Judith Le Soldier

Judith Le Soldier

Judith Le Soldat ( Judit Le Soldat-Szatmary ; born July 29, 1947 in Budapest ; † May 22, 2008 in Zurich ) was a Swiss psychoanalyst , researcher , lecturer and author .

biography

Judith Le Soldat was born in Budapest and grew up in Vienna and Zurich. She studied psychology at the University of Zurich and computer science as a second subject in natural science. After completing her licentiate degree, she did her doctorate in 1978 at the University of Zurich in the field of clinical psychology with Ulrich Moser on the subject of wellbeing. Draft of a psychoanalytic theory and regulation model (summa cum laude).

She trained as a psychoanalyst at the Psychoanalytical Seminar in Zurich (PSZ). Your training analysts were Fritz Morgenthaler and Paul Parin . From 1975 she worked as a psychoanalyst in her own practice in Zurich. She specialized in the treatment of depression, borderline disorders and creativity inhibitions. She was a participant and lecturer at the Psychoanalytical Seminar in Zurich.

Scientific work

Her scientific work includes significant theoretical contributions to the further development of the psychoanalytic understanding of drive theory , the aggression drive (Le Soldat 1986, 1989, 1990, 2001), the theory of neuroses and the Oedipus complex (Le Soldat 1994), as well as homosexuality (Le Soldat 1985, 2000, 2015).

Voluntary bondage. Masochism and Morals (1989) is a study of the aggression drive in its passive, masochistic form. The starting point is the question why so many people support the social domination from which they suffer. In the course of her investigation, Le Soldat refutes the thesis of "voluntary servitude" ( Étienne de La Boétie ), according to which people would obtain a secret, namely "masochistic" pleasure from the authoritarian structures. At the same time, she develops a new, psychoanalytic understanding of what Sigmund Freud called "erogenous masochism" and describes the psychological conditions under which physical pain becomes a condition for a satisfactory discharge of instinctual tension.

In her main work, A Theory of Human Unhappiness , published in 1994 , Judith Le Soldat outlines a new conception of the psychoanalytic theory of the Oedipus complex. This differs from the classical theory based on Sigmund Freud essentially by the assumption that the central oedipal conflict is not about being in love with the mother and jealousy of the father, but about something much more violent: robbery, murder and Treason; Actions that - even if they are “only” fantasized and then forgotten, repressed into the unconscious - have serious consequences for the child's further psycho-sexual development.

This new conception of the Oedipus complex results in far-reaching, clinically and theoretically significant consequences with regard to further psychoanalytic concepts, e.g. B. the castration complex or the psychoanalytic conception of female and male development. Since the psychological perception of the anatomical gender difference is of fundamental importance in her Oedipus complex theory, A Theory of Human Unhappiness also contains a promising starting point for a drive-theoretical, psychoanalytical gender theory .

The first volume of a five-volume edition was published in 2015. Reason to be homosexual. Lectures on a new psychoanalytic theory of homosexuality are included in the edition of the lectures that Le Soldat held in the 2006/07 winter semester at the invitation of the Gender Studies Competence Center at the University of Zurich. Lectures 5–8 provide a concise summary of the Oedipus theory she developed. In lectures 9–11, a special, postoedipal variant of homosexual development is conceived.

The Judith Le Soldat Foundation was set up in 2010 to manage and edit the estate . In 2011 Monika Gsell took over the scientific management of the foundation's project , who has been responsible for the edition of the estate ever since. After the lectures had been edited, the second volume from the estate was published in 2018, under the title Land ohne Wiederkehr . At the center of this volume is the special, postoedipal variant of homosexual development. The reprint of A Theory of Human Unhappiness is in preparation , which will appear under the title Robbery and Treason originally set by Le Soldat (work edition vol. 3).

Publications

• Wellbeing. Design of a psychoanalytic theory and regulation model. Zurich 1978 (dissertation, University of Zurich, 1979).
• Volunteer servants. About Etienne de La Boétie: Discours de la Servitude Volontaire and the “atomization of the individual” in Leo Löwenthal. In: Everyday life. 6th vol., No. 5, 1983, pp. 41-45.
• Discriminatory tolerance. On a criticism of Fritz Morgenthaler's theory of homosexuality. In: Psychoanalytical Seminar Zurich : Journal. No. 13, 1985, pp. 30-32.
• A parable of power. To Ryszard Kapuscinski: King of kings. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 53, 1985, p. 37.
• Sadism, masochism and death instinct. On the problem of sadism and masochism. In: Psyche . Vol. 40, No. 7, 1986, pp. 617-639.
• Voluntary bondage. Masochism and morality. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-596-26640-8 . Currently out of stock, the Judith Le Soldat edition will be reissued as Volume 4.
• Social masochism. In: Hans Jürgen Schultz (Ed.): Pain. Kreuz, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-7831-1009-2 , pp. 248-260.
• The black notebook. The Hungarian poet Miklos Radnoti. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. No. 113, 1992, p. 69.
• Revenons à nos moutons! Errors in the transference conflict. In: Brigitte Grossmann-Garger, Walter Parth (Ed.): Does psychoanalysis heal? Orac, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-7007-0345-7 , pp. 63-71.
• Kekulé's dream. Additional considerations on the benzene ring. In: Psyche. Vol. 47, No. 2, 1993, pp. 180-201.
• A theory of human unhappiness. Drive, guilt, imagination. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-596-11707-0 . Currently out of stock, the Judith Le Soldat edition will be reissued as Volume 3.
• The stroke of Apelles. Two homosexual passions. In: Psyche. Vol. 54, No. 8, 2000, pp. 742-767.
• Kissing & Killing in Kyoto. Messy love affairs in the engine of sadism. In: Michael Klöpper, Reinhard Lindner (Ed.): Destructiveness. Roots and faces. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-46159-3 , pp. 109-135.
• Reason to be homosexual. Lectures on a new psychoanalytic theory of homosexuality. Edited from the estate by the Judith Le Soldat Foundation. Critically edited, commented and introduced by Monika Gsell . Frommann-Holzboog, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-7728-2681-8 .
• Land of No Return. In search of a new psychoanalytic theory of homosexuality. Edited from the estate by the Judith Le Soldat Foundation. Critically edited, processed, commented and introduced by Monika Gsell. Frommann-Holzboog, Stuttgart 2018, ISBN 978-3-7728-2682-5 .

literature

• Ralf Binswanger (2016): (Not) a reason for homosexuality: A plea to dispense with psychogenetic attempts to explain homosexual, heterosexual and other orientations. In: Journal for Psychoanalysis , 57: 6-26.
• Markus Fäh: Judith le Soldat: Reason for homosexuality. In: Werkblatt. Vol. 32 (2015), No. 75, pp. 117–122 (review; PDF )
• Markus Fäh: Colpos desire, penis desire and castration act. Aspects of an extension of the theory of the Oedipus complex. In: Psyche . 2018, H. 1, pp. 1–23, DOI: 10.21706 / ps-72-1-1 .
• Tobias Freimüller: Alexander Mitscherlich. Social diagnoses and psychoanalysis after Hitler. Wallstein, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-8353-0187-0 .
• Monika Gsell (2016). What is different on the “other bank”? On Judith Le Soldat's “Reason for Homosexuality”. In: Journal for Psychoanalysis , 57: 27-47.
• Monika Gsell: The importance of the Baubo. To represent the female genitalia. Stroemfeld, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-86109-147-X .
• Carlotta von Maltzan: Masochism and Power. A critical investigation using the example of Klaus Mann's “Mephisto. Novel of a career ” (= Stuttgart work on German studies. Vol. 383). Dieter Heinz Akademischer Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-88099-388-2 .
• Frank Matakas: On the relationship between sexuality and aggression. Lecture on October 4th, 2002 at the Psychoanalytic Working Group Cologne Düsseldorf eV ( PDF ).
• Lothar Schon & Falk Stakelbeck (2016): Review of Judith Le Soldat: Work Edition Volume 1: Reason for Homosexuality. In: Journal für Psychoanalyse , 57: 191–193 [DOI 10.18754 / jfp.57.13].

Web links

• Publications by and about Judith Le Soldat in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library
• Website of the Judith Le Soldat Foundation
• Judith Le Soldat in: Psychoanalysts. Biographical lexicon

swell

• Thomas von Salis: Obituary for Judith Le Soldat. In: Journal for Psychoanalysis. H. 49, 2008, pp. 158-161 (PDF) .