Home > International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis > Belgium

There were signs of interest in Belgium for Freud and Breuer's research on hysteria as early as 1894. References can be found in Dallemagne's Dégénérés et déséquilibrés (Degeneracy and Mental Imbalance), but this appears to be an isolated case (Berdondini, N., 1987). During the twenties, a few attempts were made to introduce young psychiatrists to psychoanalytic concepts, but there was vehement opposition from the old guard. In literature a special issue of Disque vert appeared in 1924, entirely devoted to Freud. The Belgian authors included Georges Dwelshauwers, André Ombredane, and Henri Michaux. In his later writing, Franz Hellens, director of the publication, was also sympathetic to the work of Carl Gustav Jung. At the University of Louvain, following the initiative of the future cardinal Mercier, several professors took an interest in Freudian theory and established individual critical positions because of the emphasis placed on sexuality. The Jesuit J. Maréchal was also influential in promoting early acceptance of psychoanalysis.

In the midst of these still limited signs of interest, there emerged the figure of an educator from Gand, Julien Varendonck (1879-1924), who had the good fortune to meet Freud and become one of his students. He underwent a training analysis with Theodor Reik and spent 1923 in Vienna to continue his education. Upon his return to Gand, he opened his own office and was made a member of the Dutch Society of Psychoanalysis shortly before his premature death on June 11, 1924. In 1921 he published an important monograph entitled La psychologie des rêves éveillés (The Psychology of Daydreams), with a preface by Freud. Anna Freud translated the first part of the book. Unfortunately, because he was unable to find any students or an analysand with whom he could continue his research, his initiative remained stillborn.

The foundations of psychoanalytic practice were established by two Belgian pioneers, Maurice Dugautiez (1893-1960) and Fernand Lechat (1895-1959). The beginnings of psychoanalysis in Belgium reflect Freud's own solitary struggle during the first decade of the twentieth century. A closed and poorly informed medical establishment—the organic approach dominated psychiatry at the time—and a public opinion that remained hostile because of sectarian prejudices, explain why Freud's work had to wait for the arrival of two idealists who remained far outside the conventional sphere of training before psychoanalysis could take hold in the country. Both men were self-taught, curious and passionate individuals, who first met in 1933. Their encounter was the prelude to years of fruitful collaboration that enabled a psychoanalytic organization to gain a foothold in Belgium.

In spite of the dramatic context in which it occurred, another fortuitous event took place in 1933 or thereabouts. A Viennese Jew, Dr. Ernst Hoffman, a disciple of Freud and a brilliant student of Sándor Ferenczi, settled in Anvers to escape Nazi persecution. Dugautiez and Lechat, together with Mrs. Lechat, who was primarily interested in working with children, took advantage of Hoffman's providential appearance and began a training analysis with him. Unfortunately, Hoffman was arrested in 1942 and sent to a concentration camp. He never returned, and the nascent Belgian psychoanalytic movement suddenly lost its leader.

Beginning in 1936 Dugautiez and Lechat began undergoing supervised analyses under the supervision of Dr. Leuba and Marie Bonaparte. They were authorized to practice on their own in 1939; Mrs. Lechat began working with children at this time. After the war ended, both of them applied for membership in the Paris Psychoanalytic Society and were authorized, in 1946, to conduct training analyses and supervise their own students' first analyses.

On December 24, 1946, they founded the Association des Psychanalystes de Belgique (Association of Belgian Psychoanalysts) with Dr. Leuba as honorary president. They were sponsored by the Psychoanalytic Society of Paris. Doctor Ernest Jones, president of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), had encouraged this initiative. In 1947 the association, with the sponsorship of Marie Bonaparte, was accepted for membership in the IPA. The standing of the young organization was made more secure in 1948 with the organization, in Brussels, of the eleventh Conférence des Psychanalystes de Langue Française [(Conference of French-speaking Psychoanalysts). During the twelfth conference, in 1954, Fernand Lechat presented a report on "The Principle of Security." There were three further meetings in Brussels: in 1958, in 1972 (when a report was given by Danièle Flagey, entitled "Intellectual Inhibition"), and in Liege, in 1986, with a report by Andrée Bauduin, "On the Preconscious."

In 1953, Dr. Thérèse Jacobs Van Merlen, who had returned from her training in Paris with Sacha Nacht, Serge Lebovici, and René Diatkine, joined Dugautiez and Lechat. A stream of new members joined the association: Flagey, Bourdon, Vannypelseer, Drappier, Luminet, Pierloot, Labbé, Darmstaedter, Duyckaerts, and later, Watillon and Godfrind. The association has continued to grow since then. In 1960 the name was changed to the Société Belge de Psychanalyse (Belgian Psychoanalytic Society), also known as the Belgische Vereniging voor Psychoanalyse.

The society continued to grow, with the addition of a teaching committee, an enlarged administrative office, and an ethics committee. In addition to bimonthly meetings and working groups, the entire society met every two years for a colloquium. The Revue belge de psychanalyse, with Haber as its first director, was founded in 1982. The review made the society's ideas accessible to a much broader public. There was also a members' Bulletin, created in 1977.

Some twenty years after the creation of the current Belgian Psychoanalytic Society, various activities were established by psychoanalysts who had returned home from abroad and who were, for the most part, associated with the University of Louvain. These individuals either could not, or would not, become a part of the existing society. Most of them had met in Paris between 1955-1960, where they followed the activities of the French Psychoanalytic Society, which was then run by Daniel Lagache and Jacques Lacan, with the assistance of Juliette Boutonier, Françoise Dolto, and Georges Favez. Following a break in 1953 with the Paris Psychoanalytic Society, in 1964 the French Psychoanalytic Society experienced new upheavals with the departure of Lacan and the creation of theÉcole Freudienne. Although some activities of the new Belgian group began in 1964, the official foundation of theÉcole Belge de Psychanalyse (Belgische School voor Psychoanalyse) did not take place until 1969, under the impetus of Professors Jacques Schotte and Antoine Vergote.

Lacan's influence was decisive within the school, to the extent that its establishment can be considered an implicit extension of the situation in France. This allegiance to Lacanian positions, at least on the part of some, became problematic when the dissolution of the École Freudienne by Lacan led to divisions that subsequently gave rise to numerous offshoots, including Questionnement Psychanalytique (Psychoanalytic Questioning) and the Association Freudienne de Belgique (The Freudian Association of Belgium). These various groups are the result of the differences encountered concerning the importance of Lacanian ideas, in terms of setting and training, and more generally in terms of the theoretical corpus. Unlike the Belgian Psychoanalytic Society, these associations were not part of the IPA, some even took pride in their separatist stance. In 1984 theÉcole Belge de Psychanalyse began publishing a bilingual review, Psychoanalyse.

There were also Jungian psychoanalysts working in Belgium. The Société Belge de Psychologie Analytique (Belgian Society of Analytic Psychology), or SBPA, was founded in 1975. The majority of its members had been analyzed by Gilberte Aigrisse (1911-1995), who was trained in Geneva by Charles Baudouin. In 1994 some members of the SBPA left the organization to found a new group known as theÉcole Belge de Psychanalyse Jungienne (Belgian School of Jungian Psychoanalysis), or EBPJ.

ANDRÉ ALSTEENS