Putting psychotherapy in its place: The regionalization of behavior therapy in France, Switzerland, and Belgium, 1960s-1990s.

This article traces the history of the behavior therapy movement in French-speaking Europe between the 1960s and the 1990s, focusing on its geographically located development, whether on a national, sub- or supra-national scale. By examining the trajectories of the three main behavioral therapy associations in France, Switzerland, and Belgium, we show that it is not possible to subsume them under a common intellectual history. Despite the importance of theoretical debates in the emergence of this brand of psychotherapy in English-speaking countries, adherence to this type of explanation falls short of accounting for the differential reception of behavioral therapies in these countries. We argue that the later development of behavioral therapy in France, Belgium, and Switzerland was shaped more by professional agendas, local definitions, and regulations of psychotherapy than by "pure" theoretical commitments and conflicts between schools of thought. From a historiographical perspective, exploring the regionalization of psychotherapeutic styles thus involves contesting the idea that different therapies are mainly characterized by adherence to psychological theories and embedded ontologies of the self that are radically opposed (i.e., humanism vs. naturalism, psychoanalysis vs. behavior therapy). Localizing psychotherapies and paying attention to the varying circumstances and traditions in which they have evolved allows us to go beyond this dichotomous vision and to access a multiplicity of nondogmatic and intermediate positions that would otherwise be invisible.

"The damned behaviorist" versus French phenomenologists: Pierre Naville and the French indigenization of Watson's behaviorism.

What do we know about the history of John Broadus Watson's behaviorism outside of its American context of production? In this article, using the French example, we propose a study of some of the actors and debates that structured this history. Strangely enough, it was not a "classic" experimental psychologist, but Pierre Naville (1904-1993), a former surrealist, Marxist philosopher, and sociologist, who can be identified as the initial promoter of Watson's ideas in France. However, despite Naville's unwavering commitment to behaviorism, his weak position in the French intellectual community, combined with his idiosyncratic view of Watson's work, led him to embody, as he once described himself, the figure of "the damned behaviorist." Indeed, when Naville was unsuccessfully trying to introduce behaviorism into France, alternative theories defended by philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty explicitly condemned Watson's theory and met with rapid and major success. Both existentialism and phenomenology were more in line than behaviorism with what could be called the "French national narrative" of the immediate postwar. After the humiliation of the occupation by the Nazis, the French audience was especially critical of any deterministic view of behavior that could be seen as a justification for collaboration. By contrast, Sartre's ideas about absolute freedom and Merleau-Ponty's attempt to preserve subjectivity were far more acceptable at the time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Topical Review: Basic Psychological Needs in Adolescents with Chronic Pain-A Self-Determination Perspective.

This topical review outlines the resilience pathway to adaptive functioning in pediatric pain within a developmental perspective. Self-Determination Theory proposes that the satisfaction of one's basic psychological needs (for autonomy, relatedness, and competence) is crucial for understanding human flourishing and healthy development. However, the role of the basic psychological needs received little attention in a pediatric-pain population. Yet, we propose that need satisfaction may be a resilience factor and need frustration a risk factor, for living with chronic pain. In this topical review, we first discuss two major models that have been developed to understand pain-related disability: the fear-avoidance model of pain and the ecological resilience-risk model in pediatric chronic pain. Both models have been used with children and adolescents but do not include a developmental perspective. Therefore, we introduce Self-Determination Theory and highlight the potentially moderating and mediating role of the basic needs on pain-related disability in children and adolescents. Taken together, we believe that Self-Determination Theory is compatible with the fear-avoidance model of pain and the ecological resilience-risk model in pediatric chronic pain and may deepen our understanding of why some adolescents are able to live adaptively in spite of chronic pain.

Longitudinal study shows that depression in childhood is associated with a worse evolution of headaches in adolescence.

AIM: The aim of this study was to examine the course of headache diagnosis, headache frequency, anxiety, comorbid depressive symptoms and school absenteeism in adolescents with migraine and tension-type headaches five years after baseline. METHODS: We followed a group of 122 children with a mean age of 10.1 (±1.3) years, with headache from a paediatric migraine centre in Paris who had taken part in a previous study from September 2007 to June 2008. This five-year longitudinal study took place in January to June 2012. The measures that were used included demographic variables, headache diagnosis, headache data and a psychological assessment. RESULTS: At the five-year point, about 22% of the children had become headache free, 34% had little to no disability, and 36% had a changed diagnosis. Moreover, a longer history of headache at baseline was associated with a worse evolution of headache at follow-up. Lastly, high depression scores, but not anxiety, were a predictor of more headache disability at follow-up. CONCLUSION: High depression scores in childhood were a risk factor that was associated with persistence and worsening of headaches in adolescence. This suggests that mental health assessments should be carried out in paediatric headache pain clinics.

Beyond indifference and aversion: The critical reception and belated acceptance of behavior therapy in France.

In 1960s France, behavior therapy attracted the attention of a group of isolated pioneers largely composed of psychiatrists and some experimental psychologists. At the beginning of the 1970s, after a discreet introduction, the development of this movement provoked an adverse reaction related to the French intellectual context, which was characterized by a taste for psychoanalysis. At the height of the Cold War, this new form of therapy was, moreover, seen as a typical product of American culture, and viewed as a technique for mind control that would be incompatible with French humanist values. In this respect, the French rejection of behavioral therapies can also be placed in a broader context, one of anti-Americanism and assertion of the French "cultural exception." Thus, until the late 1980s, the development of the French behavior therapy movement was weak compared with what happened in the United Kingdom or the United States. Conversely, psychoanalysis reigned unchallenged in the French market for psychotherapy. In the early 1990s, the arrival of cognitive-behavioral therapy made a crucial difference. Hybridized with cognitive techniques, cognitive-behavioral therapy was seen as a "synthetic product" better suited to the French culture in psychotherapy than the initial model of "pure" behavior therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record

[Anne Berman (1889-1979): a "Mere Secretary" in the French Psychoanalytic Movement?]. / Anne Berman (1889­1979), une «simple secrétaire¼ du mouvement psychanalytique français?

This article is focused on the figure of personal secretary in the history of science with the example of Anne Berman (1889­1979) who was, between 1933 and 1962, the secretary for the psychoanalyst Marie Bonaparte (1882­1962). Berman was not a psychoanalyst and psychoanalytic historiography considers her as a minor figure. However, her career as a personal secretary and her role in the French psychoanalytic movement should be considered in conjunction with her involvement with the feminist movement. This pharmacist by training has indeed played a prominent role within the Soroptimist, which was a movement that championed the professional interest of women and prides female excellence. In the case of Berman, the status of personal secretary did not enable her to gain lasting recognition by psychoanalysts, but only a weak and fragile legitimacy.

[When Marie Bonaparte turned a deaf ear]. / Als Marie Bonaparte sich taub stellte....

Between 1927 and 1931 Marie Bonaparte had herself operated upon her clitoris three times. She did so against Freud's advice with whom she was in analysis. Among psychoanalysts these operations are still often regarded as "errors" or aberrations. But for Marie Bonaparte, who was in various ways familiar with physics and a somatic approach, surgery was the first choice, psychoanalysis only a possible alternative. She was not impressed by the scepticism of her colleagues, and adhered even more emphatically to her own strategy.

Anxiety, depression and school absenteeism in youth with chronic or episodic headache.

BACKGROUND: Chronic daily headache (CDH) in children has been documented in general and clinical populations. Comorbid psychological conditions, risk factors and functional outcomes of CDH in children are not well understood. OBJECTIVES: To examine anxiety and depression, associated risk factors and school outcomes in a clinical population of youth with CDH compared with youth with episodic headache (EH). METHODS: Data regarding headache characteristics, anxiety, depression and missed school days were collected from 368 consecutive patients eight to 17 years of age, who presented with primary headache at a specialized pediatric headache centre. RESULTS: A total of 297 patients (81%) were diagnosed with EH and 71 were diagnosed with CDH. Among those with CDH, 78.9% presented with chronic tension-type headache and 21.1% with chronic migraine (CM). Children with CDH had a higher depression score than the standardized reference population. No difference was observed for anxiety or depression scores between children with CDH and those with EH. However, children with CM were more anxious and more depressed than those with chronic tension-type headache. Youth experiencing migraine with aura were three times as likely to have clinically significant anxiety scores. Headache frequency and history were not associated with psychopathological symptoms. Children with CDH missed school more often and for longer periods of time. CONCLUSIONS: These findings document the prevalence of anxiety, depression and school absenteeism in youth with CDH or EH. The present research also extends recent studies examining the impact of aura on psychiatric comorbidity and the debate on CM criteria.

'A serious venture': John Rodker (1894-1955) and the Imago Publishing Company (1939-60).

John Rodker (1894-1955) was the founder of the British publishing house--the Imago Publishing Company--which undertook the republication of the complete works of Sigmund Freud in German just before World War II. Rodker, himself a writer as well as a publisher, was initially tempted by a psychoanalytic career; numerous obstacles, however, lay in his path. War, along with the complicated management of the royalties from Freud's writings, compromised the progress of what seemed to him to be 'a serious venture'. Besides Rodker, we meet numerous actors of the psychoanalytic movement: Anna Freud, Marie Bonaparte, Ernest Jones, James Strachey, all of whom had worked for the dissemination of Freud's writings. This paper shows how the English language gradually became the 'official norm' for psychoanalysts. According to the editors of the Standard Edition, at that time 'nothing new [was] being written' in German or in French. The failure of the Gesammelte Werke project signalled the end of an era in which psychoanalysis was mainly written about in German.

Marie Bonaparte, her first two patients and the literary world.

Marie Bonaparte (1882-1962) played a critical role in the development of psychoanalysis in France. Her clinical activity is not well known yet she was one of the first female French psychoanalysts. The journalist-writers Alice and Valerio Jahier were Bonaparte's first two patients. She conducted this dual analysis with Rudolph Loewenstein (1898-1976). Alice and Valerio exchanged analysts on several occasions. During his analysis, Valerio began corresponding with Italo Svevo (1861-1928), the author of La Coscienza di Zeno, who imparted his doubts on the therapeutic merits of psychoanalysis. Valerio described his difficult analysis in his letters to Svevo. Bonaparte consulted Freud on the subject, but was not able to prevent Valerio's suicide in 1939. The Princess of Greece encouraged Alice in her vocation as a writer and enabled her to benefit from her connections in literary circles. On the margins of this unpublished story of the two analyses, which is based on archived documents recently made available, we discover the importance of the links which were formed - around Marie Bonaparte - between psychoanalysis and literature. In addition to Italo Svevo, we come across the acerbic writer, Maurice Sachs, as well as the famous novelist, Stefan Zweig.

[Through entomology to psychoanalysis]. / De l'entomologie a la psychanalyse.

Vues analytiques sur la vie des abeilles et des termites (Analytical perspectives on the life of bees and termites) is a letter from L. R. Delves Broughton to Freud dated the 7th of August, 1927. The letter was translated into French by Marie Bonaparte (1882-1962) for the Revue Française de Psychanalyse (French Review of Psychoanalysis) in 1927. A German translation of the letter was done for the review Imago in 1928. In his letter Delves Broughton develops a captivating connection between Man's libidinal economy and that of certain social insects. His main argument is based on the readings of several works by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949). He proposes, as in the bioanalysis project of Sándor Ferenczi (1873-1933), the application of psychoanalytic knowledge on a specific area of the natural sciences: entomology.

["W. Bölsche's precious book". Freud and German evolutionism in the beginning of the 20th century]. / "Le précieux livre de W. Bölsche". Freud et la culture évolutionniste allemande du début du XXe siècle.

Wilhelm Bölsche (1861-1939) is the author of a poetic history of the evolution of love entitled Das Liebesleben in der Natur (1898-1903). This work, inspired by the writings of biologist Ernst Haeckel, was greatly successful in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Freud kept a copy of the three volumes in his London library and cites the text in his lectures on an Introduction to psychoanalysis. Bölsche develops an Entwicklungsgeschichte (history of evolution) of the distinguishing sexuality of several types of love (oral, anal and urinary). In addition, he describes the "zoological reactionary" homosexual and ties this sexual behaviour to the history of the development of anal sexuality. This paper will address an excerpt on this topic from Bölsche's text that has been translated for the occasion. The task at hand is to prepare the ground for a study of German evolutionism, both popular and scientific, and its ties to psychoanalysis.