Daniel Widlöcher

Daniel Widlöcher (8 June 1929 – 14 December 2021) was a French psychiatrist and academic.^[1] He served as president of the International Psychoanalytical Association in 2001.

Daniel Widlöcher
Born	(1929-06-08)8 June 1929 Paris, France
Died	14 December 2021(2021-12-14) (aged 92) Paris, France
Nationality	French
Occupation(s)	Psychiatrist Professor

Biography

Widlöcher was born into an Alsatian family in Paris.^[2] He started his career as a childhood psychiatrist at the Hôpital Ambroise Paré, directed by Jenny Aubry.^[3] He spent his military service in Algeria, serving an adult military hospital.^[2] Upon his return to Metropolitan France, he worked in neurology and psychiatry at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. He then earned his medical license and a doctorate in psychology.^[2]

He became an assistant professor at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. He served as consulting assistant from 1959 to 1980 and was subsequently a clinical professor from 1980 to 1996.^[2] He was director of the psychopathology and pharmacology department at Inserm. He also held various positions at the French National Centre for Scientific Research.^[2] He worked in the Ministry of Health from 1983 to 1984.^[2]

Widlöcher became a psychoanalyst focused on childhood development.^[4] He carried out analyses alongside Jacques Lacan from 1953 to 1960.^[2] However, he later spoke out against Lacan's ideals, alleging that Lacan sought to be "the new Freud".^[5] Alongside Donald Winicott and Wladimir Granoff [fr], he assisted in the foundation of the Association psychanalytique de France [fr].^[6] He presided over the Association from 2001 to 2005. He was also President of the Association française de thérapie comportementale et cognitive from 1979 to 1980.^[7] He then chaired the teaching committee of the Association psychanalyse et psychothérapies. He received a Sigourney Award in 1998.^[8]

He died in Paris on 14 December 2021, at the age of 92.^[9]

Publications

• L'interprétation des dessins d'enfants (1965)
• Freud et le problème du changement (1970)
• Les logiques de la dépression (1983)
• Métapsychologie du sens (1986)
• Les psychotropes,une manière de penser le psychisme? (1990)
• Traité de psychopathologie (1994)
• Les nouvelles cartes de la psychanalyse (1996)
• Sexualité infantile et attachement (2001)
• Le psychodrame chez l'enfant (2003)
• Psychanalyse et psychothérapie (2008)
• Comment on devient psychanalyste … et comment on le reste (2010)
• La dépression (1989)
• Actualité des modèles freudiens : langage, image, pensée (1995)
• La Psychanalyse en dialogue (2003)
• Les psychanalystes savent-ils débattre ? (2008)
• Conversations psychanalytiques (2017)