The followed post is a short biographical note about an important French figure in the world of psychology: Marcel RUFO.
Marcel Rufo is a French child psychiatrist and writer born in Toulon (France) in 1944. He is today considered one of the greatest specialists in the psychology of childhood and adolescence.
Marcel Rufo began, at the age of 23, by specialising in neurology before turning to psychiatry because he could no longer bear to see children dying in the wards.
He has practised in several Marseille hospitals including “Sainte Marguerite Hospital” and “La Timone Hospital”, but also at the “Teenager’s Home of the Cochin Hospital” in Paris.
He also runs the « Maison de Solenn » [House of Solenn] in Paris and the « Espace méditerranéen de l’adolescence » [Mediterranean area of adolescence] at the Salvator Hospital in Marseille.
His best-known books are: « Tout ce que vous ne devriez jamais savoir sur la sexualité de vos enfants » (2003) [“Everything you should never know about your children’s sexuality”], « Détache-moi : se séparer pour grandir » (2007) [” Untie me : separate to grow up”] and « Œdipe toi-même ! » (2009) [“Oedipus yourself ! “].
He also hosted a radio programme on the channel “Europe 1” from 2005 to 2008 and then a TV programme called “Le Mieux c’est d’en parler”[« The Best thing to do is to talk about it »] on the channel “France 3”.
Marcel Rufo is passionate about psychoanalysis and mainly uses the references of D. Winnicott and M. Klein, while questioning some Freudian methods such as the distance between patient and doctor. Indeed, he is particularly known for having made his audience discover the effects of patient-doctor proximity, empathy, patience and lively emotion.
Marcel Rufo was also made Knight and Officer of the Legion of Honour in 2004 and 2013. The same year, 2013, he became a columnist on the radio “France-Inter”, hosting a 7/9 column every morning.
On the side of his private life, Marcel Rufo has a daughter, Alice, who is an adviser for the French Government.
To end with a quote explaining the vision of Marcel Rufo, he says in his book “Dictionnaire amoureux de l’enfance et de l’adolescence” (2017) [« Lovely Dictionary of Childhood and Adolescence »]:
« Nous ne pouvons plus ignorer que l’enfance est la matière même dont sont tissés les adultes, en qui elle parle encore au présent quand ils croient l’avoir laissée dans le passé. » [“We can no longer ignore the fact that childhood is the very material from which adults are woven, in whom it still speaks in the present when they believe they have left it in the past. »]