CENTRE DE CONSULTATIONS ET DE TRAITEMENTS PSYCHANALYTIQUES JEAN-FAVREAU

The Centre Jean-Favreau (CCTP) grew out of the Société Psychanalytique de Paris (SPP) and its training institute. The agreement linking it to the Paris Social Services Department (DASS) recognizes its purely psychoanalytic vocation.

At the instigation of Sacha Nacht and René Diatkine, the Institut de Psychanalyse created the center in 1954. It was originally a clinic based on a model that the burgeoning psychoanalytic movement created around the time of World War I (it was similar to the Berlin Institute, for example). It provided free treatment to patients who lacked the resources necessary to pay for treatment. Unpaid analysts conducted these treatments, under the supervision of experienced analysts. This system also made it possible to explore the effects of free treatment on the analytic process and to facilitate access for non-physicians.

In 1958 an agreement was signed with the Seine prefecture borough authorities. It guaranteed an operating budget for the center, thus testifying to the public authority's interest in the renewal and use of psychotherapeutic modalities in the field of psychiatry. The center also was to contribute indirectly to training psychiatrists, who, within the framework of the policy of the sector, would then run extra-hospital clinics with a largely psychotherapeutic orientation.

The center's specific role and aims must be seen within this historical context. During a period of great innovation when many institutions were created, integrating psychoanalytic ideas into their treatment perspectives in various ways, the center based its activity around the classic analytic treatment conducted in the course of three or four weekly sessions of forty-five minutes each. This approach derived from the conviction held to this day that psychoanalytic treatment, if implemented correctly, is the most effective treatment, and the belief that psychoanalytic training is the best way to develop the ability to conduct psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy.

The other analytic treatments practiced at the center were developed there in order to adapt, up to a certain point, to the range of the demand; among these are various forms of psychotherapy, individual and group psychodrama, and group psychoanalysis. But these other forms of treatment derive from the model of psychoanalytic treatment, of which they are thoughtful modifications taking into consideration the method, the frame, and the processes of change, and wherein clarification of the transference remains of central importance.

The physicians who—delegated by the president of the PPS—have successively directed the center (Jeanne M. Favreau, Jean Favreau, Jean-Luc Donnet) and their assistants (Robert Barande, Monique Cournut) have thus been able to ensure compatibility between the socio-therapeutic obligations required by the agreement and the ethics of psychoanalytic practice. Some fifty analysts—including some candidates—work in the center in a very part-time fashion. The type of patient and the way the center is run make it particularly interesting from a psychoanalytic and psychiatric point of view, for several reasons.

It is a privileged situation wherein to make evaluations and assessments within the consultative framework and to evaluate the types and predictive values of the initial interviews, as well as determining the indications for the various psychoanalytically derived treatments. Its legal status makes it necessary to critically and carefully evaluate the influence of the institutional factors, particularly free sessions, on the therapeutic processes. Of course the optimal analytic situation is one in which the patient pays for the treatment. But it would be inappropriate to establish this principle as a dogma. The availability of free psychoanalytic treatment is not of interest only to patients who lack the necessary resources but, because of the infinite variety of cases seen, it contributes to an ongoing reassessment of the theory of the analytic framework and the constant difficulties surrounding it. Without this in any way taking from its essentially therapeutic aim, the center provides training through its use of consultations for teaching purposes, as well as through participation in the psycho-drama sessions.

Jean-Luc Donnet

See also: Favreau, Jean Alphonse; Société psychanalytique de Paris et Institut de psychanalyse de Paris.