Françoise Dolto (; November 6, 1908 – August 25, 1988) was a
French pediatrician
Pediatrics (American English) also spelled paediatrics (British English), is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, pediatrics covers many of their youth ...
and
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 ...
.
Biography
Françoise Dolto was born as Françoise Marette, into an affluent, devoutly
Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
,
royalist
A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of gove ...
and
Maurrassian family in Paris. Her Alsatian mother, Suzanne Demmler, was the daughter of an engineer, and Henri Marette, her father, was also a ''
polytechnicien'' engineer who became an industrialist. She was the fourth child of a family of seven. Her brother Jacques Marette (1922–1984), was French Postmaster (minister of Posts and Telecommunications) from 1962 to 1967.
An Irish nurse frequently took care of her when she was a baby and developed a close bond with her, to the point that her parents then had to learn to speak
English to get her to smile. Her parents fired the nurse when she was 8 months old, for a grave mistake: in order to finance her addiction to
opium
Opium (also known as poppy tears, or Lachryma papaveris) is the dried latex obtained from the seed Capsule (fruit), capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid mor ...
, which was popular in ''
Belle époque'' Paris, she would
prostitute
Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-pe ...
herself at an establishment where she would leave baby Françoise's pram unattended at the door.
Her personal tutor was trained in the methods of
Friedrich Fröbel
Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel or Froebel (; 21 April 1782 – 21 June 1852) was a German pedagogue, a student of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, who laid the foundation for modern education based on the recognition that children have unique nee ...
. When she was eight her uncle and godfather Pierre Demmler died in World War I. When she was twelve, she was very affected by the death of her older sister Jacqueline, her mother's favorite child. Her mother sank into a depression and accused her of not praying hard enough for her sister's life. Dolto's mother felt that a girl had no other prospects than marriage and therefore forbade her to pursue her studies. At sixteen she had to confront her mother, who did not want her to pass her baccalaureate because she would then not be able to get married. Nevertheless, Dolto attended the Lycée Molière in Paris where she graduated in philosophy in 1924–1925. In 1930 she obtained a nursing degree. A year later, she began her medical studies with her brother Philip, "paying for her studies with the money she earns".
Dolto was named by
Michel Foucault
Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...
as one of the prominent signatories of the 1977
French petition against age of consent laws
In 1977 and 1979, several petitions were signed by a number of prominent French intellectuals, doctors, and psychologists calling for reforms to or the abolition of the French Age of consent, age-of-consent law. A January 1977 petition published i ...
.
[''Sexual Morality and the Law'', Chapter 16 of ''Politics, Philosophy, Culture –Interviews and Other Writings 1977-1984''. Edited by Lawrence D. Krizman. New York/London: 1990, Routledge, , p.275]
Françoise Dolto was the mother of
Carlos (1943–2008), a singer, Grégoire (born 1944), an engineer, and Catherine (born 1946).
Psychoanalysis
In 1932, introduced Dolto to psychoanalyst
René Laforgue, who had already begun to treat her brother Philip a year earlier. She participated thereby in the beginnings of French Freudianism. At the end of February 1934, she began a three-year analysis with Laforgue, which had a major impact on her life, helping to free her of her neurosis – of her education, her origin, and her depressive mother. Laforgue found that Dolto had an aptitude for analysis, and advised her to become a psychoanalyst, something which she at first rejected in favor of devoting herself to medicine.
During her medical training, working under Dr.
Georges Heuyer, she met
Sophie Morgenstern, who was the first to practice psychoanalysis with children in France, and who would subsequently be a mentor for her. She listened to the sick children who came to her for treatment, Dolto began (with the encouragement of
Edouard Pichon) to specialise in child psychology, as a psychoanalytic pediatrician. Her patients were mostly children with psychoses, with whom she began to develop her own idiosyncratic kind of treatment.
Her speciality was learning about the early mental stages of babies and children, notably their first experiences and methods of communication through their body. She emphasized the physical aspects of the mother-baby
dyad, and stressed the importance of observation and understanding of the means of communication used by children with psychological problems, or learning and social disabilities. Her work on the unconscious
body image
Body image is a person's thoughts, feelings and perception of the aesthetics or sexual attractiveness of their own body. The concept of body image is used in several disciplines, including neuroscience, psychology, medicine, psychiatry, psycho ...
– on the way children have a body-language before actual language – has been especially influential, being developed by, among others,
Maud Mannoni. In 2013 her work was translated into English by
Francoise Hivernel.
Dolto was a close friend and ally of
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 Sigmund Freud, Freud", Lacan gave The Seminars of Jacques Lacan, year ...
, who she accompanied into the "
École Freudienne de Paris". She considered that "it was among those analysed by Lacan that I found those best able to understand children and...ready to understand the needs of a child, even a very young one, as a subject with a desire to express".
Death
Dolto contracted
pulmonary fibrosis
Pulmonary fibrosis is a condition in which the lungs become scarred over time. Symptoms include shortness of breath, a dry cough, feeling tired, weight loss, and nail clubbing. Complications may include pulmonary hypertension, respiratory ...
in 1984. She died on 25 August 1988 and was buried in the cemetery at
Bourg-la-Reine
Bourg-la-Reine () is a Communes of France, commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the Kilometre Zero, center of Paris.
History
In 1792, during the French Revolution, Bourg-la-Reine (meaning "Town of the Queen") w ...
alongside her husband
Boris Dolto. This is also the burial place of their son, the singer
Carlos, who died in 2008. On her tomb stone is inscribed: "Have no fear! I am the Path, the Truth and the Life"
Bibliography
* ''Psychanalyse et pédiatrie'', medical thesis, 1971
* ''Le Cas Dominique'',
Éditions du Seuil
Éditions du Seuil (), also known as Le Seuil, is a French publishing house established in 1935 by Catholic intellectual Jean Plaquevent (1901–1965), and currently owned by La Martinière Groupe. It owes its name to this goal "The ''seuil'' (th ...
(éd. du Seuil), Paris, 1971; engl. ''Dominique: Analysis of an Adolescent'',
Souvenir Press
Ernest Hecht (21 September 1929 – 13 February 2018)Katherine Cowdrey"'Wise and witty' Ernest Hecht dies, aged 88" ''The Bookseller'', 13 February 2018. was a British publisher, producer, and philanthropist. In 1951, he founded Souvenir Press L ...
, 1974
* ''L'Évangile au risque de la psychanalyse'' (interviewed by Gérard Sévérin, philosopher, theologian, psychoanalyst), éd. , 1977
* ''Au jeu du désir'', éd. du Seuil, Paris, 1981
* ''Séminaire de psychanalyse d'enfants'' (coop. Louis Caldaguès), éd. du Seuil, Paris, 1982,
* ''Sexualité féminine'', éd. Scarabée/A. M. Métailié, 1982
* ''L'image inconsciente du corps'', éd. du Seuil, Paris, 1984.
* ''Séminaire de psychanalyse d'enfants'' (coop. Jean-François de Sauverzac), éd. du Seuil, Paris, 1985,
* ''Solitude'', éd. Vertiges, Paris, 1985,
* ''La Cause des enfants'', éd. Robert Laffont, Paris, 1985,
* ''Enfances'', Paris, 1986
* ''Libido féminine'', éd. Carrère, Paris, 1987
* ''L'Enfant du miroir'' (with Juan David Nasio), éd. Rivages, Paris, 1987,
* ''La Cause des adolescents'', éd. Robert Laffont, Paris, 1988
* ''Quand les parents se séparent'' (coop. Inès de Angelino), éd. du Seuil, Paris, 1988, ; engl. ''When Parents Separate'', David R Godine Pub, 1997
* ''L'Échec scolaire'', éd. Vertiges du Nord, 1989
* ''Autoportrait d'une psychanalyste'', éd. du Seuil, Paris, 1989
* ''Paroles pour adolescents ou le complexe du homard'', éd. Hattier, 1989
* ''Lorsque l'enfant paraît'', éd. du Seuil, Paris, 1990
* ''Les Étapes majeures de l'enfance'', éd. Gallimard, Paris, 1994
* ''Les Chemins de l'éducation'', éd. Gallimard, Paris, 1994
* ''La Difficulté de vivre'', éd. Gallimard, Paris, 1995
* ''Tout est langage'', éd. Gallimard, Paris, 1995
* ''Le sentiment de soi : aux sources de l'image et du corps'', éd. Gallimard, Paris, 1997
* ''Le Féminin'', éd. Gallimard, Paris, 1998
* ''La vague et l'océan : séminaire sur les pulsions de mort (1970-1971)'', éd. Gallimard, Paris, 2003
* ''Lettres de jeunesse : correspondance, 1913-1938'', éd. Gallimard, Paris; revized and augmented in 2003,
* ''Une vie de correspondances : 1938-1988'', éd. Gallimard, Paris, 2005,
* ''Une psychanalyste dans la cité. L'aventure de la Maison verte'', éd. Gallimard, Paris, 2009,
See also
*
Juliette Favez-Boutonnier
References
Further reading
Secondary literature
* Jean-François de Sauverzac, ''Françoise Dolto itinéraire d'une psychanalyste'', éd. Aubier, 1993, pocket edition: Flammarion 2008,
* Jean-Claude Liaudet, ''Dolto expliquée aux parents'', éd. L'Archipel, Paris, 1998. Traductions : ''A criança explicada aos pais
egundo Dolto', éd. Pergaminho, Cascais (Portugal), 2000; ''Dolto para padres'', Plaza & Janès editores, Barcelona (Espagne), 2000
* Bernard Martino, ''Le bébé est une personne'', éd. Balland, Paris, 1985
* ''Françoise Dolto, aujourd'hui présente'', in ''Actes du colloque de l'Unesco'', pp. 14–17 janvier 1999, éd. Gallimard, Paris, 2000
*
Catherine Dolto, ''Il y a 10 ans la psychanalyste des enfants disparaissait Catherine Dolto-Tolitch parle de l'après Dolto'', Ed. Lien social, Numéro 467, 17 décembre 1998.
* '' Theory and Practise in Child Psychoanalysis: An Introduction to Francoise Dolto's Work'', ed. by Guy Hall,
Francoise Hivernel, Sian Morgan, Karnac Books, 2009,
* René-Jean Bouyer: ''Les Mémoires d'un bébé : Un siècle d'éducation de l'enfant de Pasteur à Dolto'', Jean-Claude Gawsewitch, 2010,
Critical literature
*Guy Baret, ''Comment rater l'éducation de son enfant avec Françoise Dolto.'' Éd. Ramsay, 2003
*''Le livre noir de la psychanalyse. Vivre, penser et aller mieux sans Freud.'' direction by Catherine Meyer, édition Les Arènes, Paris, 2005
*
Daniela Lumbroso, ''Françoise Dolto, la vie d'une femme libre'', édition Plon, Paris, 2007
*Didier Pleux :
**''Génération Dolto'', éditions Odile Jacob, Paris, 2008
**''Françoise Dolto, la déraison pure.'', Preface by
Michel Onfray. Éditions Autrement, Collection « Universités populaires et Cie », 2013
**''La Révolution du divan: Pour une psychologie existentielle.'' Éditions Odile Jacob, 2015
*Sabine Gritt ''Un foetus mal léché. Trois ans avec Dolto.'', éditions sciences humaines, 2015
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dolto, Francoise
1908 births
1988 deaths
French psychoanalysts
French medical writers
Writers from Paris
Analysands of René Laforgue
Women medical writers
French pediatricians
Women pediatricians
20th-century French physicians
20th-century French non-fiction writers
20th-century French women writers
20th-century French women physicians
20th-century French psychologists