Félix Guattari

Pierre-Félix Guattari (March 30, 1930 – August 29, 1992) was a French psychotherapist, philosopher, semiologist, activist and screenwriter. He founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy, and is best known for his intellectual collaborations with Gilles Deleuze, most notably Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980), the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia. He trained under (and was analyzed by) the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in the early 1950s. Subsequently, he worked all his life at the experimental psychiatric clinic of La Borde under the direction of Lacan's pupil, the psychiatrist Jean Oury. La Borde was a venue for conversation among many students of philosophy, psychology, ethnology, and social work.

One particularly novel orientation developed at La Borde consisted of the suspension of the classical analyst/analysand pair in favor of an open confrontation in group therapy. In contrast to the Freudian school's individualistic style of analysis, this practice studied the dynamics of several subjects in complex interaction. It led Guattari into a broader philosophical exploration of, and political engagement with, a vast array of intellectual and cultural domains (philosophy, ethnology, linguistics, architecture, etc.).

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