About the Book
'Françoise Dolto and Child Psychoanalysis' (Great Minds Series, Vol. 4)-2017 Revised, Updated and Reformatted Edition-is a about one of the greatest psychoanalysts the world has known. The author interviewed Françoise Dolto in 1986, after having visited 'La Maison Verte' in Paris, a center Dr. Dolto had created for parents and children that mainly served to prepare children for greater lapses of time away from their parents and the early kindergarten experience. The interview took place in Dr. Dolto's apartment at 260, rue Saint-Jacques, near the Panthéon, Paris. A long correspondence followed the meeting which was published, after Dr. Dolto's death, with the author's permission, by Gallimard Publishers, Paris, in 2005. The author reviews five of Françoise Dolto's books, 'La Cause des Enfants (1985), 'Psychanalyse et Pédiatrie (1971) and three volumes of Dolto's professional seminar on child psychoanalysis, 'Séminaire de Psychanalyse d'Enfants (1982, 1985, 1988).' He tries to convey to the reader who is unfamiliar with psychoanalysis the basics for understanding the present book, and furthermore, stresses the uniqueness of Dr. Dolto's approach to curing psychotic children-a feat that is unparalleled in human psychiatric history, for psychosis was always held as incurable. The book retraces the fascinating way Françoise Dolto got to become an authority not only in psychiatry and psychoanalysis in France, and worldwide, but also a public figure of great renown in France-while she is as good as unknown in the English speaking world. The motivation of the author was namely to break through this wall of silence and elucidate this particular audience about the genius of one of the greatest psychiatrists of our time, and of all times. He explains also the stress that Françoise Dolto put upon children developing autonomy and get emotionally detached from their parents with the liquidation of the Oedipus Complex, at the age of 5 to 7 years. Today, 27 years after her death, Dolto's engagement for the emotional freedom of children is more important than ever in our claustrophobic modern society in which many children are raised into codependent partners for their emotionally immature and media-addicted parents. The volume comes with quotes from two of Dolto's most well-known books, translated by the author, who grew up in a region bordering France that is bilingual German-French.
About the Author: Parallel to an international law career in Germany, Switzerland and the United States, Dr. Peter Fritz Walter (Pierre) focused upon fine art, cookery, astrology, musical performance, social sciences and humanities. He started writing essays as an adolescent and received a high school award for creative writing and editorial work for the school magazine. After finalizing his law diplomas, he graduated with an LL.M. in European Integration at Saarland University, Germany, and with a Doctor of Law title from University of Geneva, Switzerland, in 1987. He then took courses in psychology at the University of Geneva and interviewed a number of psychotherapists in Lausanne and Geneva, Switzerland. His interest was intensified through a hypnotherapy with an Ericksonian American hypnotherapist in Lausanne. This led him to the recovery and healing of his inner child. In 1986, he met the late French psychotherapist and child psychoanalyst Françoise Dolto (1908-1988) in Paris and interviewed her. A long correspondence followed up to their encounter which was considered by the curators of the Dolto Trust interesting enough to be published in a book alongside all of Dolto's other letter exchanges by Gallimard Publishers in Paris, in 2005. After a second career as a corporate trainer and personal coach, Pierre retired as a full-time writer, philosopher and consultant. His nonfiction books emphasize a systemic, holistic, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspective, while his fiction works and short stories focus upon education, philosophy, perennial wisdom, and the poetic formulation of an integrative worldview. Pierre is a German-French bilingual native speaker and writes English as his 4th language after German, Latin and French. He also reads source literature for his research works in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Dutch. In addition, Pierre has notions of Thai, Khmer, Chinese and Japanese. All of Pierre's books are hand-crafted and self-published, designed by the author. Pierre publishes via his Delaware company, Sirius-C Media Galaxy LLC, and under the imprints of IPUBLICA and SCM (Sirius-C Media). Pierre's Amazon Author Page: http: //www.amazon.com/Peter-Fritz-Walter/e/B00M2QN4SU Pierre's Blog: https: //medium.com/@pierrefwalter/publications/