REVIEW N° 33 | YEAR 2025 / 2
TRIBUTES
Deaths and tributes
Three major figures in the history of psychoanalysis passed away in the second half of 2025: Claude Nachin, Judith Dupont, and Claudio Neri. This 33rd issue of our AIPCF Journal pays tribute to them to thank them for all their valuable contributions to psychoanalysis. The legacy they have left us will long accompany us in our practices as couple, family, and group psychoanalysts, in our institutions, our research, and our theoretical advances.
Tribute to Claude Nachin (November 6, 1930 – August 19, 2025)
It is with sadness that we learned of the passing of Claude Nachin on August 19, 2025, in his 95th year. Claude Nachin was a prominent figure in the history of psychoanalysis. A psychiatrist and psychoanalyst at hospitals in Bailleul, then head of department in Amiens, he produced numerous writings on life and healthcare practices in psychiatric services. He taught psychopathology at the University of Picardie Jules Verne and led highly regarded seminars at his home. A psychoanalyst with the SPP and IPA, he was affiliated with the SPF and practiced in private practice in Amiens. He was an active participant in the Working Group of the4thGroup[1] on the work of Wilfred R. Bion.
A close friend of Maria Torok, Claude Nachin co-founded the European Association Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok in 1999 with his friends, including Jean Claude Rouchy, Serge Tisseron, Judith Dupont, and many others. Claude was its president between 1999 and 2018 and energetically led the association’s activities, particularly its scientific work, before Élisabeth Darchis succeeded him. A stroke in June 2018 left him paralyzed, and Claude Nachin had to stop all his professional and associative activities.
Claude Nachin continued the legacy of Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok and further developed their work on the psychoanalytic treatment of pathological grief, its transgenerational influences, its phantom effects, and the haunting memories created by the psychic inclusions and crypts created by ancestors, both in the patients’ own histories and in the history of psychoanalysis.
His numerous books and articles leave us with a wonderful legacy that remains a gold mine of knowledge that will continue to guide us for a long time to come. These include: Les fantômes de l’âme. À propos des héritages psychiques (L’Harmattan, 1985) and Le deuil d’amour (L’Harmattan, 1989). Claude Nachin had an admirable personality: respectful, kind, and attentive, he listened to others and was esteemed by his patients and all his friends and colleagues. He had a warm presence, intellectual richness, and great culture, and it was always a pleasure to hear his lectures or talk with him. We extend our condolences to his wife and children, his friends, and colleagues. We will pay further tribute to him in the future, notably during a scientific day at AENAMT 2027, dedicated to his work.
Élisabeth Darchis, President of the European Association Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok (AENAMT)
Dozens of tributes have been shared[2] , but as there are too many to mention, we will cite just three:
“The AIPCF joins in these tributes. It offers its condolences to his family and loved ones, and to all his colleagues in friendly associations. A tribute will be paid to him at the AIPCF and one of his articles will be published in the RIPCF journal, as his work on transgenerationality, “the clinic of the phantom,” is well known in the contemporary scientific world. We have lost a leading figure in contemporary psychoanalysis and a man of great humanity.
Anna Nicolo, President of the International Association for Couple and Family Psychoanalysis (AIPCF)
“Dear friends. Indeed, Claude Nachin was exceptionally clinical in his approach and benevolent in his human attitude. Shortly after my arrival in France, he was my discussant at a study day of the Fourth Psychoanalysis Group. I still treasure his valuable insights. I offer my condolences to his family and to our colleagues who continued to share moments with him.”
Rosa Jaïtin, Former President of the AIPCF, SFTFP
“Claude Nachin contributed so much to the conceptualization of the transgenerational ‘A Ghost in Each of Us’ in psychoanalytic family therapy.”
Christiane Joubert, President of the French Society for Psychoanalytic Family Therapy (SFTFP)
Tribute to Judith Dupont (1925-2025)
It is with sadness that we learn of the death of Judith Dupont-Dormandi on October1, 2025. A friend of Claude Nachin and close to Maria Torok, she founded the European association Abraham and Torok with their friends.
Born in Budapest, Hungary, on September 22, 1925, Judith Dupont passed away shortly after her 100th birthday. She fled Hungary with her family in 1938, after the Nazi annexation of Austria. After emigrating to France, she studied medicine and worked in pediatrics in the department of Professor Georges Heuyer and at the Vallée Foundation. As a child analyst, she became aware early on of family therapy, understanding that family problems are in ly intertwined around the child.
Judith Dupont was a doctor, psychoanalyst, and publisher. She translated the works of Sándor Ferenczi and founded the psychoanalysis journal Le Coq-Héron. As a psychoanalyst, her personal and professional lives were intertwined. From childhood, she was immersed in the Hungarian psychoanalytic movement (see Au fil du temps…, 2015). Her maternal grandmother, Vilma Kovács, a student and collaborator of Sándor Ferenczi, was one of the first Hungarian psychoanalysts in the Hungarian Psychoanalytic Association (APH). Vilma Kovács and her husband financed the psychoanalytic polyclinic founded by Ferenczi in Budapest, and they all lived in the same family building. Alice Székely-Kovács, her maternal aunt and psychoanalyst, married Michael Balint, who became close to Judith Dupont.
Judith Dupont married Jacques Dupont, a doctor and printer, in 1952, and the couple had two children. Judith worked in several institutions, notably at the Étienne Marcel center, CMPP, and day hospital created by B. This, T. Tremblais, and M. Casanova in the late 1950s. She trained in psychoanalysis with D. Lagache and was supervised by J. Favez-Boutonier and F. Dolto. She was supervised by G. Favez and attended seminars at the French Psychoanalytical Association, of which she became an associate member and then an honorary member. She was also a member of the editorial board of the American Journal of Psychoanalysis.
Judith Dupont was part of the founding team of Coq-Héron, a journal that was originally an internal newsletter at the Étienne Marcel center, then published as a journal by Jacques Dupont until 2001. The journal’s editors, including Judith, a member of the editorial board, undertook to translate psychoanalytic texts previously unpublished in France, from Hungarian, English, German, etc. With Judith Dupont, they published texts by Sándor Ferenczi[3] , and studies on these texts. Other translations followed, including theoretical and clinical texts by Michael and Alice Balint, Masud Khan, Margaret Mahler, Imre Hermann, and others.
Other French authors were also published, notably Françoise Dolto, Jacques Lacan, and Alain Didier-Weill. The journal quickly gained importance and, starting in 2002, was published by Éditions érès from issue 168 onwards. Judith Dupont coordinated numerous issues (262 of which have been published to date!), either alone or in collaboration with others, and in the early 2000s she promoted the publication of works by several members of the AENAMT, such as Claude Nachin, Annie Franck, Pascal Hachet, Fabio Landa, Nicolas Rand, Jean Claude Rouchy, Philippe Réfabert, Monique Soula Desroche, Serge Tisseron, Saverio Tomasella, and Pérel Wilgowicz.
Judith Dupont was a wonderful person who made great strides in psychoanalysis, notably through the rediscovery, translation, and dissemination of the writings of S. Ferenczi and A. and M. Balint. Her life spanned a long period of psychoanalytic history, and both her analytical journey and her practice were remarkable.
I met her in 2000 at the first Abraham and Torok conference, which she opened with Claude Nachin, and I was already impressed by her knowledge and presence. Those who knew her well found her dynamic, warm, attentive, and insightful. Claude Nachin had nothing but positive things to say about her.
She deserves to be even better known in analytical societies, and we need to reread her beautiful work Au fil du temps… (Paris, Campagne-Première, 2015). She will be honored again, notably at the seminar entitled “Les Constellations ferencziennes” (Ferenczian Constellations) organized by the Fédération des Ateliers de psychanalyse (Federation of Psychoanalysis Workshops) on January 31, 2026, at 18 rue de Varenne, in Paris’s 7th arrondissement. Our deepest condolences go out to her family and friends.
Élisabeth Darchis, President of the Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok Association
Tribute to Claudio Néri (1943-2025)
It is with deep sadness that we join in the many tributes paid to Claudio Neri, who passed away suddenly on October 24, 2025. We remember him as a leading figure in the Italian and international psychoanalytic community. Claudio was a great teacher to many, a loyal and affectionate friend to others, and a colleague of rare generosity and authenticity.
He was a training psychoanalyst at the Italian Psychoanalytic Society (SPI), a member of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) and the London Institute of Group Analysis (IGA); He was a full professor at La Sapienza University in Rome, an associate professor at Lumière Lyon 2 and Paris 5 universities, and editor of the open-access online journal Funzione Gamma, dedicated to group psychotherapy, and of the collection “Prospettive della ricerca psicoanalitica” (ed. Borla). Member and founder of numerous national and international associations, including the Istituto Italiano di Psicoanalisi di Gruppo (IIPG) and Pollaiolo in Rome, alongside Francesco Corrao, Eugenio Gaburri, and Anna Baruzzi.
We remember him for the creativity and originality of his thinking, always courageous and curious, which led him to venture into the search for innovative theoretical and clinical models. He was particularly attentive to the study of Bionian thought and group functioning, developing paradigms aimed at understanding the convergences and specificities between the subject and the group.
He was in close contact with the Center for Research in Psychopathology and Clinical Psychology (CRPPC), where he had the opportunity to collaborate with René Kaës, Claudine Vacheret, Bernard Duez, Bernard Chouvier, and many others, conducting valuable research and reflection on the history of group psychoanalysis and training generations of students, some of whom went on to become important colleagues.
Claudio Neri provided the operational concepts of synchrony and interdependence, theorized the multipersonal unconscious phantom, and profoundly developed the concept of the ” ” or “Field,” defined as follows: “The current field (the field here and now) is the result of all the images, thoughts, fantasies, and representations deposited in the group, but also of the affects, drives, emotions, and sensations present and active in the group at a given moment…” (C. Néri, On the birth of group psychotherapy in Italy, RPPG , 2009). He introduced us to the Genius Loci ( Intermediate Psychiatric Structures and Group Functions , Revue de psychothérapie psychanalytique de groupe , 19, 1992, pp. 119-129) and “good sociability” (Raffaello Cortina ed., 2021).
His thinking taught us to recognize the transformative value of divergence, which in his case never took on a polemical tone, but rather represented an invitation to generate new thinking.
His books and lectures have helped to train entire generations of psychoanalysts and individual and group psychotherapists. His works, such as Gruppo (Raffaello Cortina ed., 2017), Letture Bioniane (written with A. Correale and P. Fadda) (Borla, 2000) and I sogni nella psicoterapia di gruppo (written with M. Pines and R. Friedman) (Borla, 2005), will remain valuable references for future generations, due to their great depth expressed in simple and accessible language. It is with deep gratitude that we receive and gather this conceptual and methodological legacy, which will accompany our practice as group, couple, and family psychotherapists.
I would now like to pay tribute to Claudio Neri, a man who was always capable of great tenderness and empathy. I will therefore conclude with a very specific personal memory from eleven years ago. A few months earlier, I had lost my wife to cancer. During a short walk, Claudio asked me very delicately how I was feeling. I replied that I was feeling better, that the pain continued to come and go, like the surf of the sea, but that it had gradually become less intense. I then added that I did not want it to stop, because it kept me company and comforted me in a way. Claudio, in a burst of enthusiasm, almost joyfully, lighting up as if he had found something beautiful, immediately replied: “Of course, now it’s content.” He added nothing else. At that moment, I felt very close to him and deeply understood, almost embraced.
That was Claudio! I will miss Claudio enormously, but the feeling of this loss will remain to comfort me. A living testimony to an authentic encounter.
Angelo Silvestri, Confederation of Italian Organisations for Analytical Group Research – Italy
[1] The SPP: Paris Psychoanalytical Society (founded in 1926 by M. Bonaparte, E. Sokolnicka, R. Laforgue, A. Hesnard, et al.). The IPA: International Psychoanalytical Association (founded in 1910 by Freud, Ferenczi, Adler, Fromm, et al.). The SPF: Freudian Psychoanalytic Society (resulting from the split from the CGRP and founded in 1994 by Guyomard et al.). The4thgroup or OPLF: French-speaking Psychoanalytic Organization (emerging from the École freudienne de Paris in 1969, with Pierra Aulagnier, François Perrier, and Jean-Paul Valabrega).
[2] See tributes from numerous friends and colleagues from the AIPCF, SFTFP, Fourth Group, STFPIF, SIPFP, members of the AENAMT, and journals such as Dialogue, Le Divan familial, and particularly Le Coq Héron…
[3] Michael Balint had been entrusted with the literary rights of Sándor Ferenczi by Gizella Ferenczi and her daughters. He had thus recovered unpublished texts, notably the Clinical Journal (1932) and the correspondence of Sigmund Freud. Anna Freud agreed to give Balint the letters that Ferenczi had addressed to Freud. Balint began publishing Ferenczi’s texts, notably “Confusion of Tongues Between Adults and Children” in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis in 1947. Judith Dupont translated Thalassa into French for Payot publishers under the title Psychanalyse des origines de la vie sexuelle (Psychoanalysis of the Origins of Sexual Life), with a preface by Nicolas Abraham. The success of this publication led to the publication of Ferenczi’s complete works in four volumes. Balint wrote the preface to the first two volumes of Ferenczi’s Complete Works, Judith Dupont wrote the preface to volume 3, and P. Sabourin wrote the preface to volume 4. Judith Dupont became Sándor Ferenczi’s literary representative, with Balint’s consent. When Balint died, his wife Enid Balint gave Judith Dupont all of Ferenczi’s papers, with the exception of the Clinical Journal. She translated Ferenczi’s texts with M. Viliker, then, as part of the “Coq-Héron translation team,” the Clinical Journal.