ''On Private Madness'', Publisher: International Universities Press, 1997, * ''The Chains of Eros'', Publisher: Karnac Books, 2002, * ''Psychoanalysis: A Paradigm For Clinical Thinking'' Publisher: Free Association Books, 2005, * ''Life narcissism, death narcissism'' London: Free Association Books 2001, * ''Key ideas for a contemporary psychoanalysis. Misrecognition and recognition of the unconscious''. London: Routledge, 2005. * 'A Dual Conception of Narcissism: Positive and Negative Organizations', (2002). ''Psychoanalytic Quarterly'', 71:631-649 * ''The Fabric of Affect in the Psychoanalytic Discourse'', The New Library of Psychoanalysis, London and NY, 1999,


Edited volumes

* ''L'avenir d'une désillusion'', PUF, 2000 (with Otto Kernberg) * ''Courants de la psychanalyse contemporaine'', PUF, 2001 * ''Le travail psychanalytique'', PUF, 2003


References


Further reading

* ''The dead mother. The Work of André Green,'' ed. by Gregorio Kohon, London: Routledge 1999. (including an interview with A.G.) * ''Who's Who in France 2005-2006,'' Levallois-Parret: Éditions Jacques Lafitte 2005, p. 976-977.


External links


Andre Green (1927-)

André Green, 'Dead Mother Complex'

Obituary by Rosine Jozef Perelberg
{{DEFAULTSORT:Green, Andre 2012 deaths 1927 births French psychoanalysts Narcissism writers Academics of University College London 20th-century French non-fiction writers 21st-century French non-fiction writers People from Cairo Writers from Paris Scientists from Paris French psychiatrists Egyptian people of Jewish descent French people of Egyptian-Jewish descent Egyptian emigrants to France