Interventions
Accoyer Amendment [6/2004]
By Peter Canning
0 – Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in France Today
In September of 2003 the French National Assembly voted unanimously
and without public debate for a bill known as the “Accoyer Amendment” to
regulate the practice of psychotherapy, including psychoanalysis, in France.
The following articles and interview, translated from Le Monde, came in response
to what seemed to psychoanalysts to be a hasty and ill-considered move on
the part of the French legislative body. Then, in late February 2004, a purportedly
scientific evaluation of the effectiveness of different modes of psychotherapy,
carried out by Inserm (The National Institute for Research in Health and
Medicine), was presented to the public. Conceding that an objective scientific
assessment of subjective disturbance was impossible, it nonetheless proposed
to measure the effectiveness of “cognitive-behavioral” therapy against “psychodynamic”
therapies (including psychoanalysis) and family/couples therapy. (Cognitive-behavioral
therapy is supposed to correct maladaptive behavior and remove symptoms by
reconditioning the subject in his or her “cognitive” response to the “disorder”
and the situations in which it occurs. In other words it adapts the patient
to a consensual version of reality as represented by the practitioner. For
example, if the patient has a phobia, the therapy reconditions his response
so that he no longer interprets the situation as threatening and causing
anxiety.) Cognitive therapy was found to be superior to psychodynamic therapy
for most psychic troubles, though the evaluation is being contested, especially
by psychoanalysts, who insist on marking a distinction between psychoanalysis
and other forms of psychotherapy and also denounce the pseudo-scientificity
of the study and its findings. Roland Gori, a Lacanian analyst, calls the
Inserm report a “war machine against psychoanalysis,” and imputes the economic
motivations behind its findings designed to “take command of the lucrative
market in mental health” and assume control of “behavioral man.”
• Regulate the Unconscious? [pdf download]
• On the Social Utility of the Ear [pdf download]
• Interview with Paul-Laurent Assoun [pdf download]
top of page
|
