Жан Лапланш: Француз психоанализі, жазушы және шарапшы

French psychoanalyst, author & editor

Jean Laplanche (laplɑ̃ʃ; 21 June 1924 – 6 May 2012) was a French author, psychoanalyst and winemaker. Laplanche is best known for his work on psychosexual development and Sigmund Freud's seduction theory, and wrote more than a dozen books on psychoanalytic theory. The journal Radical Philosophy described him as "the most original and philosophically informed psychoanalytic theorist of his day." From 1988 to his death, Laplanche was the scientific director of the German to French translation of Freud's complete works (Oeuvres Complètes de Freud / Psychanalyse – OCF. P) in the Presses Universitaires de France, in association with André Bourguignon, Pierre Cotet and François Robert.

Laplanche grew up in the Côte d'Or region of France. In his adolescence he was active in Catholic Action, a left wing social justice organization. Laplanche attended the École Normale Supérieure in the 1940s, studying philosophy. He was a student of Jean Hyppolite, Gaston Bachelard and Maurice Merleau Ponty. In 1943, during the Vichy regime, Laplanche joined the French Resistance, and was active in Paris and Bourgogne. In 1946–47, he visited Harvard University for a year. Instead of joining that university's philosophy department, he instead studied at the Department of Social Relations, and became interested in psychoanalytic theory. After returning to France, Laplanche began attending lectures and undergoing psychoanalytic treatment under Jacques Lacan. Laplanche, advised by Lacan, began studying medicine, and eventually earned his doctorate and became an analyst himself, joining the International Psychoanalytical Association, of which he remained a member until his death. Laplanche continued his political activity. In 1948, Laplanche was one of the founding members of the organization Socialisme ou Barbarie (Socialism or Barbarism) after breaking with Trotskyism, but notes that the group's "atmosphere soon became impossible", due to the influence of Cornelius Castoriadis, who "exerted hegemony over the journal." Nevertheless, Laplanche remained "in favour of the thesis of Socialisme ou Barbarie" until 1968. Their wine has been advertised as "the only wine in the world grown and bottled by an old disciple of Lacan's." Laplanche and his wife were interviewed, about both wine and psychoanalysis, in Agnès Varda's documentary The Gleaners and I.

Nadine Laplanche died in spring 2010. Jean Laplanche seemed to live exclusively in Pommard until his death two years later.

Jean Laplanche was one of the founders of the Association Psychanalytique de France (1964) and served also as its president in 1969–1971. He was later an honorary member of this Association with Jean Bertrand Pontalis and Guy Rosolato. Laplanche was granted honorary doctorates from the University of Lausanne (1986), the University of Buenos Aires, and the University of Athens. He was the winner of the Mary S. Sigourney Award (1995). Laplanche was also made a Knight of Arts and Letters in 1990.</blockquote>

Laplanche proposed 'a reformulation of Freud's seduction theory as a truly general theory of the origins of the repressed unconscious, rather than a mere etiological hypothesis about neurotic symptoms'. The goal of the theory was to account 'for the "normal" development of the unconscious in human beings, while  it carries in its wake a theory of transference and of the psychoanalytic process in general'. Laplanche highlights '"enigmatic signifiers"  transmitted via parental messages to the other' as a key element in the creation of the unconscious: in Laplanche's words, 'The enigma is in itself a seduction and its mechanisms are unconscious'. Thus 'Laplanche makes the link in Freud between the intrusive impact of the adult Other on the one hand, and the traumatic registration, representation or inscription of the Other's presence' on the other.

Following the introduction of the theory of generalized seduction, Laplanche published a collection of essays under the title "The Unfinished Copernican Revolution" which referred specifically to the "object" of psychoanalysis, the unconscious — the generalised seduction theory emphasising that such a revolution is "incomplete." Freud, who repeatedly compared the psychoanalytic discovery to a Copernican revolution, was for Laplanche both "his own Copernicus but also his own Ptolemy." On the Copernican side, there is the conjoint discovery of the unconscious and the seduction theory, which maintains the sense of "otherness"; on the Ptolemaic side, there is (to Laplanche) the misdirection of the Freudian "return to a theory of self centering". Thus 'what Laplanche calls Freud's "going astray", a disastrous shift from a Copernican to a Ptolemaic conception of the psyche  occurred when Freud replaced his early seduction theory  of sexuality as an "alien ness" decentring the psyche' with one centred upon the individual — 'the illusion of a universe that Laplanche would characterize as Ptolemaic, where the ego feels it occupies the central position'.

The category of gender, says Jean Laplanche, is often "absent or unnoticed" in Freud. It is the child in the presence of adults, which raises the question of this difference which exists in adults. Gender assignment "is a complex process of acts which extends into the language and behavior of the child's significant others, its entourage". The child is "bombarded" by "prescriptive" messages which it has to translate and make sense of — 'messages of gender assignment, all those provided by the adults close to the child: parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters. Their fantasies, their unconscious or preconscious expectations'. Thus for Jean Laplanche "Yes, gender precedes sex. But instead of organizing it, it is organized by the latter." Hölderlin and the question of the father, Victoria, ELS Editions n° 97, 2007,
Vocabulaire de la psychanalyse (The Language of Psycho Analysis), with Jean Bertrand Pontalis, Paris, PUF, 1967. Vie et mort en psychanalyse (Life and Death in Psychoanalysis), Paris, Flammarion, 1970. Problématiques I: L'angoisse, Paris, PUF, 1980. Problématiques II: Castration Symbolisations, Paris, PUF, 1980. Problématiques III: La Sublimation, Paris, PUF, 1980. Problématiques IV: L'inconscient et le ça, Paris, PUF, 1981. Fantasme originaire. fantasmes des origines, origines du fantasme (Fantasy and the Origins of Sexuality), Paris, Hachette 1985. Problématiques V: Le baquet transcendence du transfert, Paris, PUF, 1987. Nouveaux fondements pour la psychanalyse (New Foundations for Psychoanalysis), Paris, PUF, 1987. English Trans : New Foundations for Psychoanalysis, Translated by Jonathan House, New York, The Unconscious in Translation, 2016. Traduire Freud, Paris, PUF, 1989. La révolution copernicienne inachevée (Travaux 1967–1992), Paris, Aubier 1992 Réédition : Le Primat de l'autre en psychanalyse, Paris, Flammarion, 1997, ; rééd. sous le titre La Révolution copernicienne inachevée: PUF / Quadrige, 2008. (La pulsion pour quoi faire (Paris, APF, 1984) and "Le mur et l'arcade" are now in the book: La révolution copernicienne inachevée.) English Trans : The Unfinished Copernican Revolution Selected Works 1967 1992, Translated by Luke Thurston, New York, The Unconscious in Translation, 2020. Le fourvoiement biologisant de la sexualité chez Freud, Paris, Les empêcheurs de penser en rond, 1993. English Trans : The Temptation of Biology Freud's Theories of Sexuality, Translated by Donald Nicholson Smith, New York, The Unconscious in Translation, 2015. Entre séduction et inspiration: l'homme, Paris, PUF, 1999. English Trans : Between Seduction and Inspiration: Man, Edited by Jonathan House and Julie Slotnick, Translated by Jeffrey Mehlman, New York, The Unconscious in Translation, 2015. "Masochism and Sexuality", An Interview with Jacques André, Journal of European Psychoanalysis, 16, 2003, http://www. psychomedia. it/jep/number16/laplanche. htm
Problématiques VI: L'après coup – La "Nachträglichkeit" dans l'après coup (1990–1991), Paris, PUF, 2006. (A better English translation of "Nachträglichkeit" is afterwardsness; the old translation was deferred action). English Trans : Après Coup, Translated by Jonathan House, New York, The Unconscious in Translation, 2016. Problématiques VII: Le fourvoiement biologisant de la sexualité chez Freud suivi de Biologisme et biologie, Paris, PUF, 2006. English Trans : The Temptation of Biology Freud's Theories of Sexuality, Translated by Donald Nicholson Smith, New York, The Unconscious in Translation, 2015. Sexual. La sexualité élargie au sens freudien. 2000–2006, Paris, PUF, 2007. English Transl. : Freud and the Sexual, Edited by John Fletcher, Translated by John Fletcher, Jonathan House and Nicholas Ray, New York, The Unconscious in Translation, 2011. Since 2010, the translation in English of Jean Laplanche's complete works has begun.

International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, éd. Alain de Mijolla, 3 vol., Detroit, Thomson/Gale, 2005 (MacMillan Reference Books)
théorie de la séduction généralisée (Jean Laplanche's article). Yvon Brès, « Jean Laplanche (21 juin 1924 – 6 mai 2012) », in Revue philosophique de la France et de l'étranger, n° 137, 2012/3, Journées internationales Jean Laplanche, Travail de rêve, travail du rêve (dir. Jean Louis Brenot), Institut de France – Fondation Jean Laplanche, 2012. Papers of C. Dejours, J C. Calich, J M Dupeu, M. Rezende Cardoso, J P Marnier, M T. De Melo Carvalho et P C. De Carvalho Ribeiro, U. Hock, L. Maia, A. Luchetti, H. Arcoverde Melo, F. Andrade et H. Arcoverde, H. Magalhães. La séduction à l'origine. L'œuvre de Jean Laplanche, Actes Colloque de Cerisy (juillet 2014), ouvrage coordonné par Christophe Dejours et Felipe Votadoro, publié avec le concours de la Fondation Jean Laplanche – Institut de France et de l'Association Psychanalytique de France, Paris, P. U. F. 2016,
Laplanche et la traduction: Le mytho symbolique: aide ou obstacle à la traduction? (dir. Christophe Dejours et Hélène Tessier), Actes des Journées internationales Jean Laplanche à Tutzing (Germany) juin 2016, publiés avec le concours de la Fondation Jean Laplanche – Institut de France, Paris, P. U. F./Humensis, janvier 2018,
Papers of M. T. de Melo Carvalho (Brazil), G. Zárate Guerrero (Mexico), D. Golergant (Peru), F. Bézerra de Andrade, H. Arcoverde de Melo (Brazil), A. Cinello (Spain), I. Gernet (France), F. Martens (Belgium), M. Rezende Cardoso, G. de Araujo Abrantes (Brazil), G. Diebold (France), C. Dejours (France), R. Bonnellier (France). S. Benvenuto, "The Après Coup, Après Coup: Concerning Jean Laplanche Problématiques VI. L’Après Coup”, Language and Psychoanalysis, volume 7, issue 2, 2018, pp. 72–87. ISSN 2049 324X. Scarfone, Dominique. Laplanche: An introduction. New York, NY: Unconscious in Translation, 2015. ISBN 978 1 942254 03 4
Scarfone, Dominique. The unpast: The actual unconscious. New York, NY: The Unconscious in Translation, 2015. ISBN 978 1 942254 06 5
Scarfone, Dominique, and Avgi Saketopoulou. The reality of the message: Psychoanalysis in the wake of Jean Laplanche. New York, NY: The Unconscious in Translation, 2023. ISBN 978 1 942254 22 5
Saketopoulou, Avgi, and Ann Pellegrini. Gender without identity. New York, NY: The Unconscious in Translation, 2023. ISBN 978 1 942254 19 5. Rooted in the metapsychology of Jean Laplanche and in conversation with bold work in queer and trans studies, Avgi Saketopoulou and Ann Pellegrini jettison “core gender identity” to propose, instead, that gender is something all subjects acquire and that trauma sometimes has a share in that acquisition.