Memorial, Judith Dupont, M.D.
(Budapest, September 22, 1925 – Andilly, October 1, 2025)
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of psychoanalyst Judith Dupont today, October 1st, 2025. She was born in Budapest into a family and environment rich in humanity and steeped in psychoanalysis. Her grandmother, Vilma Kovacs, was first a patient and then a collaborator of Sándor Ferenczi. She was responsible for organizing the training system of the Hungarian society. One of her daughters, Alice, married Michael Balint, and together they developed the idea of primary love and many other fundamental concepts of the Hungarian school of psychoanalysis. The other daughter, who married Dormandi, became a famous painter, as well as Judith’s mother. Her extraordinary life is recounted in the book Au fil du temps … Une itineraire analytique, Edition CampaignePremiere (Bonomi, 2017; also see Aleksandar Dimitrijević, 2022).
Upon Balint’s death, Judith became Ferenczi’s literary heir and took the decision, opposed on several fronts, to translate and publish the Clinical Diary written by Ferenczi in 1932. In this she was helped by the extraordinary translation team of the journal Le Coq-Héron, an inexhaustible mine of unobtainable texts. Published in French in 1985, and then in various other languages, the Clinical Diary sparked the Ferenczi Renaissance (Ferenczi, 1932). In the 1980s and 1990s, Ferenczi was still a heretical author, banned from psychoanalytic institutions. His ideas were attributed to “mental illness,” as stated in the third volume of Freud’s official biography written by Ernest Jones. It is only thanks to the Ferenczi Renaissance, which in addition to the Diary was supported by the publication of letters between Freud and Ferenczi (Freud & Ferenczi, 1908-1914, Freud & Ferenczi, 1914-1919, Freud & Ferenczi, 1920-1933) and a series of international conferences that ultimately led to the International Sándor Ferenczi Network, that these prejudices and unfounded accusations have dissolved and that Ferenczi’s final work has been gradually rediscovered as an inexhaustible source of contemporary psychoanalysis. A sign of the new times was the awarding of the Mary Sigourney Award to many of the protagonists of Freud’s rediscovery, including Judith Dupont in 2013. In this climate of reconciliation, she decided to donate the Ferenczi archives to the Freud Museum in London (Dupont, 2013).
Judith was a modest, kind, and generous person. I met her in 1993, when I presented my work on Freud as a pediatrician, which she immediately wanted to translate and publish in Le Coq-Héron. In the 1990s, I met her often, and her wit and unconventional style always amazed me. I also visited her in her magnificent studio in Place Dauphin, where a portrait of her father painted by her mother took pride of place. It had been the family home and remained a magical place. Over the years, Judith gave me many unpublished documents (including those used to write Flight into Sanity) and encouraged me in many ways. In 2005, a small group gathered in Florence to discuss how to finalize the Ferenczi movement (the essays from the conference were collected in the book Sandor Ferenczi e la psicoanalisi contemporanea, published by Borla). It would take another 10 years before the Sandor Ferenczi Network was founded in Toronto, of which Judith Dupont was an honorary member. In 2018, Judith also wanted to be an honorary member of the Italian Society of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy Sándor Ferenczi, which just a few days ago celebrated its 100th anniversary in a festive and moving ceremony that can be found on YouTube under the title JUDITH DUPONT TURNS 100: JOYEUX ANNIVERSAIRE! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzpRK_9aeHM&t=1560s) Among others, Carlo Bonomi, Ornella Piccini, Elena Adams-Worms, Luis Martin Cabré, Judith Szekacs, Giselle Galdi, Marco Conci, Gabriele Cassullo, Jeffrey Masson, Jay Frankel, Peter Rudnytsky, Bokay Antal, José Jimenez Avello, and Aleksandar Dimitrievic.
Dear Judith, you have been and always will be in our hearts.
With Judith’s passing, we lose a point of reference and a person loved by all. Our deepest condolences go to her children and grandchildren Hélène, Pierre, Noah, and Samuel.
Carlo Bonomi
President of the International Sándor Ferenczi Network
The editorial staff of Le Coq-Héron announces with great sadness that Judith Dupont, the founder and inspiration of our magazine, passed away this morning at dawn on October 1, 2025, one week after celebrating her 100th birthday. For those of us who cherished her, she will remain present with her sharp intelligence, her unique way of listening everyone and understanding without ever judging. As Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote: “The dead do not leave, they do not go anywhere. Within each of us rest our loved ones, our fathers, our mothers, those who came before us. They are with us, always.”
So, do we hope that Judith will remain with us, among us.
The journal Le Coq-Héron, is now half a century old. Together with the Revue Française de Psychanalyse, it is one of the two oldest psychoanalytic journals in France. We solicit many articles, but many also arrive spontaneously. We continue to translate texts published in a wide variety of languages. The editorial staff has also undergone many changes. Some members have left, others have been co-opted, but the spirit remains the same. It is a journal of discussion, which does not select articles according to a rigid line and remains open to all orientations within our profession. However, certain orientations have appeared with particular frequency. Several articles and entire issues have been devoted to Sándor Ferenczi, and it was Judith Dupont with a translation group from the editorial staff of Le Coq-Héron who translated into French the Volumes of Ferenczi’s complete works, his Clinical Diary, and his Correspondence with Georg Groddeck and later with Sigmund Freud. Le Coq-Héron is one of the founders of the International Sandor Ferenczi Network.
Elena Adams-Worms
Le Coq-Héron, Paris
In 2000, soon after I became the Editor of the American Journal of Psychoanalysis, I reached out to Judith and invited her to collaborate with us on some special issues for the Journal, about any topic she liked. She decided to devote attention to the work of Michael Balint. The result of her devoted work resulted in three Special Issues about Balint’s life and work (Dupont, 2002a, 2002b, 2003), including precious correspondences with her uncle, a series of interviews with Balint by Bluma Swerdloff, the head of the Oral History Research Office at Columbia University and many articles about Balint’s work by prominent authors in the US, France and the UK. The First Balint Special Issue opened with an original article by Balint, never published in English before, entitled The Crisis of Medical Practice, originally published in 1930 in the Hungarian medial journal, Gyógyászat. In 1985 Judith translated it from Hungarian into French, published in Le Coq-Héron, and then in 2002 she translated it into English for the AJP. Balint’s article is remarkable because it is so timely (Balint, 1930). A few years later Judith approached me about publishing a Special Issue about Otto Rank. We know that the very close and long relationship between Ferenczi and Rank eventually became conflictual, but Judith handled the issue with sensitivity and honesty (Dupont, 2013).
Since 1993, she had been closely involved with the International Ferenczi Conferences, and we published at least 16 Special Issues of Ferenczi Conferences during the many years. Judith was the most generous person, always open to share her knowledge, thoughts and vast experiences. She will be in my heart and mind and her spirit will inspire the readers of the American Journal of Psychoanalysis and the wide psychoanalytic community.
We cherish her memory.
Giselle Galdi
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, American Journal of Psychoanalysis
References
Balint, M. (1930). The crisis of medical practice. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 62, 7-15.
Originally published in Hungarian in the medical journal Gyógyászat. 1930.
Bonomi, C. (2017). Book Review: Judith Dupont, Au fil du temps … Un itinéraire analytique, 2015. International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 26(2), 129-131.
Dimitrijević, A. (2022). Raised in the world of psychoanalysis: An interview with Judith Dupont. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 82, 548–573.
Dupont, J. (Ed.) (2002a). First Special Issue. The life and work of Michael Balint. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 62(1).
Dupont, J. (Ed.) (2002b). Second Special Issue. The life and work of Michael Balint. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 62(4).
Dupont, J. (Ed.) (2003). Third Special Issue. The Life and Work of Michael Balint. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 63(3).
Dupont, J. (Ed.) (2012). Special Issue. Recognizing Otto Rank, an innovator. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 72(4).
Dupont, J. (2013). Ferenczi at Maresfield Gardens. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 73(1), 1-7.
Ferenczi, S. (1932). The Clinical Diary of Sándor Ferenczi. J. Dupont (Ed.), M. Balint & N.Z. Jackson (Trans.). Cambridge, MA. & London: Harvard University Press. 1988.
Freud, S., & Ferenczi, S. (1908–1914). The correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, Volume 1. 1908–1914. E. Brabant, E. Falzeder & P. Giampieri-Deutsch (Eds.), P. T. Hoffer (Trans.). With an Introduction by and under the supervision of A. Haynal. Cambridge, Mass. & London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 1993.
Freud, S., & Ferenczi, S. (1914–1919). The correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, Volume 2. 1914–1919. E. Falzeder & E. Brabant, (Eds.), P. T. Hoffer (Trans.), under the supervision of A. Haynal. With an Introduction by A. Hoffer. Cambridge, Mass & London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 1996.
Freud, S., & Ferenczi, S. (1920–1933). The correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, Volume 3. 1920–1933. E. Falzeder & E. Brabant (Eds.), with the collaboration of P. Giampieri-Deutsch under the supervision of A. Haynal. P. T. Hoffer (Trans.). With an Introduction by J. Dupont. Cambridge, Mass & London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 2000.