Jean Laplanche, 1995 (1924-2012)
/Jean Leplanche is a French author, theorist and psychoanalyst. He is best known for his work on psychosexual development and Sigmund Freud’s seduction theory and has written more than one dozen books on psychoanalytic theory. He has for many years run Chateau de Pommard, a French Vineyard where he lives with his wife Nadine. He was also part of the French resistance during World War II.
Prof. Laplanche is an original psychoanalytic theoretician and author of a fundamental reevaluation of Freud’s work, particularly in his book “Life and Death in Psychoanalysis, New Foundations for Psychoanalysis,” and as the first author on the pathbreaking “The Language of Pyschoanalysis” by Leplanche and Pontalis. He is also the author of five volumes of conferences ranging throughout the entire spectrum of psychoanalytic theory and clinic. He also has made numerous contributions on psychoanalytic metapsychology, particularly the most original critique of Freud’s dual drive theory.
Of his work on Freud’s seduction theory, Leplanche stated in a 2001 interview “my job has been to show why Freud missed some very important points in his 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.”
Prof. Leplanche’s contributions have had a profound impact on the psychoanalytic technique of the French mainstream, and is more recently being absorbed in the English language.
Read the full 2001 interview with Jean Leplanche here.