Obituary: Tribute to Marilia Aisenstein*

Marilia Aisenstein was lost to us on 14 May 2025, having reached the age of 79. For several years, she had endured the sufferings of an illness that was exhausting her. Nevertheless, she continued to work with passion and she was still creative. Every Tuesday evening, she would attend the editorial committee meeting of the Vocabulaire de psychosomatique, and she played an active part in its preparation. On the final Tuesday before 14 May, she wrote to tell us that she would not be attending because she was ill. The next day she passed from this life. That was 14 May 2025. She has left us.

Marilia Aisenstein was a leading figure in psychoanalysis. Through her oral teaching and her writings, she is still present to this day and will be for many years to come, to the benefit of future analysts. Marilia studied philosophy but what interested her was not so much the knowledge of the various philosophical systems as the meaning of the work of thought – what thinking meant. It is understandable that this interest in thought and its mode of functioning should have led her to psychoanalysis. After several years of personal analyses she joined the Paris Psychoanalytical Society (SPP), and became a training and supervising analyst. Her activities as a psychoanalyst were prolific. They encompass three principal domains: her theoretical and clinical work with patients; her tireless activity in training and supervision both for young analysts and for more experienced analysts; and, finally, her institutional activities in France and abroad.

Marilia committed a great deal of work to the institutional life of the SPP. She became its president from 1995 to 1999 and sought to improve the institution’s functioning. She supported two major reforms. She campaigned for the “tous divans” (every couch) reform by opening up the training process to candidates who had not been analysed by a training and supervising analyst. And, with as much energy, helped by Hélène Troisier and Catherine Couvr