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This book was written by one of the most influential analysts on the French analytic scene. Italian by birth, Piera Aulagnier moved to France in her twenties having
completed her medical studies and furthered her interest in psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Between 1961 and her death in 1991 she wrote four books and about forty articles. The Violence of Interpretation, her first book, was first published in France in 1975. Aulagnier's clinical observations and theoretical work stem from her analytic work with psychotic patients. While the author feels that this book will essentially be of interest to analysts working with psychotic patients, I am not alone in feeling that her original understanding of the very early effects of the infant-‘word-bearer’ (mother) encounter puts her on a level with analysts such as Winnicott, Bion or Fordham, providing a meaningful framework for all of us.
She was not a member of the the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA). (There seems to be ambivalence, or perhaps dismay about this, as the cover of the English edition presents her as a prominent member of the IPA, but in his foreword to the book Harold Blum, - chairman of (IPA) Translation Committee - acknowledges that she was not.) She had chosen Lacan as her first analyst and was a member of the school he founded. In 1964, that institution ceased to exist following a decision by the IPA. This was a few years before the May 1968 ‘movement’, and institutions and their validity/legitimacy were under scrutiny. Aulagnier challenged the view that a certain conformity with the image of one's analyst/supervisor/peers might be used as a criterion for acceptance into training or as an analyst. She articulated and voiced her discontent about the split and her understanding of the complex issues that led to it. She followed Lacan but maintained a critical stance in relation to him and his school. Five years later, concerned about growing dogmatism and the effects of alienation, she an