Jean - Bertrand Pontalis

Jean-Bertrand Pontalis was born in Paris in 1924. A psychoanalyst and a man of letters (agrégé in philosophy, doctor of psychology, research director at the National Research Foundation of France), essayist and novelist, director and editor of publishing series at Gallimard, a key contributor to the translation of Freud's work into French, he has been at the center of intellectual and psychoanalytic life in France for half a century. An analysand of Lacan, Pontalis was closely associated with Merleau-Ponty and Sartre. He is a central figure in the history of the French psychoanalytic movement and in the developments that led, after the break with Lacan, to the founding of the Psychoanalytic Association of France (A.P.F.) in 1964, where he served as secretary and president. The international impact of his work is mainly attributed to the now-historic "Vocabulary of Psychoanalysis" (1967), co-authored with Jean Laplanche, as well as to the publication of the renowned "Nouvelle Revue de Psychanalyse" (1970-1994), which he directed until its conclusion. His autobiographical work "Love of Beginnings" (Femina-Vacaresco Prize) has been translated into five languages. Jean-Bertrand Pontalis was honored in 2006 with the Medicis Prize for his book "Brother of the Previous One." He passed away on January 15, 2013.