Daniel Lagache

Daniel Lagache (December 3, 1903 – December 3, 1972) was a French physician, psychoanalyst, and professor at the Sorbonne. He was born and died in Paris.

Lagache became was one of the leading figures in twentieth century French psychoanalysis.

Daniel Lagache began higher education at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in 1924. Becoming interested in psychopathology under the influence of Georges Dumas, he began to study medicine — alongside such figures as Raymond Aron, Paul Nizan, and Jean-Paul Sartre — as well as psychiatry. By 1937 he had become chief physician in the clinic directed by Henri Claude. Appointed lecturer in psychology at the University of Strasbourg in 1937, he succeeded to the chair of psychology at the Sorbonne in 1947, before obtaining the chair of psychopathology in 1955.

After a training analysis with Rudolph Loewenstein in the thirties, Lagache focused his research interests on Freudian psychoanalysis, bolstered by his knowledge of German; and in 1937 his article on "Mourning, melancholia and mania" enabled him to become a full member of the SPP' — the Paris psychoanalytical society.

After the war, Lagache's views on training came into increasing conflict with those of the society's establishment, as he sought in a liberal synthesis of psychology and psychoanalysis leverage against the medical authoritarianism upheld by Sacha Nacht. In 1953, Lagache led a break-away from the central body of French psychoanalysis, to form the new Societe Francaise de Psychanalyse (French Society for Psychoanalysis, or SFP), accompanied by such leading figures as Francoise Dolto and Jacques Lacan.

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