biography of Tobie Nathan

Professeur de Psychologie clinique et pathologique

Born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1948. Educated in France. Ph.D. in Psychology (1976), Ph.D. in Arts and Sciences (Doctorat d’Etat) (1983)

Teaching Assistant, then Assistant Professor at the University of Paris 13. Since 1986, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Psychopathology at the University of Paris 8.

Tobie Nathan’s areas of interest are: psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, ethnopsychiatry.

Nathan has always been concerned with the ties between psychopathology, clinical practices and the social environment and is an Expert Psychologist at the Paris Court of Appeal.

In 1979, Tobie Nathan created the first ethnopsychiatry consultation in France, in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of Avicenne Hospital (Bobigny).

In 1993, he founded the Georges Devereux Center, academic center providing psychological assistance to immigrant families, in the Department of Psychology of the University of Paris 8 – a center he directed from 1993 to 1999. The center is the first psychological treatment center within an academic psychology department in France. It brings together within a single space on the university’s campus at Saint-Denis a specific treatment approach, academic research in psychopathology and psychotherapy and graduate training.

In 1978, together with Georges Devereux, Nathan started the first French-language ethnopsychiatry journal – Ethnopsychiatrica – published between 1978 and 1981. Then, in 1983, he founded the Nouvelle revue d’ethnopsychiatrie, published by the Editions de la Pensée sauvage (Grenoble), which put out 36 issues between 1983 and 1998.

Since February 2000, he is the editor of a new journal, Ethnopsy : les mondes contemporains de la guérison (Ethnopsyc. Contemporary Worlds of Healing), published by Les Empêcheurs de penser en rond, in Paris.

From 1996 to the beginning of 2000, he directed the Department of Psychology at the University of Paris 8.

From January 6 2000 to january 31st 2003, he was the director of the Distance Education Institute (I.E.D.) — open University — of the University of Paris 8.

From February 1st 2003 to august 31st 2004, he was the director of the office of "Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie" for Great Lakes Africa in Bujumbura (Burundi).

Since September 1st 2004, he is the Cultural Counsellor in the Embassy of France in Tel-Aviv (Israël).

Also a novelist, he has published four novels and is co-author of a play.

Major works : Nous ne sommes pas seuls au monde, Paris, Les empêcheurs de penser en rond, Le Seuil, 2001, L'influence qui guérit, Paris, Odile Jacob, 1994, Éléments de psychothérapie, Paris, Odile Jacob, 1998, Saraka Bô, roman, Paris, Rivages, 1993, 613, roman, Paris, Odile Jacob, 1999, Serial Eater, roman, Paris, Rivages, 2004.