INTRODUCTION NUMBER 15

Introducción al número

«HOMENAJE A ANDRÉ RUFFIOT»

CHRISTIANE JOUBERT, ELISABETH DARCHIS

André Ruffiot, a great pioneer in psychoanalytic clinics, is one among those who founded psychoanalytic family therapy. He introduced a new paradigm: to psychoanalyze the family, and he made possible psychoanalytic family therapy to become what it is nowadays.

In this issue of IACFT review, we revisit André Ruffiot’s concepts, his theory and his works, to observe the fundamentals that are still unavoidable in our praxis; we shall also see the evolutions of that rich and open thought. We shall try to understand André Ruffiot’s founding contribution to the present rise of psychoanalitic family therapy and the adaptations, extensions and deepenings made by his successors.

The family psychic apparatus

André Ruffiot made the hypothesis of a “family psychic apparatus” (FPA) on the mode of René Kaës’s “group psychic apparatus” GPA (1976). FPA (1979) is the matrix of any group psychic apparatus. GPA permits mediation, exchange and elaboration between the subjects and the group. FPA is the primary group apparatus. André Ruffiot shows the relationship between FPA and the primitive psychical apparatus of the newborn child, or primary psyche.

André Ruffiot followed the idea of some authors who explored primary psyche, the idea of the existing of a pure psyche before its anchorage into the body. Pure psyche is a psychic realty, life-experience, this still knowing that the psychical always has a somatic, neuropsychological substratum. Winnnicott, Tausk and Federn indeed described the preexistence at the real beginning of the life, of a psychic ego that only progressively integrates the body-ego. In the beginning, the psychic ego is an ego without somatic borders, a blurred ego whose limits shall be defined by the progressive investment of the body (Winnicott, 1969) by the progressive incorporation of the psyche (Federn, 1962).

André Ruffiot shows that an element of openness to the other and to the group shall remain from this badly delimitated, badly individualized primary psyche (a primitive life-experience that shall persist in all of us in a repressed state). For Bleger, it is a deposit of an initial ego-non-ego into the mother and the family. For Bion, this particular type of communication goes through the alpha function, the mother’s dreaming capacity.

After Guillaumin, who underlines the aptitude to dream, to serve as a mediator, as a privileged zone of interpersonal encounter at the unconscious level, as the primordial place of unconscious communication, André Ruffiot shall speak of “family holding through the dream”, and later René Kaës shall develop the concept of “polyphony of the dream”. “The individual is in the body, the group’s essence is psychical” shall André Ruffiot say. This primary psychic ego can be considered as a psychism open toward the other. The psychic ego, as a pure psyche, is by its essence groupal and collective.

Family psychic apparatus is made of pure psyche. It operates in a dreamlike mode. It is the undifferentiated frame, the ego-non-ego that allows each member, in a normal evolution, to realize a somato-psychic integration, to structure a differentiated individual ego, from a sufficiently developed auto-erotism. It results from the fusion of primary psychic egos.

The PFT, psychoanalytic setting for a family type-cure.

André Ruffiot also proposed a psychoanalytic setting to listen to family suffering: a family type-cure, a new paradigm in contemporary psychoanalysis, with its rules as:

− rule of simultaneous bi- (or multi-) generational presence: the settings occur with the family brought together;

− the rule of free association in the family and about the family;

− the rule of abstinence, ordered to the patients, with its corollary for the therapists, who renounce to give advices.

So André Ruffiot opened the way to work with new settings of care, to psychoanalyze a family, even in the frame of institutions, with the idea to listen to the sufferings of the families, in the group associative web of the family. All members of the primary group are brought together, in the “neo-group” shall Evelyn Granjon say, and in what Janine Puget shall call “the effects of presence”, insisting upon the meeting here and now during each sitting. The indication is defined during the preliminary talks and concerns families who suffer of/from a dysfunction of the group psychic apparatus. André Ruffiot shall deal with the question of the efficiency of psychoanalytic family therapy in the “psychotic and psychosomatic field”.

Family dream-holding and the share of dreams

André Ruffiot did show the importance of “family dream holding”, proposing the use of the dream as a mode of communication and exchange, in the interfantasmatization family group melting pot; he relied also on the works of Didier Anzieu (1976).

Ruffiot (1981) defines the substance of dream-holding “as the the unconscious consensus of the family group to produce dreams and to mix everyones dream products”. André Ruffiot relied on Guillaumin (1979) to ask: “who is dreaming in the baby’s psyche? The mother or the child? Or is it a mutual dream, reciprocal and common?”. The dream would be a mediation between the consciences, privileged zone of interpersonal encounter at the unconscious level. André Ruffiot (1981) asks then who is thinking, who is dreaming, or is it dreaming in a group, and in particular, in the family group in therapy. He comes to think that family dreaming, the place of melting together of the individual psyches, constitutes the main axis of psychoanalytic family therapy, that allows ineffable life experiences to be experienced again. The revival of holding situations (Winnicott, 1954; 1969) occurs in the parents and brothers phantasmatics. Thus, the dream-holding would have an essential role for the maturation of the individual egos, in the primal psychic matrix made of maternal, paternal and infantile reverie. Ruffiot proposes the use of the dream as a mode of communication and exchange in the interfantasmatization family melting pot.

The “family dream-holding”, which is active in family therapy, results from a regressive process at an archaic level, a process through which the psyche of one family member “flows unhindered into the psyche of the others”. The pictogram (Castoriadis Aulagnier, 1975), first somatopsychic inscription of the primal, would so be, according to André Ruffiot, a kind of “writing in mirror that cannot be read without using the family mirror”. The family dream-holding would thus allow the inscription of the pictogram into the individual psyche, giving a meaning, a representation support, to the ineffable life-experiences of the subject. André Ruffiot speaks of an “unconscious group mythopoiesis” which is elaborated elaborate inside the analytic setting, around the primal fantasies. He will also work on the diffracted transferences in family therapy, and mainly the groupal, regressive matricial transference, as well as on the family defense mechanisms.

André Ruffiot speaks also of the unconscious group mythopoiesis which is elaborated within the analytic setting, around the primal fantasies and “transdreaming”. He puts forward the dream as a message and as a mending for trauma. The words of Augoyard-Peeters (1989) strengthen these proposals, as they illustrate the communication function of the dream. According to this author, dreams in psychoanalytical family therapy are messages send to each other, and that cannot be formulated otherwise. They generally concern childhood trauma loaded with affects of abandonment and violence, they allow their revival, and progressively put in light a desire of reparation and a restored pleasure of functioning. “These dream messages establish that way a particular communication that brings back to the time of the family’s origins, where traces have not found until now common formulations that may be shared” (Kaës, 2002).

In the continuity of André Ruffiot’s works, René Kaës (La polyphonie du rêve, 2002) affirms that, though the dream is, in freudian psychoanalytic tradition, the dreamer’s proper and individual production, and accomplishes strictly intrapsychic functions, testifying also of the individual dynamic, topic and economic organization of the individual psychologic apparatus, it also expresses the intersubjective space’s organization and functioning. The concept of the polyphony of the dream (taken over from Bathtine’s polyphony of the speech) puts in light the group’s configuration in the dream. The author supposes that the dream gets elaborate at the crossing of several sources, of several emotions, several thoughts, and several speeches. This puts in light the extraterritoriality of the dream.

The dream as a transferential message, says Kaës (2002) indicates that is has a recipient, thus it announces a polyphonia, particularly when the dreams answer each other. Ferenczi in 2013 wondered already to whom our dreams are told. He answered: “Psychoanalysts know since a long time that one is unconsciously impelled to tell one’s dreams to the very person concerned with their latent content”.

René Kaës (2002) proposes the common and shared dream envelope as the container of the dream. The figurations of the dream container of the “containing spaces, which are the group representatives of the body and of the mother’s psyche, of the belly and of the umbilicus from which one is dreaming”. Thus, the dream would be the primary matrix of the link.

Dream space, common and shared as a transitional space

Following the works of Pontalis (1972) and Khan (1972) who supported the idea that the dream might be considered as a transitional object, Kaës (2002) points out that the dream gets a transitional value both in the internal space and in the intersubjective space. He highlights “functions of anaclisis and of dream holding, of message, of workingout and of restoring of the psychical functions of the ego and of the preconscious”.

He proposed a reading of these common elements of the shared dream space that are the patient-analyst cross-dreams. According to him, they are related to moments of temporary depersonalization and collusive hyper condensations between patient and analyst. They are often the mark of a transitional space that shows the analyst what the patient does need at that given moment of the process. Evelyn Granjon (1983) insisted on the articulation between dream and transfer: “the dreams, and the stories of the dreams are the vectors of the unconscious fantasies contained in the family mythology, they evolve in relation with the transfer on the therapists, on the family therapy setting and on the family-group”. Presently, many researchers continue to develop his work, among them his daughter Marine Ruffiot who is exploring, among other things, the concept of meta-primary preconscious (that was already proposed by André Ruffiot at the end of his work).

Many other concepts

Beyond the “pure psyche” of the Family Psychic Apparatus (the body is individual, the psyche is groupal) André Ruffiot did theorize on the imago of combined parents, frozen and mortiferous inside the family, this after the works of Melanie Klein on that subject. He shows that the imago of combined parents (on the side of Thanatos) comes before and against the primal scene (that is on the side of Eros).

André Ruffiot did propose the concept of collective death fantasy (1981) in heavily suffering families, this relying on the works of Bergeret (1981) around fundamental violence. He called the “unconscious desire of collective death”, a desire whose presence underlines the impossibility to recreate experiences of good symbiosis otherwise but by dying together in order to recover peace. These fantasies of collective death, and the defenses against these fantasies through the sacrifice of one of the members, murder or suicide, express the unability of the family to mentalize the question of the loss (loss of one child, for example, at one generation). Laurence Knera who worked with André Ruffiot, also on this theme, did well illustrate these fantasies in her paper Les noces noires de l’abandon (1998). This makes an echo to the works of Caillot and Decherf (1989) about the paradoxal narcissic position and to their wellknown sentence: “Living together kills us, separate us is mortal”.

The psychic transmission in family analysis, biculturalty, will also belong to André Ruffiot’s works. After 1989, he shall turn his interest toward “families facing AIDS” and to “sex education in the time of AIDS”. He shall publish papers about that topic, opening the way to a socio-ethical reflection. Concerning the psychoanalytic couple therapy, and in collaboration with Jean Georges Lemaire in France, André Ruffiot shall also rely on the theory of the primal of Piera Castoriadis Aulagnier (1975). He shows that in a couple, it is about “setting two bodies into a unique psyche” and for him a couple is “a crowd of two”. He considered the couple crisis as a crisis of “unloving” (Ruffiot, 1987).

André Ruffiot left us in 2010, aged 83 years. He shall remain one of the most impotent founders and pioneers of family psychoanalysis theory. Thanks to him, the psychoanalytic family therapy could define its specific field, that differentiates it from others. As Alberto Eiguer says (2011): “he transmitted a faith and a passion that allowed PFT to become what it is nowadays: dynamic, able to find new applications, arousing audacious researches, worldwide known and used”. André Ruffiot (1927-2010) is the author of many books and papers that remain nowadays great.

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André Ruffiot’s bibliography

Ruffiot A. (1979a), Thérapie psychanalytique de la famille. L’appareil psychique familial, thèse de doctorat de troisième cycle en psychologie, Université des sciences sociales de Grenoble.

Ruffiot A. (1979b), La thérapie familiale analytique: technique et théorie, Perspectives psychiatriques, 2, 71: 121-143.

Ruffiot A. (1980a), Technique analytique du traitement du groupe familial et ses applications en thérapie conjugale, Dialogue, 1: 3-22.

Ruffiot A. (1980b), Ventre maternel et fantasmes primaires, Génitif, 2, 6: 318.

Ruffiot A. (1980c), Fonction mythopoïétique de la famille. Mythe, fantasme, délire et leur genèse, Dialogue, 70: 3-19.

Ruffiot A. (1980d), Deux modèles en thérapie familiale: la conception systémique “interactionnelle” et la conception psychanalytique “groupaliste”, Génitif: 13-22.

Ruffiot A. (1981a), Appareil psychique familial et appareil psychique individuel. Hypothèse pour une onto-éco-genèse, Dialogue, 72: 3143.

Ruffiot A. (1981b), Le pouvoir absolu : l’imago des parents combinés ou l’anti-scène primitive, Dialogue, 73: 71-83.

Ruffiot A. (1981c), Le groupe-famille en analyse. L’appareil psychique familial, in Ruffiot A. et al., La Thérapie Familiale Psychanalytique, Paris, Dunod.

Ruffiot A. et al. (1981d), La thérapie familiale psychanalytique, Paris, Dunod, Coll. Inconscient et Culture.

Ruffiot A. (1982a), La thérapie familiale. Pourquoi? Pour qui?, Dialogue, 75: 7-15.

Ruffiot A. (1982b), Le holding onirique familial. La conception batesonienne du rêve. La fonction onirique en thérapie familiale psychanalytique, Génitif, 4, 1: 25-43.

Ruffiot A., Aubertel F. (1982c), Les mécanismes de défense familiaux, Dialogue, 75: 16-27.

Ruffiot A. (1983a), La thérapie familiale psychanalytique: un traitement efficace du terrain psychotique, Bulletin de psychologie, XXXVI, 360: 678-683.

Ruffiot A. (1983b), La thérapie familiale psychanalytique ou la réinscription du vécu originaire, Bulletin de psychologie, XXXVII, 363: 15-19.

Ruffiot A. (1983c), La thérapie familiale psychanalytique et ses développements, thèse pour le doctorat d’État ès-Lettres et Sciences humaines, Université de Grenoble II.

Ruffiot A. (1984), Le couple et l’amour: de l’originaire au groupal, in Eiguer et al., La thérapie psychanalytique du couple, Paris, Dunod.

Ruffiot A. (1985a), De la pensée opératoire au mythe familial, Dialogue, 88: 79-83.

Ruffiot A. (1985b), L’écoute psychanalytique et groupale, Gruppo, 1: 19-21.

Ruffiot A. (1985c), Originaire et imaginaire. Le souhait de mort collective en thérapie familiale psychanalytique, Gruppo, 1: 69-85.

Ruffiot A. (1985d), Freud et le problème de l’objet, Revue française de psychanalyse, 49, 2: 577-595.

Ruffiot A., Aubertel F. (1985e), La thérapie familiale en tant qu’organisateur de la conception de soin, Confrontations psychiatriques, 26: 95-112.

Ruffiot A. (1986a), La thérapie familiale psychanalytique ou la famille comme espace diagnostique et thérapeutique, Le journal des psychologues, 40: 30-37.

Ruffiot A. (1986 b), Pour un consensus autour d’une cure-type familiale, Gruppo, 2: 29-44.

Ruffiot A., Aubertel F. (1986c), La thérapie familiale psychanalytique en tant qu’organisateur de la conception de soin, Confrontations psychiatriques, 26: 1871-1872.

Ruffiot A. (1987a), La thérapie conjugale avec les enfants ou Je suis divorcé de mon papa, Dialogue, 95: 30-37.

Ruffiot A. (1987b), La passion du désamour, Dialogue, 96: 60-66.

Ruffiot A. (sous la direction de), (1987c), Psychologie du sida, approches psychanalytiques, psychosomatiques et socio-éthiques, Bruxelles, Mardaga.

Ruffiot A. (1988a), La théorie classique de la psychose et ses impasses, une perspective de compréhension groupale, Gruppo, 4: 87-113.

Ruffiot A., Patriarca G. (1988b), De l’illusion culturelle à l’individuation biculturelle en Thérapie Familiale Psychanalytique, in Yahyaoui A. et al., Troubles du langage et de la filiation chez le maghrébin de la deuxième génération, Grenoble, Édition La Pensée Sauvage.

Ruffiot A. (1989a), Mythe familial, Gruppo, 5: 149-153.

Ruffiot A. (1989b), Régression-rematuration en thérapie familiale psychanalytique, Psy-cli, Laboratoire de psychologie clinique et pathologique, Université des sciences sociales-Grenoble, 2: 37-49.

Ruffiot A., Ciavaldini A. (1989c), Le transfert matriciel et la censure thérapeutique primaire, Gruppo, 5: 75-84.

Ruffiot A., Knera L. (1989d), La famille éclatée-recomposée en thérapie familiale psychanalytique, Le journal des psychologues, 70: 28-30.

Ruffiot A. (1990), Holding onirique familial, Gruppo, 6: 118-121.

Ruffiot A. (1991a), Famille cherche scène primitive…tolérable, Gruppo, 7: 99-114.

Ruffiot A., Peeters M.-F. (1991b), Interfantasmatisation, Gruppo, 6: 142-147.

Ruffiot A. (1992), Régression – rematuration en thérapie familiale psychanalytique, in Bleandonu G., Filiations et Affiliations, Meyzieu, Césura Lyon Édition, coll. Psychologique, Groupes et Institutions.

Decherf G., Ruffiot A. (1996), Fonction alpha et fonction oméga, in Actes du colloque: On trompe un enfant, SFTFP et STFPIF, Paris.

Ruffiot A., Knera L. (1998a), Angustias de abandono en familia: deseo y odio de la différencia, (Angoisses d’abandon en famille: désir et haine de la différence), in Tramas, perspectiva psicoanalítica vincular, tomo IV, 4, Montevideo, Uruguay, agosto 1998, 17-28.

Ruffiot A., Knera L. (1998b), Naissance du Je; L’abandonnisme familial; et autres articles, in Doron R., Parot F. (sous la direction de), Dictionnaire de Psychologie, Paris, PUF.

Ruffiot A. (2000), (avec Blanchard Anne-Marie, Zuili Nadine, Decherf Gérard), Merci à Didier Anzieu, Le divan familial, 4: 156.