Lacan's First Disciple Author(s): Paul Roazen Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of Religion and Health, Vol.

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Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 35, No. 4, Winter

1996

Lacan's
PAULROAZEN

First

Disciple

ABSTRACT) A distinguished
analyses of the lives and ideas

historian of ideas long associated with detailed narratives

of the founding figures of psychoanalysis interviews Marc-Fran

and

?ois Lacan, younger brother of Jacques Lacan and a Benedictine monk. Much is revealed in this essay, originally published in French, of the thinking of both men, most startlingly perhaps of the extent to which there are religious elements in the background and even the thought of
Jacques Lacan, that commanding personality in French psychoanalytic circles.

a unique in France has attained status today. It is not just a Psychoanalysis matter of the large number of different French psychoanalytic organizations, or the quantity of practitioners in the profession. But one group alone, out of more than a dozen, does form the largest unit in the International Psycho

analytic Association first set up by Freud in 1910. Although Jacques Lacan was effectively driven out of the IPA in the early 1950s, it is a sign of the special impact he has had that despite all the controversies associated with
Lacan he remains in the history the central figure of French psychoanalysis. The liveliness owes an and vitality in contemporary of psychoanalysis France immense debt to the inspiration that Lacan succeeded in providing. are no bookstores There in the world as filled with fresh texts on psycho as now can be found in Paris. The fact that the long-awaited multi analysis to appear in French, Freud-Ferenczi first started be correspondence fore either German or English, is a sign of the special interest psychoanalysis in France. Nowhere evokes else in the world has psychoanalysis been able to so secure a part of university become life as there, although not something too dissimilar has been taking place in Argentina. are cultur French analysts in an unusual way. Lacan liked to think that he had accom own experience sur to Freud, and in my of meeting many who knew Freud personally I can say that I have never viving early analysts as interesting met a group of analysts, once the ones who were apart from as can be found in Paris today. around Freud, sophisticated a "return* plished ally as well Lacan's writings, his theories Understanding And so when I heard that tices, is not an easy matter. still alive, a Benedictine monk who was an intellectual as his Lacan prac reported had a brother Lacan con volume

in whom

Paul Roazen, Ph.D., is Professor of Social and Political Science Emeritus at York University Toronto and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

in

321

? 1996 Institutes of Religion and Health

322

Journal of Religion and Health

fided, trying

it seemed to meet

one way this brother. Lacan,

to me

to get a handle

on Lacan's

contribution

was

by

On September 24, 1992, while in Paris on a short lecture trip, I went to

interview Dame Marc-Fran?ois I had heard earlier that he was living in a

monastery near Paris, but it turned out that he had recently moved to Notre
near Marseilles. de Ganagobie in Peryuis, were motives in trying to see Marc-Fran?ois My of the history The influence of ideas, of Lacan's with a special had unclouded interest long since by any partisan I

ship. I had been in Paris in 1991 and earlier in 1992, both times briefly. As a
student mind. know Once, in psychoanalysis, extended far beyond

knew how important the work of Jacques Lacan had become to the life of the
teachings

France, but only while Iwas in Paris did I begin to feel that I had begun to
some intelligent to start asking enough on the very day that Lacan's analytic questions. couch, among other items, was

being auctioned off in Paris, I had had a most congenial meeting with Judith
I was expected Lacan's favorite daughter from his second marriage. to Miller, see her at 5 rue de Lille, where he had practiced for so many On that years. on the De St. Louis to Lacan's from where I was old day I walked staying as actually so ignorant I was headed not to but I was of where apartment,

know, when instructed to turn toward the Left Bank, which bank of the Seine was the left. As I habitually do with my interviews, especially when I do not
know where I am going, I arrived early. I found the street easily enough, and on the apartment-house looked at the placque wall commemorating the fact that Lacan had once practiced I know to there. The only other psychoanalyst have been so honored I went to a small cafe nearby, is Freud himself. reading a book while a late breakfast, ar until the time for my appointment having rived. At the appropriate occasion I headed for rue de Lille, but only then at the

front gate of No. 5 did I realize that I had not been given the code to get in. So Iwent back to the concierge, who telephoned Judith Miller. She told me that there had been family problems that day, but if I waited she would come by
shortly. She brought with her Luke, a son, and also Gloria, who had worked with Lacan for years as a private secretary. They opened up the apartment for me, showing me something I did not it had once looked. of how elegant were missing. I know then why some of the pieces of furniture and paintings

felt I had stumbled rather badly when I inquired whether the apartment would be turned into a museum, thinking of Freud's house on Maresfield
Gardens fluidity in London; such an approach of Lacan's thinking. was plainly far too static to match the

Luke's job was to help translate both the French and English.

I do recall

we three felt, as Judith I the shy amusement when showed me one painting, understood from her French, after a few seconds of uncertain looking, directly that the picture was to be of a male The most intended orgasm. striking of what I learned that day came from Luke. He picked up a single aspect

Paul

Roazen

323

ping-pong It was

ball, which

had marks

drawn

all around

it, and with and from

love

and af

fection in his voice described how his grandfather had liked to relax that way.
a telling spontaneous gesture to understand how Lacan's beginning on Luke's system for my part, differed I felt as if I were linear the more

Freudianism

I was used to. Afterwards Judith took us to a splendid lunch,

lecture. to Paris I was trip planning to see

and Luke walked me around the corner on a subsequent So it was that when was

Lacan's brother, I felt as if I already knew something of the family setting I

I respect the legitimacy about. No matter how much of abstrac inquiring come from the minds it is my firm conviction that concepts and souls of tions, or disrespectful real people. It is not reductionistic, of toward the standing context in which the human of thought ideas, to seek to appreciate systems arise. And of psychoanalysts in my experience it is hard not to especially,

think that all psychologists necessarily rely on their own history and intu itions, much as they try to hold in check the subjective bias.
to Peyruis Getting take along, although was was easier than another Parisian finding friend an came appropriate up with to translator someone excel

lently qualified for the task. My time-table in Paris was so tight that there
no question, as Marc-Fran?ois a had suggested in his letter, of renting car to drive south. Instead the arrangement was that, starting at seven in the we would a car to drive take the TGV and then set about renting morning, the train station near Aix to the Abbey from itself. The Vaucluse, in south eastern at that time of year seemed and the France, beautiful, unusually tourist season was over. The road from the highway to the monastery turned

into an extremely winding one, and I was to find that the abbey itself had a
magnificent built in the view high over the valley below.

Notre Dame de Ganagobie dates from the tenth century, with parts of it
are an ex eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Benedictines were not intended old order. Their monasteries as great centers of tremely but rather to exemplify and hard work. The Benedictine rule learning, piety to one historian, to be "wholly lacking in eccentricity," some was, according which to Lacan's personality as I knew stood in stark contrast it. Por thing Dame de Ganagobie had been constructed in the eighteenth had been made and then renovations in the 1980s and 1990s; they century, were done in keeping one felt everywhere with the old style, so that what were the imposing of ancient of high walls and the prospect presence rooms. a strict community I gathered that this was which made ceilinged medical tools for orthopedic purposes. tions of Notre

I was

instructed to leave the car just where one might have thought it
have

should not was helpful

been put. An entrepreneur, to transact, who had business in telling me where to park. He said that we had to lock the car be here, though a Walkman had been door, since "not only altar boys" might left on the businessman's front seat. The mixture of the old and the new was, if not disconcerting. I was my visit to Marc-Fran?ois, throughout striking,

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Journal of Religion and Health

met at the front door, having rung the bell, by the Abbot, all in black, wearing
a strikingly in from the outside large cross. He was, I later learned, appointed order to lead the priory. in It was characteristic of the monastery for Marc-Fran?ois that we waited a recently was not quite built hall whose construction finished. Looking as well as a copying machine; I could see a computer around the answering device at the abbey see a multi-volume I had time to only part of its up-to-date technology. on the relatively Catholic bare bookshelves. dictionary I felt the need to take as did not understand (My translator-companion why to speak, in the context of interviewing Marc-Fran?ois, only collo was

many notes as I did; as a writer I believe that the devil lies in the details, but
I mean

quially about the devil.)

turned out to be a bent old man of eighty-four, who died not Marc-Fran?ois and walked with a cane. A scoliotic, long after, in 1994. He was apparently young monk accompanied him, helpfully bringing along some back cushions. of his that he was "very lucid" despite the existence Marc-Fran?ois quipped a mass; back problem. He was a Father, which meant that he could conduct a Brother was the monk who left and then came back with more cushions who lacked such Marc-Fran?ois standing. came to the interview prepared with elaborate notes, but I

do not recall, after the first few minutes,

that he needed to rely on them for

in his head. Lacan, who had he had to say to me was anything. Everything was seven years older than Marc-Fran?ois. died in 1981, death came Lacan's on "the day* of the fiftieth in a mon of Marc-Fran?ois's presence anniversary the city, and then outside astery. He had left Paris for an abbey, Hautecombe,

from June 1992 had lived where I was interviewing him.

said he had been a philosopher He from the age of eighteen. Marc-Fran?ois did his philosophical studies at the Institut and simultaneously Catholique of the law. Of all those he studied, to be a student St. Thomas undertook was for Marc-Fran?ois the most Aquinas By the time he first outstanding. a monastery a doctor, "going in the in 1926, his brother was already entered way teen was of psychiatry and psychoanalysis." four But when Marc-Fran?ois and Jacques had both "decided" that "the aim of their twenty-one, they life was to be the search for the truth." to ask about the relationship This was an opening between and the Lacan to "stray Catholic he thought, refer could, religion. only Marc-Fran?ois

he Christian but when culture," things." Lacan had aa very deep personal started upon his medical it took him "out of the way of religious studies prac in God, "of course," but he tices." He no longer went to mass. He "believed" was very committed I inquired whether to his medical Lacan had al work. "to re "No one" could say that, and it was ways been a believer. impossible solve stood about that his question." brother's Marc-Fran?ois but outlook, had his own personal view, and he under were in these points different" "very they

religion.

Paul

Roazen

325

of religion was one where I think there must have been a split least part of Lacan's fol family and some of his psychoanalytic for example, to lowers. Elisabeth refers Roudinesco, straightforwardly for not having Lacan's and she says that he reproached himself "atheism," from having confine chosen "the path of perpetual prevented Marc-Fran?ois to suit Marc-Fran?ois. life certainly ment." Yet a monastic seemed Roudinesco The issue at between tells us a mass came to Paris to celebrate death Marc-Fran?ois in memory of Jacques's the children of his dead brother; first wife at his of his second stayed away. He had been married while those attended, too that after Lacan's

first wedding in a church (the abbot of Hautecombe gave the blessing), and had had his children baptized. It does not seem to me surprising that he
could have Catholic once of having had, according to Roudinesco, "an elaborate dreamt or the to Marc-Fran?ois, funeral." If it had seemed inappropriate children of his first wife, Marc-Fran?ois that mass would not have conducted in his honor. to me natural, to in It seemed both psychoanalytically and historically,

and Jacques Lacan. The quire about the immediate family of Marc-Fran?ois father had been "a salesman" in Paris; there was one sister of Marc-Fran was therefore cois's who was five years older, and still alive. Marc-Fran?ois "close extremely I specifically asked

the youngest of the siblings. He asserted that the three of them had been "

re about the mother. immediately Marc-Fran?ois La?ant that, in understanding life, she was "very impor sponded by saying in this connection Marc-Fran?ois tant." Somehow in 1932 told me how when Lacan did "a test," by which Marc-Fran?ois meant thesis on Lacan's doctoral he "dedicated" it to Marc-Fran?ois. (He failed to inform me that the paranoia, first dedication, that one, was to his mistress.) of before The exact wording Lacan's Michel to his brother dedication struck a later commentator, de Cer "Tb the Reverend Father Marc-Fran?ois Benedic teau, as "strange": Lacan, ac tine of the Congregation in religion." of France, my brother Supposedly, to Marc-Fran?ois, been "surprised" by the dedication cording "everybody" had to himself, were "astonished." in particular and the surrealists If free associa tions mean was and by this point in the interview Marc-Fran?ois anything, was relaxed with me, I would presume that he thought the dedication pretty that his mother might have appreciated. would (That dissertation something turn out to be the only book Lacan ever wrote; it was only with reluctance that Lacan translated it to be allowed into English.) reprinted in France, and it has still not been

The mother herself had gone through a high level of intellectual studies,
and was how deeply Christian she "very clever." Marc-Fran?ois emphasized was. She had "a great faith." She had been able to follow Lacan's work "com at which pletely" until he went on to become a psychoanalyst, point she could not go further in understanding what he was doing. The profession and the doctrine were "so new for everybody" that she could not fathom what was

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Journal of Religion and Health

was sometime but her education going on. She had not gone to a university, a fine "high school." She was not she attended before 1900, at which point then particularly in philosophy in "general but rather interested literature." a lot with her husband's and the effort involved meant She worked business,

that for the sake of the work her husband did it was necessary for her to
of novels and poems. any kind of reading at all." He sold oil in unlike herself, was "not an intellectual husband, a vineyard in Nice, involved with in Orleans. and was I Bordeaux, soaps success asked if Marc-Fran?ois's father had been successful: "Not very, but Her renounce

ful." In the world of business in which he lived "everyone liked him," and he knew his job very well. He was not too involved with religion, but the rest of
of their reUgious faith. very "close" because had himself gone to a well-known Marc-Fran?ois boys' school, the Coll?ge It turned out that he had not only read his brother's Stanislas. first publica but "everything^ else he had written. For years tion, the text on paranoia, there was a distance of some five hundred kilometers between them, but that the family was

did not interfere with their being intimately acquainted with one another's
work. Marc-Fran?ois had written his own articles on theology, and Lacan

read them. Marc-Fran?ois had produced some 60,000 pages from 1950 on about the Old and New Testaments and he had helped to translate an ecu menical version of the Bible. A book of his called The Bible Vocabulary, deal ingwith biblical themes, was not only translated into English but came out in
languages. about it "because" of Freud. and Lacan wrote religion, that it was critical to know that Lacan knew German Marc-Fran?ois thought to do was to translate "very well." Lacan held that the first thing he wanted into French. The "basis of all" Lacan's work was to Freud's writings correctly "find the real meaning Thomas would have century. Lacan said of Freud's texts." But Lacan understood now would be very different from that what St. thirteenth spirit. As far as the some twenty different Freud talked about

an approach to Freud in that broad Freud "a lot" dining the himself had changed understood, Marc-Fran?ois an "agnostic," but course of his own career as a thinker. Freud was considered that was only the "bad" side to him, and that meta thought Marc-Fran?ois on his desk." (I shared Marc-Fran he had had the Tiible phorically speaking undertook to the contrary, he occasional that, despite Freud's protestations ?ois's belief was a stern moralist; Judeo-Christian but his ideas also served to undercut in a way which I did not explore with Marc-Fran?ois.) In Marc-Fran morality neu that his notion of obsessional ?ois's view Freud was "correct" in holding rosis Moses could "in some and Monotheism cases" explain people's was "a remarkable with what attitude book." was her own relationship to Lacan. He had toward God. Freud's own

I cannot reconstruct how we jumped to talking about Anna Freud at this

point, perhaps that in connection she had I thought to

Judaism, which I think contrasted with that of her father, but Marc-Fran?ois
maintained been "completely opposite" fought

Paul

Roazen

327

throughout his life for his freedom,

achieved

and Marc-Fran?ois

thought he had

the truth that he aimed for. All his were at odds with those trine," "completely" was "school" the world, important throughout for example. Among those who followed

the core of his "doc theories, of the IRA. By 1992 Lacan's as far away as South America singled out Denis Vasse, a

Lacan, Marc-Fran?ois

Jesuit who had written a book called Time of Desire that Marc-Fran?ois thought Imust read. He also singled out the work of Father Biernaert; but
Vasse was "the best follower" of Lacan, in that he did not just repeat what

Lacan thought, but had succeeded in developing his ideas. Imentioned Fran
had also once been a Jesuit; but Marc-Fran who I understood ?ois Roustang, to do with Lacanianism and him for having dismissed "quit everything" ?ois as perhaps was "a bit crazy." Even not a psycho though Marc-Fran?ois he had picked up Freud's analyst, tactic, and perhaps Lacan's as well, of stig as emotionally former students disturbed. matizing

Although we had already embarked on talking about the surrogate family Lacan had built up, and about the disciples who had turned out well in addi
tion to those who had gone grown family in which of them; it was photograph
any more."

he had this maid,

sour, Marc-Fran?ois up. They had had who very had

Pauline, It was

went back to discussing the a servant who was really one is "raised up" the children. There at that time to have such a

a picture album about Lacan that Judith Miller had put together which has a
of Pauline. common

nanny, although Marc-Fran?ois thought that that kind ofmaid "did not exist
a that Freud, with his "discovery" of the unconscious, represented in human revolution had not Copernican self-understanding. Marc-Fran?ois was not a reader of German, read everything of Freud's; Marc-Fran?ois and did not like the official translations. I tried to discover how much Marc-Fran since to me Freud was so intimately connected ?ois knew about old Vienna, He held with was the last days of the Austro-Hungarian But Marc-Fran?ois Empire. "not familiar" with Viennese culture. I also asked about Carl G. Jung, who is commonly ranked as Freud's great as well as Lacan, Jung "did everything est heretic. For Marc-Fran?ois except a back-handed It was in of Marc-Francois's way certainly psychoanalysis." to say that he and Lacan agreed that Jung was "interesting discussing Jung in all areas" except the one that mattered to Jung. Marc-Fran?ois most went that Jung, who made much of the positive possibilities was "a complete to the real Christian tradi stranger tion." In fact, Marc-Fran?ois insisted that Jung was so far from Christianity as to represent "a dangerous deviation" from it. further, maintaining in religious thought,

It was impossible not to think here of the thunderous way heretics have
always Freud's been loyal drummed Swiss out of the Church, disciples, Ludwig as well as the way Freud Freud had acted

in expelling Jung and others from within psychoanalysis. According to one of

Binswanger, had "often referred

328

Journal of Religion and Health

to his

scientific

Calvary."

When

Binswanger

questioned

Freud

as

to how

it

had happened

that it was "precisely his oldest and perhaps most

talented

who had broken away from him," to give examples, disciples, Jung and Adler, to be Popes_" Freud had replied: "Precisely because Freud they too wanted was capable of irony about himself, and knew that in some sense he had tried to set up a new church.

Freud's loyal disciple Hanns Sachs had once described how "didactic" anal
to train future analysts: have de yses were always designed "Religions a trial period, a novitiate, of those among their devotees who desired manded to give their entire life into the service of the supermundane and the super .... or priests to become monks in other words, who were It natural, those, to the noviate of the that analysis needs something corresponding con once compared the psychoanalytic situation with Church." Freud himself of analysands: "In Confession the sin fession, except that he expected more ner tells what in analysis he knows; the neurotic has to tell more." Lacan can be seen

himself thought of the psychoanalyst

monk] church; Jung who in past times ventured different

as being "like that solitary being [a

It is one matter thing to try to what some

into the desert." and more most

imagine what it might have meant for a Jew like Freud to have founded a
it is an altogether was the one complex interested to follow

itmight have meant for a Catholic like Lacan to break with a Jewish church.
disciple different group of Freud's from in salvaging

thing psychologically meaningful from Christianity. Yet Jung was, to Marc

Fran?ois, "completely ken to a nice Jungian intellectual was Marc-Fran?ois identification with French Freud." in Paris, how this was Ufe, although tiny I already knew, since I had spo an influence they had had on the case elsewhere. by no means or rather doing so out of Freud,

inadvertently echoing for having written in condemning Lacan, Jung "stupid, issues. of confusing had been guilty crazy things"; Jung's Jung supposedly an "interesting was unconscious of the collective idea," but not a concept to raise the issue of Jung of daring If I had ever thought "very clear notion."

I would have expected I interviewed in the mid-1960s, her when Anna Freud so the heretic to say something whom to she had helped Lacan, identical; was on this drive out of the ERA by trying to restrict his training activities, one point about Jung completely in agreement she and her father with what of Jung as a devi had thought. with our discussion in connection Somehow, ant within what he thought was up Marc-Fran?ois brought psychoanalysis, one of his brother's of the mirror in early the significance "first discoveries": a developmental childhood, I did not set the agenda "step." for what topics came up, but Marc-Fran?ois moved

to talking about how Lacan had left Paris to live in the Midi during World War II. (I do not know what the link was between discussing the mirror stage
and those painful war-years, that Lacan except in 1936, and a revision of that about mirroring of the Function "The Mirror As Formative Stage had proposed early paper, under of the I As Revealed first the idea the title in Psy

Paul

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329

choanalytic

in 1949, became his most famous of Lacan's second wife hav single concept.) Marc-Fran?ois a "dossier" on her. (Earlier and said the police had compiled ing been Jewish, at to Georges to Marc-Fran?ois, she had been married Bataille.) According Experience," which he delivered raised the matter some point Lacan "took" the file and "destroyed" it. Lacan and his second wife

remained in the south of France "from the beginning to the end" of the Nazi
and he did have "some patients" while he was there. (I assume occupation; cases of some sort, or that Marc-Fran?ois meant that Lacan had had analytic a specialist in that ones, since he had long since become perhaps psychiatric
area.)

During understood

the war Marc-Fran?ois to mean that he lived

himself was in a monastery

I in "the Italian zone," which in an area under the control to get him. Unfortunately the were looking for, although they

of Italian troops. He told how they had had a Polish bishop "hidden in their
had come and that the Gestapo monastery," in ferreting Germans out the Pole "succeeded" Marc-Fran?ois did not provide any further

details.

At this point in talking with me he paused to indicate that he did not like journalists. I do not think there could have been any doubt in his mind that I
was myself not and professor, in that category, I mentioned I think since I had written ahead as a university some of the books I had written. Marc when they were specialists and knew

Fran?ois qualified his distaste for journalism as a field by saying that he

the members accepted what they were doing. of the profession

He immediately went on to discuss the ?cole Freudienne de Paris, which Lacan had dominated from 1964 to 1980, when he dissolved it, shortly before
his death. This act Lacan of Lacan's had was pupils, many of whom felt betrayed a subject of great bitterness among his to court. and some of whom took Lacan

the assistance with of his son-in-law founded, the organization known as the Champ Freudian, which Miller, Jacques-Alain until today has been the largest single exponent of Lacanian with teachings, affiliated around the world. organizations the interview Marc-Fran?ois referred to Lacan as "my brother"; Throughout this may seem a trivial point to bring up, but it was a part of what I found to be Marc-Francois's to Lacan. Melanie in contrast, Klein's daughter, loyalty Subsequently

when I interviewed her in 1965, was so disaffected and alienated from her
as still to refer to her as "Mrs. Klein." Klein's late mother had be daughter come a bitter public enemy of her mother's. But from Marc-Fran?ois's point of Lacan had himself been a genuine of Freud. Lacan had been view, disciple

able to develop Freud's thought; he did not remain "just a follower."

because Marc-Fran?ois felt that he had left presumably he switched back to talking about the circum important points undiscussed, stances of his early childhood. Within the family he and his brother were "not the same." For Jacques treated Lacan there was "a very deep love." "No com reason, petition" between the brothers existed; Marc-Fran?ois was the "little one," For some

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Journal of Religion and Health

and Jacques remained the first born. It seemed in keeping to ask if the
mother suffered because Lacan gion. She was did was she "did," but not of Lacan's attitude toward religion; a monk, to become he "forgot" about reli but because "in a nice way." The father and saw everything "very naive," the father knew he realize" what Lacan was doing, although because failed likened living "I will Lacan to Balzac's and at the age of twenty Rastignac; to took for himself the challenge dominate you!" Marc-Fran?ois

"not really an intellectual.

Marc-Fran?ois one Lacan was conquer succeed He was Paris:

in Montmartre be your master, Parisian

I will

had himself read all of Balzac, and thought that Lacan had indeed come to
an analyst he was "in his m?tier." in listen people," and could be "close" to his patients him." In "a lot," and "I understood ing to them. Lacan taught Marc-Fran?ois of a woman who had been of this, Marc-Fran?ois gave me the name support analyzed by Lacan. successfully of to Marc-Fran?ois, like a faithful and here he sounded disciple According in overwhelming "very warm with life. As the problem with American psychoanalysts is that they did not go

Lacan's, as Judith version

further than the IPA (he readily used the shorthand "IPA" in talking to me,
was contemptuous also had). Marc-Fran?ois of the American Miller of psychoanalysis, into the equivalent which made Freud's doctrine of a big ego" "to have ridiculed the idea that ego psychology. Marc-Fran?ois of someone concerned with psychoanalysis. could be the objective It would ?ois

to try to set Marc-Fran have been hopeless, and an interference, of ego psy I thought was the genuine about what significance straight on nihilism, in correcting the negativisim about therapy, bordering chology can be found in some of Freud's writings. It is a deeply which preju ingrained

dice within French intellectual life that ego psychology and America should
off on the grounds of and all would have been written identical, In reality if I had tried to correct Marc-Fran?ois. conformism advocating strand in his had set ego psychology Freud himself going; and that particular to the needs of America, it is true was especially which did thought, congenial to correct earlier pessimistic think much imbalances within psychoanalytic close to condition, ing. Lacan did have a genuinely tragic view of the human a secular own central can perhaps be considered Freud's which standpoint, be seen as version popular of the doctrine of original sin; but such a viewpoint could never be in the States.

According to the French mythology about the history of psychoanalysis, Lacan had bravely refused to go along with the conformist thinking of Anglo
American psychoanalysts. has especially ogy, which in Paris. Yet bad concept the term ego psychol to make did manage in America, stand for an incontestably effort Lacan put does show how much the evidence Lacan flourished by Freud's to provide it was daughter Anna, rationalizations fancy not for

into winning recognition from the IPA; if he was a failure in preventing his
which was supported excommunication, of Lacan's It is possible for want trying.

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331

Lacan's

for recognition by the IPA, such as that he sought to own school. But when one fully realizes a master with his the avoid becoming it does he was in the organization, nonentities relative against struggling seem a poor show for him to have accused to others of unnecessarily bowing relentless search

the weight of authority.

on the literature was about Lacan's seemingly up-to-date Marc-Fran?ois one small book written as early as 1969? He in particular work. He mentioned came to play in Lacan's the role which this linguistics thinking; emphasized had been true since 1953, and Marc-Fran?ois that Lacan's 1953 essay thought on "The Function was "the start" of Lacan's of Language in Psychoanalysis" in that train of thought. There was a "unity" in Lacan's approach, distinctive he saw "man as a speaking I did not know it at the time creature." (Although one of his seminars I saw Marc-Fran?ois, in Lacan said that "speaking brings is about Nietzsche's claim that God God"; he also expressed uncertainty

dead.) On the subject of speech I interjected a question, since I had heard

that when according father was Fortunately Lacan's parents to Marc-Fran?ois came to dinner, there was his parents "never" went silence to have at the table. dinner But there.

His mother died in 1948; his father, in 1960. In those last years Lacan's
"very lonely." He lived in "a nice suburb" near he was able to continue with his work right the Bois up until de Boulogne. the very end

of his life and he had a nephew who was able to help him professionally. Marc-Fran?ois and I went back and forth between his brother's family life
and his writings, work. Since the Freud professional to be Marc-Fran?ois's which seemed came who own Freud in Lacan's through as well, appeared to

me so at odds with the distinctively Jewish and Viennese figure that I knew, I raised the question of whether it was possible to detach Freud from his his
of French Too much to me to have a seemed psychoanalysis it was Marc-Francois's that it was "only" conviction explicit to study philosophy if one knows history. He mentioned how this was possible true of medieval and that Etienne to Gilson had undertaken too, thought St. Augustine within and Descartes their cultural context. Marc-Fran study in Toronto that Gilson had been then living) (where I was ?ois mentioned torical context. scholastic air. But

during World War II.

As we were how, when stated: back on the history of ideas, Marc-Fran?ois reflecting Lacan was "put out of the IPA," he had compared himself noted to Spi

noza being excommunicated as a Jewish dissident. (At that time Lacan had
it would not be impossible?that the psy telling you?but is a Church. And yet, the question community choanalytic incontestably, arises of what within it offers a kind of echo of religious In my practice.") with Marc-Fran?ois, it was clear that he was a keen student of intel dealings lectual history. For example, he emphasized the fact that St. Thomas had "I am not

known Aristotle but not Plato, and he reminded me that in Aristotle the Pla
tonic dialogue disappears. on his brother's Reflecting work, Marc-Fran?ois said he thought it certain

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Journal of Religion and Health

"a lot" changed of the "real," concept of the the notion known; As for Lacan's speaking. that the his mind.

it had

there is during the course of his life. For example, it is impossible to know, not just un that which to the area of language referred and "symbolic"

the "imaginary," there he completely idea about of the id, ego, and super (As in the case of Freud's notions changed so attractive I think these terms can to beginning students, ego, sometimes an of packaging as a shorthand be understood what pioneering way partly have to contribute.) alysts as a formal Lacan aside for the moment thinker, Marc-Fran?ois Putting dressed. Marc chose to exclaim about how "impeccable" was the way Lacan a clerical habit but him, was not wearing the way Lacan had become Yet he admired some "one

I interviewed when Fran?ois, sort of pajama-like clothing. had taken "a risk"

of the most elegant men in Paris"; "hewas a guy!"Marc-Fran?ois thought he

in agreeing to see me, but he did not "regret" it. chose to explore what he thought of as a "philosophical prin Marc-Fran?ois to the "discovery" "relation" of the unconscious. The word ciple" connected "one becomes who one is in rela meant special to Marc-Fran?ois: something of God" as "the couple," not any "one tion to others." He proposed the "image

human being." In this connection he suggested that the doctrine of the trinity
could makes that human no one can be a father without a son. What be properly understood; "real" is the communication between them, the relationships people a the "I" and the "you" goes to make the connection between develop;

a families the loss of traditional produces being. For Marc-Fran?ois ours is an "individualistic for example; lot of clinical problems, like addictions was himself of course that. Marc-Fran?ois time," and he regretted living in in order had moved to Peyruis the community of the abbey; the whole group to get away from the "tourists" who congregated around Paris. The previous in the Alps. years, was abbey he had lived in, for twenty-one to move freely between and theo continued family matters Marc-Fran?ois

logical issues. On the one hand he thought that Judith Miller's

had meant he

choice of

he had became the son-in-law that because Jacques-Alain an important At the same time Marc-Fran?ois turned into follower of Lacan's. was a disciple was in his own way of Lacan's, that Marc-Fran?ois except a Chris of The existence out the Catholic side of Lacan's thinking. drawing It cannot be explained tian God, the father of Jesus Christ, "mathematically." so without is God who is the one we are in relation to; and this is necessarily a or emotional had in mind intellectual understanding. Marc-Fran?ois to one "who tells you what to do." In of God which was contrary conception in turn "a father that set you free. One gets life, and must stead, God was a brother." once one accepts the son of God, one becomes becoming give it; Otherwise, in Marc-Francois's thinking, one cannot love God. our

Jacques Lacan had tried to read Hebrew. But studying the Talmud would have been "too big"; it is full of "very interesting things" and can be subject to

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333

"multiple Fran?ois

interpretations," no mention made

unlike the New Testament. (Marc supposedly of the Tal of the traditional Christian conception

mud as the origin of Jewish erring.) But he did hold that each century reads the New Testament freshly; it was "wonderful" that it was impossible just to
is the most important thing." And you are "free when "repeat" it. "Freedom are responsible for other people." you I had come a long way to learn some elementary-seeming of Lacan's aspects at least as espoused of the The whole by Marc-Fran?ois. thinking, conception of the mirror means that significance ter development. commentators Many trast to later psychoanalytic thinking, otherness have is a key, early on, to charac in con out that Freud, pointed took an egoistic point of view. And this

included more than his notorious indictment of Christian ethics, for example when he tried to show how the maxim "love thy neighbor" is both unrealistic
as a moral and undesirable Freud took for granted the nurturing principle. of the mother, functions while the tie that Freud repeatedly wrote about was

that of the child to his father. In a case history published as late as 1918,
Freud object talked about choice, which, a male father as patient's in conformity with a small "his first child's and most narcissism, primitive had taken

place along the path of identification." Freud at that time thought that a small boy's "first and most primitive" human bond was to his father, not his
mother. Freud was not excluding of the mother's part in the psychopathology as either a seductress his patients; in but he understood the mother mainly an oedipal situation or the source of adult homosexual conflicts. Before World (such as Sandor Ferenczi) later were to take a different orientation

War I, Jung had challenged Freud on the role of mothers, and others in the
movement Erik

from Freud himself.

for example, whom Lacan considered the most Erikson, dangerous? an effort to spell out the the best?of the ego psychologists, made of mothers. And Erikson, whose work remains positive significance relatively even though he was unknown in France, the first male also child analyst, because

tried his best to bring Christian ethics into psychoanalytic teachings. D. W.

in Paris, known told me in London that the only analyst Winnicott, widely whose books that he, Winnicott, envied not having written himself were those by Erikson. Lacan had, with his proposal of a mirror in his own way attempted stage, to make personality in North America what would be called "in development I had written as well as Freud, about Erikson in the conviction terpersonal." that to the extent that Freud's disciples were able to come to different conclu sions than the master ca himself had in a way paid tribute to Freud's they as the creator of a field. Marc-Fran?ois as a had a similar outlook pacities of his brother. follower Erikson a to Marc-Fran?ois, become had, unknown

believing Christian, and tomy way of thinking the ultimate other that Lacan had in mind had to be God. Built into my interviewing Marc-Fran?ois in the

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Journal of Religion and Health

belief that it would place was an operative but that he and his younger Lacan in isolation, in relation to one another. first

not be possible brother might

to understand be appreciated

The abbey Marc-Fran?ois

monasteries

lived inwhen I saw him had been, like the other

in France, Revolution. Until closed after the French relatively or toilets; per Notre Dame de Ganagobie had had no running water recently it had Now haps one or two monks were living there before it was re-opened.

thirty-three members along with the prior himself. Although the monasteries in France had been shut down at the end of the eighteenth century, which
was also true in Austria and Bavaria, where the Jesuits were outlawed alto

gether, by 1833 the first monks had begun to come back in France. By 1905
was undertaken. of Notre Dame the restoration These details de Ganagobie were provided not by Marc-Fran?ois but by a Brother, wearing himself, jeans and sandals, who had been the one to help Marc-Fran?ois with the extra us to stay for supper. pillows and who wanted

Unfortunately we had to return to Paris that night, and could not remain
to share a meal. But it was possible for us to walk around at least some parts

of the abbey, which had twelfth-century mosaics. Since itwas my first time in
I could not hope to fathom all that was going on around me. We tran did hear vespers at the abbey was atmosphere being sung. The whole a genuine us who showed island of peace. The Brother quil and friendly, a bicycle ac arose from around explained that Marc-Fran?ois's back problem cident he had had, and that the extent of his suffering went unexpressed. to blame Jacques-Alain Mil said he did not want Although Marc-Fran?ois to of his nephew. ler for anything, it was clear he disapproved It was painful nice son think that Marc-Fran?ois had not even got to know Judith Miller's an admirer as much as anybody. As we of Lacan left the Luke, who was and its red-tiled it was hard not to be impressed roof, by Marc monastery to his older brother. attachment extraordinary Francois's One has to wonder why Marc-Fran?ois countless had not been interviewed times before, given how important life. I asked straightfor he was in Lacan's he had ever spoken to anyone else, and there Marc-Fran?ois wardly whether as far as I know, the only person I am sure he cooper grew slightly evasive; two vol ated with was Roudinesco who at that time had already published umes about the history in France in which Lacan obviously of psychoanalysis of Lacan had not yet appeared biography plays a central role. Her best-selling in print. If nobody had come to interview Marc-Fran else from the outside a ?ois, it was Lacan's person. Fran?ois, At the past, taboos of the emotional sign of the extent I thought it would that although obviously concerned have with been more a monastery

desirable if I had been less ignorant about Lacan's thought when I saw Marc
time was to this material I brought the distance I set out to interview Marc-Fran?ois, I interviewed Freud's middle son Oliver in a sense Parisian in 1965, an asset. analysts were no

not too hopeful about what I could come up with. But then I knew that in the
as when there was

Paul

Roazen

335

one could learn from such a family member. (I got two exactly what I was out of that one encounter for my Meeting Freud's Family.) to find just how knowledgeable turned out Marc-Fran?ois agreeably surprised tobe. From a rationalistic Parisian could be consid point of view, Marc-Fran?ois telling chapters a form of imprisonment in his put it, to have undertaken Ufe. And from a straightforward of view, it was odd Freudian monastery point indeed for such a young man as the one who showed us around the abbey to have given up a "normal" Ufe for one with such restrictions. Yet the concept of ered, as the notion of atheism. is at least as complicated normality of two stories about Voltaire's of which last moments, neither I am reminded I can verify but as Roudinesco

both ofwhich sound right. He is supposed to have been asked if he be?eved in

"Now is no time for making enemies." And he was told that God, replying: God would "That's his m?tier." commented, forgive him, about which Voltaire as an atheist To describe can too easily Lacan imply a jaunty view of God; in a Catholic atheism to inquiry, rather than should be an invitation country to close off Lacan's concerns. to ultimate relation I found a school-marmish Sunday-school atmosphere at Anna Freud's clinic in the mid-1960s, in con

trast to the intellectual excitement Lacan had bequeathed to Paris. It should be obvious that I was deeply touched by the whole experience of
chants being at Marc-Fran?ois's abbey. Before then I had only heard Gregorian on records. Now I thought I knew more about why Lacan wore such a special almost it had been designed for him specially shirt-collar, clerical-looking; by on what Marc-Fran?ois Yves St. Laurent. had had to say, and the Reflecting

kind of movement Lacan succeeded in founding, I found it hard not to think

in quasi-theological One person who had helped categories. to Marc-Fran?ois had specifically asked not to be pubUcly thanked; of him from within the most practice, In histories of psychoanalysis many Lacan's that to talk as about orthodox wing of Lacan's disciples. there has long been a controversy context in which his ideas me to get there was

that kind of fear of possible retribution, and of damage to a Parisian clinical

about how

significant it is that Freud came from a Jewish background. It has seemed to

the reUgious arose would

somehow be to diminish
work,

them. I think that the Catholic background

special

to

man triumph. Michel de Certeau had found the 1932 dedication introducing
Lacan's In Certeau's the "re "strange." interpretation, "religion" meant and "brother in re?gion" pointed to what Certeau called Ugious congregation," "a brotherhood based not on blood but on a common in the Order." sharing Certeau that this statement of Lacan's was like the purloined letter thought thesis

one an way, gives invaluable Yet thinking about insight teachings. how aUenated Marc-Fran?ois felt from Judith Miller's family, not to mention the long court battle between over his estate, two sets of children Lacan's it was hard not to conclude are tragic. that such family struggles The link between Lacan and Marc-Fran?ois, to me a hu seemed however, out in Marc-Fran?ois's spelled into the nature of Lacan's

336

Journal of Religion and Health

obscured of Poe, "placed in the most obvious place and for this very reason Certeau had which characteristics from view," but highlighting Benedictine was sim not before observed. In the 1975 edition of the thesis the dedication Father Marc-Fran?ois the Reverend "Tb my brother, Lacan, Benedic plified: between of France." found many tine of the Congregation Certeau parallels to I cannot pretend in Paris; the Benedictine schools order and the Lacanian

that kind of knowledgeability, but I think it worth offering my brief contact

with Marc-Fran?ois for what he taught me about his brother's teachings.

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