Access the republication via Divided Press
Discussants: Michael Ryzner-Basiewicz, Michael Ferrara, Patricia Gherovici, Loryn Hatch, Matt Johnson, Gabrielle Jensen, and Jamieson Webster
While the child psychoanalyst Françoise Dolto stands alongside Jacques Lacan as a leading light of the Other French School, she has been little translated and remains curiously unknown in the English-speaking world. First published in 1971, Dominique: The Case of an Adolescent is frank and close to the clinical experience, rivaling Freud’s own case studies in terms of specificity, universality, and quality of writing. A masterpiece of the genre, it is at once a granular psychological portrait of a troubled adolescent and his familial inheritance, and a historical case study of French society in the 1960s. Through her writing, Dolto shows us the possibility for psychoanalytic care and the clarity that can be reached with a child who, at first, appears to make very little sense to everyone around him.
To celebrate and contextualize the republication of Dominique, Michael Ryzner-Basiewicz, Michael Ferrara, Patricia Gherovici, Loryn Hatch, Matt Johnson, Gabrielle Jensen, and Jamieson Webster will introduce the text and lead attendees in a reading of the case. The discussion will emphasize the ongoing clinical relevance of Dolto’s work, while also paying close attention to questions of sexuality and psychosis in childhood and adolescence.
Co-sponsored by The Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis, Pulsion: The International Institute of Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychosomatics and Divided Publishing.