Editing Louis Althusser (section)

===Mental condition===

Althusser underwent psychiatric hospitalisations throughout his life, the first time after receiving a diagnosis of [[schizophrenia]].{{sfn|Elliott|2006|p=328}} He suffered from [[bipolar disorder]], and because of it he had frequent bouts of depression that started in 1938 and became regular after his five-year stay in German captivity.{{sfnm|1a1=Ferretter|1y=2006|1p=4|2a1=Stolze|2y=2013|2p=7|3a1=Lewis|3y=2014}} From the 1950s onward, he was under constant medical supervision, often undergoing, in Lewis' words, "the most aggressive treatments post-war French psychiatry had to offer", which included [[electroconvulsive therapy]], [[truth serum|narco-analysis]], and psychoanalysis.{{sfnm|1a1=Schrift|1y=2006|1p=87|2a1=Lewis|2y=2014}} Althusser did not limit himself to prescribed medications and practised self-medication.{{sfn|Roudinesco|2008|p=171, note 39}} The disease affected his academic productivity; in 1962, he began to write a book about Machiavelli during a depressive exacerbation but was interrupted by a three-months stay in a clinic.{{sfn|European Graduate School}} The main psychoanalyst he attended was the anti-Lacanian René Diatkine, starting from 1964, after he had a dream about killing his own sister.{{sfn|Roudinesco|2008|p=120}} The sessions became more frequent in January 1965, and the real work of exploring the unconscious was launched in June.{{sfn|Roudinesco|2008|p=120}} Soon Althusser recognized the positive side of non-Lacanian psychoanalysis; although he sometimes tried to ridicule Diatkine giving him lessons in Lacanianism, by July 1966, he considered the treatment was producing "spectacular results".{{sfn|Roudinesco|2008|pp=120–121}} In 1976, Althusser estimated that he had spent fifteen of the previous thirty years in hospitals and psychiatric clinics.{{sfn|Ferretter|2006|p=4}}

Althusser analysed the prerequisites of his illness with the help of psychoanalysis and found them in complex relationships with his family (he devoted to this topic half of the autobiography).{{sfnm|1a1=Jackson|1y=1996|1p=135|2a1=Elliott|2y=2006|2pp=325–326}} Althusser believed that he did not have a genuine "I", which was caused by the absence of real maternal love and the fact that his father was emotionally reserved and virtually absent for his son.{{sfnm|1a1=Jackson|1y=1996|1p=135|2a1=Elliott|2y=2006|2p=326}} Althusser deduced the family situation from the events before his birth, as told to him by his aunt: Lucienne Berger, his mother, was to marry his father's brother, Louis Althusser, who died in [[World War I]] near [[Verdun]], while Charles, his father, was engaged with Lucienne's sister, Juliette.{{sfnm|1a1=Elliott|1y=2006|1p=326|2a1=Roudinesco|2y=2008|2p=115}} Both families followed the old custom of the [[Levirate marriage|levirate]], which obliged an older, still unmarried, brother to wed the widow of a deceased younger brother.<!--{{sfn|Roudinesco|2008|p=115}} --> Lucienne then married Charles, and the son was named after the deceased Louis.<!--{{sfn|Roudinesco|2008|p=115}} --> In Althusser's memoirs, this marriage was "madness", not so much because of the tradition itself, but because of the excessive submission, as Charles was not forced to marry Lucienne since his younger brother had not yet married her.{{sfn|Roudinesco|2008|p=115}} As a result, Althusser concluded, his mother did not love him, but loved the long-dead Louis.{{sfnm|1a1=Jackson|1y=1996|1p=135|2a1=Ferretter|2y=2006|2p=114}} The philosopher described his mother as a "[[Castration anxiety|castrating mother]]" (a term from psychoanalysis), who, under the influence of her phobias, established a strict regime of social and sexual "hygiene" for Althusser and his sister Georgette.<!--{{sfn|Elliott|2006|p=326}} --> His "feeling of fathomless solitude" could only be mitigated by communicating with his mother's parents who lived in [[Morvan]].{{sfn|Elliott|2006|p=326}} His relationship with his mother and the desire to deserve her love, in his memoirs, largely determined his adult life and career, including his admission to the ENS and his desire to become a "well-known intellectual".{{sfn|Elliott|2006|p=327}} According to his autobiography, ENS was for Althusser a kind of refuge of intellectual "purity" from the big "dirty" world that his mother was so afraid of.{{sfnm|1a1=Jackson|1y=1996|1p=136|2a1=Elliott|2y=2006|2p=327}}

The facts of his autobiography have been critically evaluated by researchers. According to its own editors, ''L'avenir dure longtemps'' is "an inextricable tangle of 'facts' and 'phantasies'".{{sfn|Elliott|2006|p=325}} His friend{{sfn|Jackson|1996|p=131}} and biographer [[Yann Moulier-Boutang]], after a careful analysis of the early period of Althusser's life, concluded that the autobiography was "a re-writing of a life through the prism of its wreckage".{{sfn|Elliott|2006|p=330}} Moulier-Boutang believed that it was Rytmann who played a key role in creating a "fatalistic" account of the history of the Althusser family, largely shaping his vision in a 1964 letter.<!--{{sfn|Elliott|2006|p=330}} --> According to Elliott, the autobiography produces primarily an impression of "destructiveness and self-destructiveness".{{sfn|Elliott|2006|p=330}} Althusser, most likely, postdated the beginning of his depression to a later period (post-war), having not mentioned earlier manifestations of the disease in school and in the concentration camp.{{sfn|Elliott|2006|p=331}} According to Moulier-Boutang, Althusser had a close psychological connection with Georgette from an early age, and although he did not often mention it in his autobiography, her "nervous illness" may have tracked his own.{{sfn|Elliott|2006|pp=330–331}} His sister also had depression, and despite their living separately from each other for almost their entire adult lives, their depression often coincided in time.{{sfn|Jackson|1996|p=135}} Also, Althusser focused on describing family circumstances, not considering, for example, the influence of ENS on his personality.{{sfn|Jackson|1996|p=136}} Moulier-Boutang connected the depression not only with events in his personal life, but also with political disappointments.{{sfn|Jackson|1996|p=135}}