Mediating Trauma and Anxiety: Letters to Françoise Dolto, 1976-1978

Bates, Richard

Abstract

Françoise Dolto (1908-88) was a prominent French cultural figure thanks to her practice of dispensing psychoanalytically-informed child-rearing advice via the radio. From 1976 to 1978, on her show Lorsque l'enfant paraît, she responded to thousands of letters sent in by listeners requesting help with parenting problems and personal questions of a psychological nature. The article explores Dolto's cultural position as a child psychoanalyst-understood in the 1960s and 1970s as a radical profession-but from a conservative, Catholic background. It then examines a sample of the letters sent in to her show, analysing the demographics of the correspondents and highlighting their most common concerns. Finally the article studies the relationship between psychoanalysis and trauma. It indicates the anxiety that a psychoanalytic understanding can cause, by reinforcing parents' fears that childhood traumas are common, can be created unwittingly by parents, and lead to major psychological consequences in later life. In 1968-9, the French psychoanalyst Françoise Dolto hosted a radio phone-in show on the commercial radio station Europe 1 entitled SOS Psychanalyste! The exclamation mark revealed the ambiguity of the show's intent. Listeners were offered the opportunity to discuss an 'emergency' personal problem with a qualified professional-but the show was also a form of entertainment. Dolto's participation-soon identified despite hiding her identity behind the label 'Docteur X'-attracted criticism from the French psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic community. How could one claim to dispense psychoanalysis, a treatment requiring a long-term commitment to understanding the deepest workings of the unconscious mind, in five minutes to a disembodied stranger? The concept was seen as bringing psychotherapeutic medicine into disrepute; Dolto was threatened with suspension from the Ordre des Médecins (Sauverzac 1995, 365). The show was cancelled after one season.

Citation

Bates, R. (2021). Mediating Trauma and Anxiety: Letters to Françoise Dolto, 1976-1978. Journal of Medical Humanities, 42(2), 269-276. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-020-09625-7

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 15, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Apr 16, 2020
• Publication Date: 2021-06
• Deposit Date: Mar 27, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 21, 2020
• Journal: Journal of Medical Humanities
• Print ISSN: 1041-3545
• Electronic ISSN: 1573-3645
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 42
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 269-276
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-020-09625-7
• Keywords: Radio; psychoanalysis; letters; France; children; correspondence; trauma; child-rearing; parenting; psychotherapy
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4210936
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10912-020-09625-7