Maud Mannoni (1923–1998) was a French psychoanalyst of Belgian origin, who married Octave Mannoni and became a major figure of the Lacanian movement.
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Maud (Magdalena) Mannoni (Maiden name Van der Spoel) 'was born on October 22, 1923 in the Belgian city of Combrai, and spent her early childhood in Colombo, Ceylon'.[1] She 'studied criminology at the University of Brussels and began a training analysis with Maurice Dugautiez, one of the first Belgian psychoanalysts'.[2] After moving to France in 1949, she 'met Francoise Dolto, married Octave Mannoni, and had both analysis and training analysis with Jacques Lacan, who she supported during the 1953 split'.[3]
'After the 1963 split...he [Lacan] took many representatives of the third generation with him...among them were Maud and Octave Mannoni, Serge Leclaire...and Jean Clavreul'.[4]
Lacan, in the first of his seminars to be published, singled out 'our colleague Maud Mannoni, [with] a book that has just come out and which I would recommend you to read...The Retarded Child and the Mother '.[5] In it she concludes that 'the ego of the subnormal patient is not separate from his mother'.[6] Instead, the roots of such psychoses 'are inscribed in the maternal unconscious, with the psychotic child being unrecognized as a desiring subject...and frozen as partial object subjected to maternal omnipotence'.[7]
'Maud Mannoni's revolutionary influence on an entire generation of child therapists, analysts, teachers, and parents in France began in 1964'[8] with that work.
Mannoni specialised in mental illness in children, and in 1969 established the school of Bonneuil-sur-Marne, a community live-in project for kids with autism and psychosis. In doing so, she has been described as 'profoundly influenced by the antipsychiatry of R. Laing and D. Cooper',[9] an influence which can also be seen perhaps in 'her view of the child as "spokesperson" for the dysfunctional family'.[10] Bonneuil as an institution 'which operated beyond traditional boundaries and used a variety of therapeutic strategies...became internationally renowned'.[11]
She was also instrumental in establishing LVA - "A Place to Live and Hospitality" - small medico-social support centres of which there were 446 by 2007.
After Lacan's death, and the fragmentation of the Lacanian movement, Maud Mannoni, 'still a member of the IPA through her affiliation with the Belgian society, play[ed] a unifying role similar to that of Serge Leclaire'.[12] Mannoni's 'unique integration of the theories of Lacan and Winnicott drew wide attention to new perspectives on the theory of child development'.[13]