On De l’exaltation by Paul Denis

If, as he claims, Paul Denis is not “sure he is one of the leaders of psychoanalysis in France,” (Braconnier, 2007) he is nonetheless one of the key authors in the French psychoanalytic landscape, as evidenced by the degree of interest evoked by his clinical and theoretical contributions in the fields of psychopathology and child and adult psychiatry, always intercalated with subtle evocations of their cultural and artistic connections. A training psychoanalyst in the Paris Psychoanalytic Society, he was director of the Revue Française de Psychanalyse from 1997 to 2004, editorial director of the collections Le Fil Rouge and Psychanalystes d’aujourd’hui at PUF, and the author and co-author of numerous works in which his clinical insights are presented in a clear and evocative style, accessible to beginners and discerning readers alike: Emprise et satisfaction(Mastery and Satisfaction), Le narcissisme [On narcissism], Les phobies (On Phobias), De l’âge bête: la période de latence (On the awkward age : the latency period); Rives et dérives du contretransfert (Countertransference: limits and transgressions).

His most recent work, De l’exaltation [On exaltation], is a compilation of revised texts of thirteen articles, each with its own dynamic, offering access to the author’s favourite themes. At the level of the psychic economy, these themes include the power of the drives and their derivatives; topographically, they include the distinctions between the superego, ego ideal and the ideal self, and between instance and imago. On the dynamic plane, P. Denis emphasizes the importance of understanding the potential of mobilizing psychological function, a process of mobilization and a source of change requiring the analyst’s participation. Faithful to Freudian thought, including terminology, Denis never separates theoretical progress from practice, starting from the clinical care of neurotic patients with those forms of psychopathology clustered under the term “psychological p