Françoise Dolto was a French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 doctor

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 and psychoanalyst, famous for her research on babies and childhood

Childhood

Childhood is the age span ranging from birth to adolescence. In developmental psychology, childhood is divided up into the developmental stages of toddlerhood , early childhood , middle childhood , and adolescence .- Age ranges of childhood :The term childhood is non-specific and can imply a...

. Dolto revolutionized the field of psycho-therapeutic work with babies and with the mother baby dyad.

She worked with Jacques Lacan

Jacques Lacan

Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's...

, and said that children have a language before the language (with the body). She has contributed to the question of the unconscious body image

Body image

Body image refers to a person's perception of the aesthetics and sexual attractiveness of their own body. The phrase body image was first coined by the Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Paul Schilder in his masterpiece The Image and Appearance of the Human Body...

, and influenced among others the work of Maud Mannoni

Maud Mannoni

Maud Mannoni was a French psychoanalyst of Belgian origin, who married Octave Mannoni and became a major figure of the Lacanian movement.-Life:...

.

Françoise Dolto was the mother of Carlos

Carlos (singer)

Carlos , born Yvan-Chrysostome Dolto, and sometimes called Jean-Christophe Doltovitch, was a leading French singer, entertainer and actor.-Biography:...

 (1943–2008), a singer; and the sister of Jacques Marette, a minister.

Secondary literature

• Jean-François de Sauverzac, Françoise Dolto itinéraire d'une psychanalyste, éd. Aubier, 1993, pocket edition: Flammarion 2008, ISBN 2081217988
• Jean-Claude Liaudet, Dolto expliquée aux parents, éd. L’Archipel, Paris, 1998 (Traductions : A criança explicada aos pais [Segundo Dolto], éd. Pergaminho, Cascais (Portugal), 2000 ; Dolto para padres, Plaza & Janès editores, Barcelona (Espagne), 2000
• Bernard Martino, Le bébé est une personne, éd. Balland, Paris, 1985
• Françoise Dolto, aujourd’hui présente, in Actes du colloque de l’Unesco, pp. 14–17 janvier 1999, éd. Gallimard, Paris, 2000
• Daniela Lumbroso, Françoise Dolto, la vie d'une femme libre, éd. Plon, Paris, 2007 - controversial biography
• Catherine Dolto, Il y a 10 ans la psychanalyste des enfants disparaissait Catherine Dolto-Tolitch parle de l’après Dolto, Ed. Lien social, Numéro 467, 17 décembre 1998.
• Didier Pleux: Génération Dolto, éd. Odile Jacob, Paris, 2008
• Theory and Practise in Child Psychoanalysis: An Introduction to Francoise Dolto's Work, ed. by Guy Hall, Francoise Hivernel, Sian Morgan, Karnac Books, 2009, ISBN 1855755742
• René-Jean Bouyer: Les Mémoires d'un bébé : Un siècle d'éducation de l'enfant de Pasteur à Dolto, Jean-Claude Gawsewitch, 2010, ISBN 2350132323