- Language
- Turkish · French · English
- Time difference
- 2 hours in winter, 1 in summer
- First session
- Free
- Emergency
- 112 · 15 · 3114
In Lacan’s city
On the wall of the building at 5 rue de Lille, in a quiet street in Paris’s seventh arrondissement near Saint-Germain-des-Prés, is a small plaque: Jacques Lacan practised psychoanalysis here from 1941 until his death. The thinking that shapes the writings on this site and my own clinical work was born largely from this address, from this consulting room where Lacan listened to his analysands for forty years, and from the seminars he kept up for twenty-seven.
Paris is in another sense too a city of exile in the history of psychoanalysis. The young Freud came from Vienna to Paris in the autumn of 1885 to follow Charcot’s lectures; the months he spent at the Salpêtrière were the beginning of the road to hysteria, and so to psychoanalysis. Julia Kristeva, who came to Paris from Bulgaria in 1965, in Étrangers à nous-mêmes (Strangers to Ourselves), written twenty-three years later, read foreignness not as a feature of someone coming from outside but as a dimension every subject carries within. Artists and writers who came to Paris from Turkey, from Abidin Dino to Nedim Gürsel, built a life in this city between two languages.
Being from Turkey in France
After the agreement of 1965 the workers who came from Turkey settled first in the industrial regions of Alsace and Lorraine, around Paris, and in Lyon. Strasbourg and Mulhouse remain today among the cities with the densest communities of Turkish origin. The second and third generations growing up in France know closely the tension between a secular and monolingual republican model and the language spoken at home and the values carried. At school the perfection of French is expected; at home that Turkish not be forgotten. For someone growing up between two languages, the question of in which language one can say “I” is, in France too, the deepest question of life far from home.
It is possible to hold the sessions entirely in French. For someone educated in French, who has built his inner world in this language, this is a convenience; for someone who wants to move between Turkish and French, the passages between the two languages can be one of the productive materials of the work. If necessary the sessions can also be held in English.
What is often talked about in the sessions
Among the questions analysands living in France often bring are identity between two languages and two cultures, family and marriage expectations, experiences of exclusion at school and at work, anxiety and guilt about parents far away, loneliness and belonging. There are also those who have met psychoanalysis in France, have read Lacan or Freud, and want to experience this work in their mother tongue or in French.
Practical information
Time difference. France uses UTC+1 in winter and UTC+2 in summer. Turkey is UTC+3 all year; it is two hours ahead in winter and one in summer.
Insurance. In France the Assurance maladie, under the Mon soutien psy scheme, covers a certain number of sessions with psychologists contracted in France. These sessions are not within the scheme; the terms of the mutuelles vary.
In an emergency
These sessions are not an emergency service. If there is a danger of harming yourself or someone else, call 112 at once, or 15 (SAMU) for medical emergencies. If you are having thoughts of suicide, you can reach the national suicide prevention line, 3114, at any hour of the day, free of charge.
Frequently asked questions
Can we hold the sessions entirely in French?
Yes. The sessions can be held in French, Turkish or English; you can stay in a single language or move between languages.
Do Mon soutien psy or my mutuelle cover the sessions?
Mon soutien psy covers only sessions with psychologists contracted in France. Since the terms of the mutuelles differ, if this matters to you I recommend that you ask your own mutuelle.
The first session is free. To arrange a day and time or to ask your questions, you can write to me in Turkish or French.
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