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Serge Lebovici

Elements of Baby Psychopathology

Review of the Press

Perspectives Psy

« When Monique Saladin and myself had the idea to create with Serge Lebovici a multimedia collection (videotapes, book and CD-Rom) on the transmission of knowledge and the practice in paedopsychiatry, we were not really conscious of the importance that that was going to have and of the extraordinary adventure that that was going to be for us. The discovery of this man, Serge Lebovici, fascinated us, and his receptiveness towards us, in spite of a timetable of a minister, astonished us. He certainly had understood at once the significant stakes of this collection, and especially that of the first issue, entirely devoted to his transmission. It took us nearly three years to conclude this very delicate work, for him, and enthralling, for us. Rene Diatkine said while speaking about the meeting with an analyst, that it could be positive or negative, but never neutral! The meeting with Serge Lebovici was all, except neutral!

It was on one of these splendid days in autumn, in Saint-Petersburg. We attended with Serge Lebovici the first Franco-Russian meeting of paedopsychiatry. He was accompanied by Colette Chiland, Annette Fréjaville, Bernard Golse, Herve Benhamou and Pavel Katchalov. This last ensured the heavy task of acting as an interpreter.

In spite of a cordial greeting and beyond the linguistic barriers, the official communications followed one another but the exchanges were not always quite easy. These meetings, which joined together paedopsychiatrists from all Russia, hummed a little until Serge Lebovici presented a clinical case with a videotape. The younger generation of the Russian friends who, until then, have not dared to intervene, suddenly raise many questions, expressing a real interest for all the comments that Serge Lebovici made around the situation he was presenting.

It was at this moment that appeared to us as obviousness, the idea to propose to Serge Lebovici, who could not undoubtedly go back there every three months, to transmit his formidable private clinic through the support of video documents commented, analyzed, accompanied by a book for the more theoretical parts, and thus to create a new collection, multi-media, intended for the formation. Serge added "There has to be a CD-Rom too! ".

The first title

For him, who was using video since 30 years in his consultations, the idea immediately seduced him and did not leave him. After three years of intensive work, we finally released the first title of this collection "At the Dawn of Life" : Elements of Baby Psychopathology, by Serge Lebovici, a 6 hours sum of video documents, which enables to follow step by step the processes elaboration of the exceptional therapeutist he was during his consultations, his questionings, his intuition, his choices and especially his empathy... Between two clinical extracts, Serge Lebovici answers young paedopsychiatrists who ask him questions or emit criticisms as for his way of working during consultation. For him, it is well about a new way of teaching and transmitting the whole interest of psychodynamic approach, which is his.

A team was formed around Serge Lebovici and Bernard Golse to help us to build this first difficult issue. The "transmission" of a man like Serge Lebovici is not a small matter, and skeptics were numerous seeing which adventure we were engaged in. Fortunately, we persevered. It is obvious that we had not measured the amplor of work that it represented. Serge Lebovici did not either, even if he immediately adhered to the project and his confidence never failed. Nobody else but him, undoubtedly, would have been able to let us conclude this bet.

Ten times, we took again the assemblies to refine things, to make them more dynamic, to enrich the matter. The more the months passed, and the more we added things to be made. We said to Serge: " Don't you think it would be an interesting idea to have a controversy in connection with your practice, but with personalities which make the weight? " Then Serge Lebovici thought about it quickly and answered: " Yes, it's a good idea, I let you know by tomorrow morning who we will ask to ". That's the way, we introduced some interesting controversy, at the end of the first videotape with Michel Soulé and Jean-Pierre Visier.

When Bernard Golse came to see the first finished model/sketch, he said to us: " It's fantastic! I wish we had such documents when I was a student ! " Reflexion which reinforced us in the idea that it was necessary to persevere in this work which was becoming increasingly both demanding and difficult, because of the total lack of financial means, but exciting to realize from start to finish.

Serge Lebovici was towards us of an extreme receptiveness. Untiring, he often received us at his place in the evening, where we had working sessions during 3 or 4 hours, either for shootings, or to think about the contents of the book " The Tree of Life ", a collection of basic articles treating some topics raised in the videos.

Additional elements

The main idea was that all the elements of the set were to be complementary: the notions evoked in the videos were included in the glossary of the book. When Serge Lebovici evokes concepts such as enaction or empathy, or personalities like John Bowlby, Rene Spitz or Donald Winnicott, the word or name appears in italic subtitle, which refer to the book's glossary or the CD-Rom's, or also to the videotape n°4, called The Glossary. We recorded the definitions that " Lebo " gave us and then we looked for the pictures which could illustrate our aim. Because of a lack of financial means, we unfortunately had to content ourselves with little illustrations. For example, we were wishing to get archives/records documents on Freud, but they were really out of reach for us and we thus gave up this acquisition.

When the videotapes and the book were completed, we launched out into the continuation of the adventure with the realisation of the CD-Rom. The small scientific committee formed around Serge Lebovici by Bernard Golse, Lisa Ouss, Brigitte Benchetrit, Michel Botbol and Richard Uhl, helped us much during all this difficult course. We certainly had some moments of doubts, even discouragement, considering the hugeness of the work into which we were, Monique Saladin and myself, thrown ourselves headlong, convinced that we had to see it through the end. We owed it to Serge Lebovici.

When we began the development of the CD-Rom, everyone found a second breath because it was a true innovation: what then were we going to put into it?

We have chosen to make it an element of international debate, where personalities of tendencies different from that of Serge Lebovici would express themselves: Dilys Daws, of Tavistock Clinic in London; Didier Houzel, of the CHU of Caen; Ginette Raimbault, Paris; Anne-Marie Sandler, of the Anna Freud Center in London; and Daniel N. Stern, of the University of Geneva, answer questions put in connection with some precise clinical sequences, where Serge Lebovici's way of working and interventions can involve adhesion or critical from the participants. The reader can itself also answer the questions, and thus to stand in relation to the various currents.

Diffusion of this first title - we currently have five of them in hand (the second title was released in April 1999*) assure us that we were right to persist, because users seem to appreciate the tool which this first set represents. Michel Amar, Professor of paedopsychiatry in Nantes, says, in an analysis he makes about the documents : " It appears necessary to me that they should be available to the University of Nantes, but also to the various psychiatric hospitals' libraries of the area. The importance of the theoretical references and the quality of the speakers point out that these documents, of very first quality, summarize the theoretical corpus that all peadopsychiatrists should know inside out. " Serge Lebovici presents the set as being his transmission: we could not better dream.

* Ultrasound Testing During Pregnancy and its Implications .

Alain Casanova and Monique Saladin

Perspectives Psy
Issue n°2, April-May 2000