In 1909, when Sigmund Freud traveled to the United States to participate in a series of conferences, he is said to have murmured to one of the colleagues accompanying him: “They [the Americans] don’t know that we are bringing them the plague.” This legend is treated as fact in France and underscores the French view that psychoanalysis contains a subversive dimension. Freud believed that the study of the unconscious risked disturbing what he perceived, in perfect European fashion, were naive certainties of American society.

A century later, most European psychoanalysts admit that, in fact, the reverse occurred: the majority of American psychoanalysts managed to rid the Freudian doctrine of its subversiveness. As a result, the word “psychoanalysis” has now a different meaning on each side of the Atlantic.

The very use of the word “shrink” in America illustrates the split. In the United States, by the 1950’s, the expression "head shrinker," a reference to the Jivaros who decapitated their victims and shrunk their heads to prevent the revenge of their souls, came to describe the psychoanalyst. In the early 1960’s, it was shortened to "shrinker." Today, "shrink" has stuck and is even in the dictionary.

French people, on the other hand, see their “psy” (pronounced puh-see). They don’t expect their psy to shrink them, but on the contrary, to expand them. According to this logic, “shrinks” should instead be called “expanders.”

The divide is obviously accentuated by intrinsic cultural differences: pragmatism and the worship of efficiency on one side, love of the abstract and theoretical on the other. (Guess which is which.)

Freud thought, on the contrary, that psychoanalysis should be freed from medical bondage.

Historically in the United States, the powerful medical establishment monopolized psychoanalysis by closing the doors of psychoanalytical societies to those who were not doctors. In 1926 for example, the State of New York even declared the practice of analysis by non-doctors illegal. Until about 20 years ago, these societies vigorously prohibited the practice of what was called lay-analysis.

Freud thought, on the contrary, that psychoanalysis should be freed from medical bondage. Thus in France, anybody who graduated from high school, from philosophers to writers, astronauts or psychologists, can become a psychoanalyst. To practice, French psychoanalysts “simply” need to undergo a long personal analysis, followed by a lengthy training at a society of psychoanalysis, and finally be declared competent by this society.

Freed, in theory, from medical ideology, French psychoanalysts have always accepted the idea that the ultimate goal of the analysis is not to cure, to eradicate the symptoms. Rather, the patient explores and transforms his relationship to himself and others, and if he is “cured” along the way, it is simply one consequence among others of his psychoanalytic work. In the United States, on the the other hand, psychoanalysis has increasingly been used as an instrument to help individuals adapt to society with the promise of happiness as a result.

French psychoanalysts have always accepted the idea that the ultimate goal of analysis is not to cure.

According to Freud however, the psychoanalytical process can simply not function satisfactorily within a goal-oriented framework which hinders the depth of interpretation. Psychoanalysts not only can’t guarantee a “cure,” but by doing so, they deprive the process itself of the means of obtaining one as a by-product of open-minded exploration. As early as 1938, Freud declared that, by pursuing a goal, the Americans had “an obvious tendency to transform psychoanalysis into the handmaiden of psychiatry [which treats mental illness mainly with medicine].”

Soon after Freud’s death in 1939, the conflicting theories of Melanie Klein, a famous Austrian child psychoanalyst, and those of Anna Freud, Freud’s daughter and a psychoanalyst as well, sparked a series of violent intellectual controversies in England, where both were living. The British turmoil ricocheted in the United States and divided American psychoanalysis into various schools that diverged from original Freudian theory.

France was barely affected by the debate and remained more or less faithful to Freudian doctrine. Moreover, a new generation of Parisian psychoanalysts, led by Jacques Lacan, felt the need to return to the source. Lacan, in particular, recommended the meticulous study of Freud’s original writings which were fully translated in France long after they were in England.

Lacan did not stop there. From the 1950’s on, he developed his own theories, building upon Freud’s and changing certain rules of analytical practice, such as shortening the length of sessions. His impact on French psychoanalysis has been considerable. His innovations triggered a series of crises that are not yet fully resolved. As a result, the French psychoanalytic movement branched into three main schools that, over the past 50 years, have flourished, thanks to the controversy (see sidebar). Lacan’s partisans and foes alike admit that at least they were forced to embark on a thorough study of Freud to clarify his concepts, to explore unresolved ideas and to better define the various techniques.

According to this logic, “shrinks” should instead be called “expanders.”

In the United States, psychoanalysis has generally remained tethered to the curative model or morphed into various dissident methods organized around charismatic masters who developed their own theories. According to Elisabeth Roudinesco, a French philosopher, Lacanian psychoanalyst, and historian of psychoanalysis, “The Americans killed a certain idea of psychoanalysis in which practice and theory were intertwined. Currently, you have on one side the practitioners who read little and are not into theory and on the other the academics who study psychoanalytic theory without practicing it and sometimes without having themselves undertaken analysis.”

From an American point of view, French psychoanalysis, with its strong reference to Freud, seems antiquated, too philosophical, and not pragmatic enough. “Today, the practice of psychoanalysis is still extremely alive in the United States, but primarily in the form of psychotherapies [face to face encounter],” says Professor Daniel Widlöcher, member of the Psychoanalytical Association of France (APF) and former President of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). “The traditional analysis on the couch several days a week, [still practiced in France] has become very rare.”

In France, the basic reference for those who are interested in Freudian concepts is
Le Vocabulaire de la psychanalyse (PUF,1967), by J. Laplanche and J.-B. Pontalis, published in London (The Language of Psycho-Analysis) by Hogarth (1973) and in New York by W. W. Norton and Company (1974).

© Andi Ipaktchi

Those tempted by the adventure of psychoanalysis French style can find English-speaking analysts in most of the major French psychoanalytical institutions, among which are:

-Société Psychanalytique de Paris (SPP), founded in 1926. 01 43 29 66 70. www.spp.asso.fr

-Association Psychanalytique de France (APF), founded in 1953/1964. 01 43 29 85 11. www.associationpsychanalytiquedefrance.org

-Association de la Cause Freudienne (ACF), founded in 1964/1981. 01 45 49 02 68. www.causefreudienne.org