Judith Le Soldat
Judith Le Soldat (1947-2008) was born in Budapest and grew up in Vienna and Zurich. She studied psychology in the University of Zurich and defended the doctoral thesis with honours in the field of clinical psychology. She got her psychoanalytic training in Zurich. Since 1975 she worked as a psychoanalyst in her own clinic in Zurich. Le Soldat specialised in treating depression, borderline disorders and limitations related to creative activities. She was the participant and lecturer at the Psychoanalytic Seminar in Zurich.

Her scientific work includes sound theoretical contribution into further development of the psychoanalytical understanding of the drive theory, drive towards aggression, the theory of neurosis and the Oedipus complex as well as homosexuality. Her first monograph – “The Voluntary Slavery. Masochism and Moral” – was issued in 1989. The central theme of this research is the correlation between the aggressive power structures in the society, exploiting the individual, and the elementary mental strength of the personality, which prompts to the processing of aggression. In her second monograph “The Theory of Human Unhappiness. Drive. Guilt. Fantasy” Le Soldat refers to her previous work and to a certain extent continues the initiated investigations. Now the analyst’s center of attention focuses on the theme, which she touched and justified in her research on masochism. This means the aggressive genital cathexis as the touchstone of all that’s happening, called the Oedipus complex. It is the exposition of the new concept of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of the Oedipus complex. Continuing her transformation of this concept, Le Soldat started working on a book, a major creative project, where she planned to lay out her vision of the process of homosexual development and the findings, made during the scientific research, in the form of a well-shaped theory. The book “The Ground of Homosexuality” addresses an absolutely innovative approach to the psychological processes, which take part in what we call the sexual orientation. In the eleven lectures, included in this book, Judith Le Soldat presented a systematic exposition of the homosexuality theory, which she elaborated. Later on, a collection of Le Soldat’s works was published and consisted of the five following volumes:

• Volume 1. The Ground of Homosexuality. The course of lectures on the new psychoanalytic theory of homosexuality.
• Volume 2. The Country without Return. The Research towards the creation of the new psychoanalytic theory of homosexuality.
• Volume 3. The Murder with Robbery and the Betrayal. Principal review of the psychoanalytic theory of the Oedipus complex (The reprint of “The Theory of Human Unhappiness” – Frankfurt – 1994).
• Volume 4. Aggression – Drive – Structure. On the influence of aggressive drive energy in the process of psychic structures’ formation. (The reprint of “The Voluntary Slavery. Masochism and Moral” – Frankfurt – 1989).
• Volume 5. Passion for Psychoanalysis. Selected articles and essays, 1983-2001.

The fund of Judith Le Soldat was established in 2010 for the preservation of her scientific heritage and its distribution in the form of further reprints of the author’s works.