Find a psychoanalyst in Paris 9

Finding a psychoanalyst in the capital or elsewhere can become a real obstacle course, just as it is complicated to find a psychologist in Paris. Once we dig a little deeper, we can see that many psychoanalysts claim to belong to different currents and schools.

This raises number of questions:

Which psychoanalyst should I choose? What approach of psychoanalysis is the most effective? (Freudian, Kleinian, Freudo-Lacanian) How do I find a good psychoanalyst in Paris or in the provinces?

Logically, there should be no debate or confusion about this. Psychoanalysis evolves as a science and is refined as theory and clinic are linked. Once a theoretical notion is no longer relevant in experience, the theory is reworked and rearticulated according to its effects in practice. Like any science, it solidifies through trial and error.

This evolution is quite noticeable in the work of its founder. We can very clearly distinguish, for example, a difference in Freud's theory of 1900 and that of 1920. Once his theorization is no longer adapted to the clinic, it evolves and is refined gradually.

I am always surprised to see people criticise Freud without taking into account that he was the first to lay the groundwork for this new science. Not only was he alone, but like Rome, not all science is done in a day: it sometimes takes several decades, or even several centuries, to be constituted.

What Freud noticed very quickly was that it was impossible for someone who wanted to be a psychoanalyst to do without his own personal psychoanalysis. As a science of exploring the unconscious through the method of free associations, it is structurally impossible for anyone to understand anything about psychoanalysis without experiencing it. By definition, the unconscious is what is not conscious and trying to understand the unconscious through the conscious is a dead end that leads the researcher to go around in circles.

In 1909, Freud advised doctors who wish to practise psychoanalysis to never stop their psychoanalysis. Later, for political questions linked to the psychoanalytic movement of the time, he gave in on this fundamental rule and suggested that psychoanalysts do an initial psychoanalysis and then do a “follow-up” every five years.

Traduit du français par Olajumoke Balogun

In my opinion, it is from this ethical renunciation that most of the dissensions that we observe today in the psychoanalytic world arise.

From wars to technical rigidities, from theoretical stubbornness to idolatry and dogmatism, most of the conflicts which oppose psychoanalysts of yesterday till today are only the result of the expression of their own obsessive neurosis or hysterical which is exacerbated as soon as they leave the couch.

What human being can endure so much transference without it affecting their own psychic structure? To be put from morning to night in the position of the subject supposed to know is no mean feat, and not to be fooled by the position of pretence that the support of transference requires the psychoanalyst to be firmly attached to his own psychoanalysis. Neither every 5 years, nor every 4 mornings, but all the time he supports his position as a psychoanalyst.

It is on this ethical question which could not be more logical that the quality of the psychoanalyst depends, in my opinion, both in the exercise of his clinical function and in the theorization of his practice.

From Freud to Lacan, via Ferenczy, Abraham, Klein or Winicott, psychoanalysis advances step by step and constitutes itself as a science as its errors and clinical validations progress.

But while waiting for all psychoanalysts to treat their own neurosis, to unite in a scientific movement free of the expression of their symptoms, of these internal wars which reflect the conflict of their own obsessions, it is important for future psychoanalysts to find out beforehand about the person to whom they are going to entrust this responsibility of taking them through their psychoanalysis.

Neither Freudian nor Lacanian, a psychoanalyst is not limited to a particular school of thought or to a fascination with a personality, but he rigorously studies all the authors who have advanced psychoanalysis, both through their errors and through their theoretical advances.

Neither Freudian nor Lacanian, we can finally say that psychoanalysis is Freudo-Lacanian: it is not a cult but a science which is demonstrated in particular by neuroscience but above all, by the effect it produces on a day to day basis. on psychoanalysts around the world.

So, to find a psychoanalyst today in Paris and everywhere else, it seems relevant to me to know in which school of psychoanalysis he is training (because training is endless for the psychoanalyst) and above all, if he continues well himself the work that he offers to those who visit him (because the psychoanalyst's psychoanalysis, too, must be endless).

Find a psychoanalyst in Paris 9 Gare du Nord

Traduit du français par Olajumoke Balogun