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This book is the first comprehensive introduction into both autobiography and writings of Judith Dupont for English-speaking audiences. It was originally published in French in 2015. The book consists of a lengthy autobiographical essay (section 1) and individual papers clustered around several topics Dr. Dupont considered central in her work as a psychoanalyst (sections 2-5). They are well worth reading because many papers are here translated for the first time, and they offer a lot of new historical details and fresh thoughts.
Most of the author's papers are focused on the clinical aspect of psychoanalysis. Even though some are about racism or authoritarianism, or about arts or outcome research, they almost always include lively associations to sessions, encounters, and supervisions. Several chapters deal with the issue of trauma, again in a dialogue of conceptual and clinical research. We can also discern who among her contemporaries inspired Dr. Dupont most, as we repeatedly read about Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok, Paul Roazen, and, of course, André Haynal. The book does contain slight repetitions, and some of the papers are rather diverse and not obviously connected. That, however, gives an impression of a spirit of unconstrained exploration that follows the intuition about the unconscious rather than a systematic, deliberate research agenda.
It is a pity that the book does not mention the donation of the Ferenczi Archives to the Freud Museum, on September 29, 2012. With mindfulness every psychoanalyst could be proud of, Dr. Dupont decided that Ferenczi's manuscripts should be housed at Maresfield Gardens so that the two old friends would be symbolically reunited decades after their deaths and the fateful strife (see Dupont, 2013).
Dr. Dupont has given psychoanalysis an even more generous gift. She managed to publish Ferenczi's The Clinical Diary in 1985, which is what most people associate her name with today, and the Ferenczi Renaissance began, especially aft