Didier Anzieu (; 8 July 1923,

Melun Melun () is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region, north-central France. It is located on the southeastern outskirts of Paris, about from the centre of the capital. Melun is the prefecture of the Seine-et-Ma ...

– 25 November 1999,

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

) was a distinguished French psychoanalyst.

Life

Anzieu studied

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...

and was a pupil of Daniel Lagache, before undertaking his first

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might ...

with

Jacques Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and ...

. Then, after discovering that Lacan had also treated his mother ( "Aimée"), he began a second analysis with Georges Favez. He retained a deep grudge against Lacan's lack of candor and later also condemned the excesses and arbitrary practices of the Lacanians — highlighting the latter's 'unending dependence on an idol, a logic, or a language', as well as the pervasively tantalizing element in Lacan's approach, with 'fundamental truths to be revealed...but always at some further point'. Among Anzieu's many significant contributions to psychoanalysis were his work on Freud's self-analysis and his extensive study of groups, relying in particular on the work of Wilfred Ruprecht Bion. Building on the writings of such psychoanalysts as

Melanie Klein Melanie Klein (née Reizes; 30 March 1882 – 22 September 1960) was an Austrian-British author and psychoanalyst known for her work in child analysis. She was the primary figure in the development of object relations theory. Klein suggested t ...

and Heinz Kohut, Anzieu also sought with great skill to analyze, not so much works of art, but the creative process itself; and he published numerous works on literary creation (

Pascal Pascal, Pascal's or PASCAL may refer to: People and fictional characters * Pascal (given name), including a list of people with the name * Pascal (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name ** Blaise Pascal, Frenc ...

, Beckett) and artistic creation (

Bacon Bacon is a type of salt-cured pork made from various cuts, typically the belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central ingredient (e.g., the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sand ...

)'. Perhaps the most telling strand in his writings, however, was that of the so-called Skin-Ego, and the related concept of the "Psychic Envelope".

On Freud's "Self-Analysis"

Anzieu's ''Freud's Self-Analysis'' (2d ed., 1975; tr. Peter Graham, 1986) is an important, enormously detailed...study of Freud's early life as mirrored in the dreams he chose to recount and analyze in ''The Interpretation of Dreams''. From a Kleinian viewpoint, Anzieu considered

Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...

's 'elaboration of psychoanalytic theory ... corresponded to a setting up of obsessional defences against depressive anxiety'—emphasising Freud's need to 'defend himself against it through such a degree of intellectualisation'.

On creativity

'Anzieu explores the connections between clinical analysis and self-analysis...and the relationship between self-analysis and creativity'. He also highlights the role of inner resistance to creativity: 'resistance consists of a searing and demoralising doubt as to the value of what we are in the process of discovering'.

On psychic envelopes

Emerging from ideas of holding in such writers as

Marion Milner Marion Milner (1900–1998), sometimes known as Marion Blackett-Milner, was a British writer and psychoanalyst. Outside psychotherapeutic circles, she is better known by her pseudonym, Joanna Field, as a pioneer of introspective journaling. Bio ...

and Donald Winnicott, and then 'migrating into Continental psychoanalysis, the idea of the skin-container takes on a life of its own...shap ngDidier Anzieu's influential concept of the psychic envelope in ''The Skin-Ego (Le Moi-peau)''. 'Didier Anzieu (1985) theorized on the skin-ego, the first narcissistic envelope on which the feeling of well-being is based', suggesting for example that 'narcissistic personalities...possess an unusually thick skin ego; in contrast, masochistic and borderline personalities show remarkably thin skin ego'. Anzieu would extend the concept to a broader notion of "psychic envelope", exploring for example the idea of 'the dream envelope. This is the name Didier Anzieu gives to the visual dream-film, the fine, ephemeral membrane which he thinks of as replacing the tactile envelope of the ego's vulnerable skin'. 'With his development of a related concept, the "sound envelope" Anzieu articulates the bodily ego's relation to psychic space in terms of breath'. In terms of groups, Anzieu also maintained that 'there is no group without a common skin, a containing envelope, which makes it possible for its members to experience the existence of a group self'.

Criticism

'For a critique of Anzieu's "interpretatively versatile" pan-pellicularism and his therapeutically oriented model of the skin-container, see Steven Connor, ''The Book of Skin'' (London...2004)'. 'Kaja Silverman argues that the emphasis by Anzieu and others (including

Kristeva Julia Kristeva (; born Yuliya Stoyanova Krasteva, bg, Юлия Стоянова Кръстева; on 24 June 1941) is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, semiotician, psychoanalyst, feminist, and, most recently, novelist, who h ...

) on the maternal voice as sound envelope "grows out of a powerful cultural fantasy...the image of a child held within the environment or sphere of the mother's voice"'.Jacobus, p. 131n

Life

On Freud's "Self-Analysis"

On creativity

On psychic envelopes

Criticism

References

Further reading