III Colloquium of Bonneval: Ey and Lacan discuss the reality of mental illness

Abstract

This paper analyzes the contributions emerging from the discussions of the III Colloquium of Bonneval, France, on “The problem of the psychogenesis of neuroses and psychoses” carried out in 1946, and especially the debate between H. Ey and J. Lacan. These contributions gravitated on the conception that psychiatrists have about the reality of mental illness. After presenting the different meanings of the term psychogenesis and the antecedents on the notions of the normal and the pathological in the work of G. Cangilhem, the positions of H. Ey and J. Lacan are analyzed in detail.